"It’s no use talking, Kendrick," said General Wilson positively. "When I’m right I know it, and all creation can’t move me. That land of yours is no good to us unless we can get Bolton’s piece with it. The two have got to be improved together or not at all. I’ll tell you right now that the company won’t pay any such price for your piece unless it can get the other, and Bolton won’t sell just because he knows we’ve got to have it to make it a success." "What’s that?" exclaimed Kendrick, looking grave. "Bolton won’t sell?" General Wilson repeated his statement with characteristic vehemence. "Did Bolton tell you that?" "He couldn’t have made it plainer if he had said it right out in so many words. He raised his price at the rate of a hundred thousand dollars a minute as soon as he heard that we wanted your land." "Ah, yes. I remember now that Hampden was telling me something of the sort." Wharton Kendrick shook his head over the information, and then turned to me. "Was there something you wanted?" "Well," I said, hesitating in some embarrassment at General Wilson’s presence, "I had an interview with a friend of yours this afternoon." The intonation in my voice was enough to give a hint of the identity of the friend, and he nodded his head in comprehension. "Well, come up to the house to-night, and give me the whole story. It’ll keep till then, won’t it? By the way, what was that hullaballoo around the place last night? It waked me up, but I was too lazy to turn out and take a hand in it." "Perhaps you heard my men when they caught three fellows climbing over the back fence, along in the early hours this morning. I don’t think of anything else that happened." "Well, upon my soul," gasped General Wilson, "isn’t that enough? Good heavens, young man, you speak as though it was something a gentleman might expect as a common attention from his neighbors!" "It’s a first experience," said Wharton Kendrick with a jovial laugh. "But why didn’t you tell me about it? If I’m an attraction to burglars, I think I’m entitled to know it." "I didn’t intend to make a secret of it; but you weren’t in when I called this morning. Besides, I haven’t run the thing down to its source and origin." General Wilson’s red face flamed with wonder and he stared at me from under his bushy brows. "Are you trying to tell us that they weren’t burglars?" He fired the question at me very much as if it were a revolver, with the professional air of a lawyer who has caught a witness trying to deceive. "To be truthful, I was trying not to tell you," I replied. "But if you put it to me direct, I should say they were not." "Fire away," said Kendrick, as I paused. "There’s nothing about it that Wilson shouldn’t hear."