"I can see better to read in the dark," said the child, lifting her great, dark-blue eyes.
"Go out into the hall," said Sprowl, sharply.
The child shrank back, and went, taking her little jacket in one hand, her battered travelling-satchel in the other.
If the two men could have known that the steel box was in that satchel this story might never have been told. But it never entered their heads that the pallid little waif had sense enough to conceal a b.u.t.ton to her own profit.
"Munn," said Sprowl, lighting a cigar, "what is there in this business?"
"I"ll tell you when I"m done," observed Munn, coolly.
Sprowl sat down on the bed where O"Hara had died, c.o.c.ked the cigar up in his mouth, and blew smoke, musingly, at the ceiling.
Munn found nothing--not a sc.r.a.p of paper, not a line. This staggered him, but he did not intend that Sprowl should know it.
"Found what you want?" asked Sprowl, comfortably.
"Yes," replied Munn.
"Belong to the kid?"
"Yes; I"m her guardian."
The men measured each other in silence for a minute.
"What will you take to keep quiet?" asked Sprowl. "I"ll give you a thousand dollars."
"I want five thousand," said Munn, firmly.
"I"ll double it for the papers," said Sprowl.
Munn waited. "There"s not a paper left," he said; "O"Hara made me burn "em."
"Twenty thousand for the papers," said Sprowl, calmly.
"My G.o.d, Mr. Sprowl!" growled Munn, white and sweating with anguish.
"I"d give them to you for half that if I had them. Can"t you believe me?
I saw O"Hara burn them."
"What were you rummaging for, then?" demanded Sprowl.
"For anything--to get a hold on you," said Munn, sullenly.
"Blackmail?"
Munn was silent.
"Oh," said Sprowl, lazily. "I think I"ll be going, then--"
Munn barred his exit, choking with anger.
"You give me five thousand dollars, or I"ll stir "em up to look into your t.i.tles!" he snarled.
Sprowl regarded him with contempt; then another idea struck him, an idea that turned his fat face first to ashes, then to fire.
A month later Sprowl returned to the Sagamore Club, triumphant, good-humored, and exceedingly contented. But he had, he explained, only succeeded in saving the club at the cost of the entire emergency fund--one hundred thousand dollars--which, after all, was a drop in the bucket to the remaining fourteen members.
The victory would have been complete if Sprowl had also been able to purchase the square mile of land lately occupied by O"Hara. But this belonged to O"Hara"s daughter, and the child flatly refused to part with it.
"You"ll have to wait for the little s.l.u.t to change her mind," observed Munn to Sprowl. And, as there was nothing else to do, Sprowl and the club waited.
Trouble appeared to be over for the Sagamore Club. Munn disappeared; the daughter was not to be found; the long-coveted land remained tenantless.
Of course, the Sagamore Club encountered the petty difficulties and annoyances to which similar clubs are sooner or later subjected; disputes with neighboring land-owners were gradually adjusted; troubles arising from poachers, dishonest keepers, and night guards had been, and continued to be, settled without harshness or rancor; minks, otters, herons, kingfishers, and other undesirable intruders were kept within limits by the guns of the watchers, although by no means exterminated; and the wealthy club was steadily but unostentatiously making vast additions to its splendid tracts of forest, hill, and river land.
After a decent interval the Sagamore Club made cautious inquiries concerning the property of the late O"Hara, only to learn that the land had been claimed by Munn, and that taxes were paid on it by that individual.
For fifteen years the O"Hara house remained tenantless; anglers from the club fished freely through the mile of river; the name of Munn had been forgotten save by the club"s treasurer, secretary, and president, Peyster Sprowl.
However, the members of the club never forgot that in the centre of their magnificent domain lay a square mile which did not belong to them; and they longed to possess it as better people than they have coveted treasures not laid up on earth.
The relations existing between the members of the Sagamore Club continued harmonious in as far as their social intercourse and the general acquisitive policy of the club was concerned.
There existed, of course, that tacit mutual derision based upon individual sporting methods, individual preferences, obstinate theories concerning the choice of rods, reels, lines, and the killing properties of favorite trout-flies.
Major Brent and Colonel Hyssop continued to nag and sneer at each other all day long, yet they remained as mutually dependent upon each other as David and Jonathan. For thirty years the old gentlemen had angled in company, and gathered inspiration out of the same books, the same surroundings, the same flask.
They were the only guests at the club-house that wet May in 1900, although Peyster Sprowl was expected in June, and young Dr. Lansing had wired that he might arrive any day.
An evening rain-storm was drenching the leaded panes in the smoking-room; Colonel Hyssop drummed accompaniment on the windows and smoked sulkily, looking across the river towards the O"Hara house, just visible through the pelting downpour.
"Irritates me every time I see it," he said.
"Some day," observed Major Brent, comfortably, "I"m going to astonish you all."
"How?" demanded the Colonel, tersely.
The Major examined the end of his cigarette with a cunning smile.
"It isn"t for sale, is it?" asked the Colonel. "Don"t try to be mysterious; it irritates me."
Major Brent savored his cigarette leisurely.
"Can you keep a secret?" he inquired.
The Colonel intimated profanely that he could.
"Well, then," said the Major, in calm triumph, "there"s a tax sale on to-morrow at Foxville."