t father's behind me in it."

"My trip in '79--or whenever it was--was exactly on this same muss-up."
Mr. Taylor went on: "Your father owned this timber land then, and wanted
to borrow money on it. At the time a rascally partner was trying to ruin
him; and, in order to prevent his getting this money, which would save
him, this partner instigated investigations and succeeded temporarily in
clouding the title. Naturally the banks declined to lend money on
doubtful titles; which was all this partner wanted.[A] Perhaps you know
all this?"

Bob shook his head. "I was a little too young to know anything of
business."

"Your father sent me out to straighten things. The whole matter was
involved in endless red tape, obscured in every ingenious way possible.
Although there proved to be nothing to the affair, to prove that fact
took time, and time was what your father's partner was after. As a
matter of fact, he failed; but that was not the result of
miscalculation. Now I strongly suspect that your friend Baker, or his
lawyers, have dug up a lot of this old evidence on the records and are
going to use it to annoy us. There is nothing more in it how than there
was at the beginning, but it's colourable enough to start a noisy suit
on, and that's all these fellows are after."

"But if it was decided once, how can they bring it up again?" Bob
objected.

"It was never brought to court. When the delay had been gained--or
rather, when I unravelled the whole matter--it was dropped."

"I see," said Bob. "Then the titles are all right?"

"Every bit of that tract is as good as gold," said Taylor impressively.
"Your father bought only from men who had taken up land with their own
money. He paid as high as fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars for claims
where by straight 'colonizing' he could have had them for three or four
hundred."

"I'm glad to hear that," said Bob. "But are you sure you can handle
this?"

"As for a suit, they can never win this in the world," said Taylor. "But
that isn't the question. What they want is a chance for big headlines."

"Well, can you head them off?"

"I'm going to try, after I look over the situation. If I can't head it
off completely, I'll at least be in a position to reply publicly at
once. It took me three months to dig this thing out, but it won't take
me half an hour to get it in the papers."

"I should think they'd know that."

"I don't think their lawyer really knows about it. As I say,