“You can never tell,” answered Wentworth.  “He told me he would be here himself to close the deal at the proper time.  If he does not come, it is no affair of mine, except that I should be out of a job.  I need the job, so I tipped off his chief rival capitalist as to the date of expiration, and told him that in case for any reason McNabb fell down on the proposition, he had better show up here at the post on the first day of July with a big bunch of coin.”  He paused and grinned at Cameron.  “I was merely playing safe.  If McNabb shows up, well and good.  If he don’t, well and good again—­I still have a job, and you get seven dollars an acre, instead of five.”

“But will the other be here?”

Wentworth shrugged.  “That is what I have been asking myself for a week.  Will McNabb come?  Will Orcutt come?  Or will they both come?  In the latter case I may have let myself in for some unpleasant complications.  But I had to take a chance—­to avoid taking a chance.”

Cameron laughed.  “Let us hope for your sake that only one of the parties arrives, and for my sake, that it is the rival, for the additional two dollars an acre will mean an additional million for my company.”

XVIII

Along toward the middle of the following afternoon Orcutt appeared at the post, accompanied by two guides and two operatives of a detective agency, who were ostensibly merely members of a party of three, but who in reality were the guardians of a certain thick packet of large bills that reposed in the very bottom of a waterproof rucksack.

Into the trading room he stamped, cursing the black flies and mosquitoes whose combined and persistent attack had left his face and neck red and swollen.  Hedin was behind the counter, and without a hint of recognition Orcutt inquired the whereabouts of Wentworth.  Upon being informed that he was probably in his cabin, he turned on his heel and stamped from the room.

“This is a hell of a country!” he said in greeting, as Wentworth opened his door to admit him.  “The damned flies and mosquitoes just naturally eat a man alive!”

“It isn’t so bad when you get used to it,” laughed Wentworth, and turned toward the man who had risen from his chair.  “Mr. Orcutt, this is Mr. Cameron, representative of the Canadian Wild Lands Company.”

“Wild lands is right,” grinned Orcutt as he acknowledged the other’s greeting.  “I never saw so much timber or so many insects in my life.  And now,” he continued, meeting Cameron’s eyes, “I’m a busy man, and the sooner I get out of this God-forsaken country, the better I’ll like it.  Why can’t we go ahead and get the business over with?”

“You forget, Mr. Orcutt, that the McNabb options do not expire until noon to-morrow,” Cameron answered.

Orcutt nodded impatiently.  “Yes, yes, I suppose we’ve got to wait.  But as far as that goes, I don’t think we’ve got to worry any.  I always make it my business to keep an eye on the other fellow, and I know to certainty that John McNabb will not be here.  As a matter of fact, he has mistaken the day his options expire.  He believes he has until the first of August.”