"I'm too shocked yet to thank you properly," she said, rising and giving him her hand, "but, believe me, I do appreciate your disinterested kindness in making this long trip from Bartlesville, and for total strangers, too."
"Tut! tut!" Mr. Sprudell interrupted. "It's nothing--nothing at all; and now I wish you'd promise to dine with me this evening. I'll call for you if I may and bring the money and the letter and picture. From now on I want you to feel that I am a friend who is always at your service. Tut! tut! don't embarrass me with thanks."
He accompanied her to the door, then stepped back into the parlor to watch her pass the window and cross the street. He liked her brisk, alert step, her erect carriage, and the straight lines of the dark clothes she wore mightily became her slender figure. "Wouldn't a girl like that"--his full, red lips puckered in a whistle--"wouldn't she make a stir in Bartlesville!"
Sprudell returned to his task, but with abated enthusiasm. A vague uneasiness, which may have been his conscience, disturbed him. He would write furiously, then stop and read what he had written with an expression of dissatisfaction.
"Hang it all." He threw his work down finally, and, thrusting his hands in the pockets of his trousers, paced up and down the floor to "have it out." What could the girl do with the place if she had it? It was a property which required money and experience and brains to handle. Besides, he had committed himself to his friends, talked of it, promoted it partially, and they shared his enthusiasm. It was something which appealed intensely to the strong vein of sensationalism in him. What a pill it would be for his enemies to swallow if he went West and made another fortune! They might hate him, but they would have to admit his brains. To emerge, Midaslike, from the romantic West with bags of yellow gold was the one touch needed to make him an envied, a unique and picturesque, figure. He could not give it up. He meant to be honest--he would be honest--but in his own way.
He would see that the girl profited by the development of the ground. He would find a way. Already there was a hazy purpose in his head which, if it crystallized, would prove a most satisfactory way. Sprudell sat down again and wrote until the prospectus of the Bitter Root Placer Mining Company was ready for the printer.