He took one step nearer the silent circle around the stove. "I have offered to buy your rights; Grier hemmed you in on every side to force you out. I do not want to force you; I offer to buy your land at a fair appraisal. And your answer is to put a prohibitive price on the land."
"Because," observed old man Santry, "we've got you ketched. That's business, I guess."
Burleson flushed up. "Not business; blackmail, Santry."
Another silence, then a man laughed: "Is that what they call it down to York, Mr. Burleson?"
"When a man wants to put up a skyscraper an' gits all but the key-lot, an' if the owner of the key-lot holds out for his price, do they call it blackmail?"
"No," said Burleson; "I think I spoke hastily."
Not a sound broke the stillness in the store. After a moment old man Santry opened his clasp-knife, leaned forward, and shaved off a thin slice from the cheese on the counter. This he ate, faded eyes fixed on space. Men all around him relaxed in their chairs, spat, recrossed their muddy boots, stretching and yawning. Plainly the conference had ended.
"I am sorry," said young Burleson; "I had hoped for a fair understanding."
He tucked his riding-crop under one arm and stood watching them, buttoning his tan gloves. Then with the butt of his crop he rubbed a dry spot of mud from his leather puttees, freed the incrusted spurs, and turned towards the door, pausing there to look back.
"I hate to leave it this way," he said, impulsively. "I want to live in peace with my neighbors. I mean to make no threats--but neither can I be moved by threats.... Perhaps time will aid us to come to a fair understanding; perhaps a better knowledge of one another. Although the shooting and fishing are restricted, my house is always open to my neighbors. You will be welcome when you come--"
The silence was profound as he hesitated, standing there before them in the sunshine of the doorway--a lean, well-built, faultless figure, an unconscious challenge to poverty, a terrible offence to their every instinct--the living embodiment of all that they hated most in all the world.
And so he went away with a brief "Good-morning," swung himself astride his horse, and cantered off, gathering bridle as he rode, sweeping at a gallop across the wooden bridge into the forest world beyond.