Cameron smiled grimly.  “I am a lawyer, and as such you will permit the smile at your mention of the equity court.  You would not be allowed to enter its doors.  For its first precept is:  He who comes into equity must come with clean hands.  Are your hands clean?  I think not—­neither your hands nor Orcutt’s.  But, the matter will never reach the courts.  There is no question of a technical error in the contract, because there is no contract.  The instrument I drew, and which was signed by Orcutt and myself, has no legal existence.  No valid contract could have been drawn relative to the disposal of those lands until the options held by Mr. McNabb had expired——­”

“But they had expired!” cried Wentworth.  “They expired at twelve o’clock, noon, of July first, and the contract was not signed until two or three minutes after twelve.”

“By Orcutt’s watch,” retorted Cameron.  “And Orcutt’s watch was an hour faster than official time.  I had no reason to suppose his watch was wrong, and believed the time had expired, until I was confronted, after your departure, by the accredited representative of McNabb.  I was dumbfounded until I established the fact that he was within his rights in tendering payment and closing the transaction for his principal.  Then there was no course open to me but to accept McNabb’s money and conclude the transfer to him.  Murchison, here, is a witness, that the facts are as I have stated them.”

Wentworth’s eyes flew to the face of the factor, who nodded emphatically.  Again the color left his face.  “It’s a damned trick!” he muttered.  “Why didn’t you notify us at once, instead of waiting nearly three weeks and allowing us to spend more than a million dollars?”

“Orcutt told me he would return to the post in two days.  I waited, and when a week went by I used every means in my power to reach him.  I followed him by train.  I learned his address and wired the facts to his bank.  The fault is his own.  I am sorry you have lost so heavily——­”

“It isn’t my money,” Wentworth cried savagely.  Then he suddenly paused, and for upwards of thirty seconds the room was in dead silence.  When he spoke again, it was in a voice palpably held in control.

“I guess you have got us,” he said.  “There seems to be nothing for me to do but accept the money.”  He held out his hand as Cameron slowly counted out the big bills.  Then without recounting, Wentworth thrust them into his pocket, and with quick, nervous strokes of his pen signed the receipt which Cameron placed before him.  Then in a voice trembling with suppressed rage he faced McNabb.  “Damn you!” he cried.  “I thought—­Orcutt said you were beginning to slip!”

“Well, maybe he’s right,” admitted McNabb, and the engineer saw that his lips twitched at the corners.

“Who was your representative?” he demanded abruptly.  “And, how did it come that he arrived just in the nick of time?”