ubstantial payment takes the property?"

"Just so. If McNabb, or his representative, is not here on the stroke
of twelve, the day after to-morrow, with tender of a cash payment of
ten percent. of the purchase price as stipulated in his contract, then
he is out of the reckoning altogether. But why do you ask? You speak
as though there were some doubt in your mind as to McNabb's appearance?"

"You can never tell," answered Wentworth. "He told me he would be here
himself to close the deal at the proper time. If he does not come, it
is no affair of mine, except that I should be out of a job. I need the
job, so I tipped off his chief rival capitalist as to the date of
expiration, and told him that in case for any reason McNabb fell down
on the proposition, he had better show up here at the post on the first
day of July with a big bunch of coin." He paused and grinned at
Cameron. "I was merely playing safe. If McNabb shows up, well and
good. If he don't, well and good again--I still have a job, and you
get seven dollars an acre, instead of five."

"But will the other be here?"

Wentworth shrugged. "That is what I have been asking myself for a
week. Will McNabb come? Will Orcutt come? Or will they both come?
In the latter case I may have let myself in for some unpleasant
complications. But I had to take a chance--to avoid taking a chance."

Cameron laughed. "Let us hope for your sake that only one of the
parties arrives, and for my sake, that it is the rival, for the
additional two dollars an acre will mean an additional million for my
company."

XVIII

Along toward the middle of the following afternoon Orcutt appeared at
the post, accompanied by two guides and two operatives of a detective
agency, who were ostensibly merely members of a party of three, but who
in reality were the guardians of a certain thick packet of large bills
that reposed in the very bottom of a waterproof rucksack.

Into the trading room he stamped, cursing the black flies and
mosquitoes whose combined and persistent attack had left his face and
neck red and swollen. Hedin was behind the counter, and without a hint
of recognition Orcutt inquired the whereabouts of Wentworth. Upon
being informed that he was probably in his cabin, he turned on his heel
and stamped from the room.

"This is a hell of a country!" he said in greeting, as Wentworth opened
his door to admit him. "The damned flies and mosquitoes just naturally