The young follow spoke with unexpected swiftness and earnestness. Thorpe looked at him in surprise.
“I know what you are thinking,” said the boy, flushing. “You are surprised that I can be in earnest about anything. I'm out of school up here. Let me shout and play with the rest of the children.”
Thorpe watched him with sympathetic eyes, but with lips that obstinately refused to say one word. A woman would have felt rebuffed. The boy's admiration, however, rested on the foundation of the more manly qualities he had already seen in his friend. Perhaps this very aloofness, this very silent, steady-eyed power appealed to him.
“I left college at nineteen because my father died,” said he. “I am now just twenty-one. A large estate descended to me, and I have had to care for its investments all alone. I have one sister, that is all.”
“The estates have not suffered,” went on the boy simply. “I have done well with them. But,” he cried fiercely, “I HATE it! It is petty and mean and worrying and nagging! That's why I was so glad to get out in the woods.”
“Now, Harry, I have a proposal to make to you. It is this; you need thirty thousand dollars to buy your land. Let me supply it, and come in as half partner.”
An expression of doubt crossed the landlooker's face.
“Oh PLEASE!” cried the boy, “I do want to get in something real! It will be the making of me!”
“Now see here,” interposed Thorpe suddenly, “you don't even know my name.”
“My name is Harry Thorpe,” pursued the other. “My father was Henry Thorpe, an embezzler.”
“Harry,” replied Wallace soberly, “I am sorry I made you say that. I do not care for your name--except perhaps to put it in the articles of partnership,--and I have no concern with your ancestry. I tell you it is a favor to let me in on this deal. I don't know anything about lumbering, but I've got eyes. I can see that big timber standing up thick and tall, and I know people make profits in the business. It isn't a question of the raw material surely, and you have experience.”
“Not so much as you think,” interposed Thorpe.
“There remains,” went on Wallace without attention to Thorpe's remark, “only the question of--”
“No!” cried the boy hotly, “of your letting me in on a good thing!”