“You can deal with me.  I have full powers.”

“You decline to disclose your principal?”

“Absolutely.”

“Do I understand the project is to build a mill at once and start to cut this timber?”

“That is my information.”

“Aha!...  May I ask how much land you have?”

Johnnie exhibited a map, on which was blocked off the timber in question.  “You see,” he said, “there’s one fifteen-thousand-acre strip I couldn’t get hold of.  It cuts right across the triangle from river to river.”

Crane looked at Keith and Keith looked at Crane.

“It belongs to a woman who wouldn’t do business,” Johnnie added.

“What figure did you pay for the land?”

“That is hardly a fair question.”

“What do you ask for your options?  That’s a fair question, isn’t it?” “They’re not for sale.”

“But we may make an offer.  It might be profitable for your principals to sell.  My clients feel they need this property, lying as it does between their holdings.”

“I’ll listen.”

There followed whispered arguments among the three, resulting in an offer of a dollar and seventy-five cents an acre for the whole tract—­exactly what Johnnie had agreed to pay.

“I said I’d listen,” said Johnnie, “but I don’t seem to hear anything.”

Another conference and a bid of two dollars.  Johnnie shrugged his shoulders.  Two dollars and a half an acre was finally offered, and then Johnnie leaned forward and tapped with his finger on his desk.  “If you gentlemen mean business, let’s talk business.  I’ve got what you want.  You can’t get it unless I want to sell, and I don’t want to sell.  I and my clients know what that timber is worth to us, but any business man will consider a quick profit if it is enough profit.  In five years that timber will be worth five or six dollars standing; in fifteen years it will be worth fifteen to twenty....  But if you want to buy to-day you can have it for three dollars through and through.”

“We’ve got to have it,” said Crane, and Keith nodded.

“Cash,” said Johnnie, for cash was a hobby of Scattergood’s.

“Our bank has made arrangements with your local bank to give us what money we need,” said Keith.

And then, clattering upstairs, came a small boy.  Without ceremony he burst into the room.  “Mr. Bones,” he shouted, “I was sent to tell you that strip of timber you tried to buy from the lady is for sale.”  Then he whisked out of sight.

Johnnie shrugged his shoulders.  “Costs me some profit,” he said.  “Confound that woman!...  Well, we can go to the bank and close this up.  Then you fellows can finish up by buying that last fifteen thousand acres.”

“You bet we will,” said Crane, savagely.

At the bank fifty-five thousand eight hundred dollars in the form of a certified check was deposited in the hands of the cashier to be paid to Johnnie when he should deliver proper deeds to the property sold....  It represented a profit of twenty-three thousand two hundred and fifty dollars.