f Elijah had lived, he, Harkutt, might have tried
to drive some bargain with him before the news of the railroad survey
came out--for THAT was only business. But now that Elijah was dead, who
would be a penny the worse or better but himself if he chose to consider
the whole thing as a lucky speculation, and his gift of five dollars as
the price he paid for it? Nobody could think that he had calculated upon
'Lige's suicide, any more than that the property would become valuable.
In fact if it came to that, if 'Lige had really contemplated killing
himself as a hopeless bankrupt after taking Harkutt's money as a loan,
it was a swindle on his--Harkutt's--good-nature. He worked himself into
a rage, which he felt was innately virtuous, at this tyranny of cold
principle over his own warm-hearted instincts, but if it came to the
LAW, he'd stand by law and not sentiment. He'd just let them--by
which he vaguely meant the world, Tasajara, and possibly his own
conscience--see that he wasn't a sentimental fool, and he'd freeze on to
that paper and that property!

Only he ought to have spoken out before. He ought to have told the
surveyor at once that he owned the land. He ought to have said: "Why,
that's my land. I bought it of that drunken 'Lige Curtis for a song and
out of charity." Yes, that was the only real trouble, and that came from
his own goodness, his own extravagant sense of justice and right,--his
own cursed good-nature. Yet, on second thoughts, he didn't know why he
was obliged to tell the surveyor. Time enough when the company wanted to
buy the land. As soon as it was settled that 'Lige was dead he'd openly
claim the property. But what if he wasn't dead? or they couldn't find
his body? or he had only disappeared? His plain, matter-of-fact face
contracted and darkened. Of course he couldn't ask the company to
wait for him to settle that point. He had the power to dispose of the
property under that paper, and--he should do it. If 'Lige turned up,
that was another matter, and he and 'Lige could arrange it between them.
He was quite firm here, and oddly enough quite relieved in getting rid
of what appeared only a simple question of detail. He never suspected
that he was contemplating the one irretrievable step, and summarily
dismissing the whole ethical question.

He turned away from the stove, opened the back door, and walked with a
more determined step through the passage to the sitting-room. But here
he halted again on