"Make him pay!" Doris exclaimed, laughing a bit. "You can bet he isn't going to build an O'Hara House at Parowan just to help make our town look nice. He'll charge boom prices and clean up a fortune. Why should we donate to the cause? Won't he be making his money off us and the things we're doing?" "_That's_ the way to talk!" Rayfield beamed upon her with his good eye. "O'Hara's not in the hotel business for his health, you can bet on that. And if he doesn't build a hotel down there, some one else will." "Yes, but let it once be known that O'Hara's going to put up a hotel in Parowan, and our stock will take another jump. We could well afford to give him the ground to build on." Mr. Emmett's tone betrayed the fact that this point had been discussed before. "Oh, split the difference," Bill suggested impatiently. "Let him pick his own site, and charge him half price for it. You're both right, according to my understanding of the case. O'Hara'll clean up a bunch of money on the investment, just as Doris says. And John's right about the prestige of having an O'Hara House. Make him call it that trade name. Then he won't dare work off poor accommodations on the public. When folks know that they can get O'Hara standard of cooking and so on at Parowan, they'll come in droves. I reckon that's what makes a town." "That's the talk!" Rayfield patted approval on Bill's flat, muscular shoulder. "Suppose we make that a regular policy, folks? Cut the prices on building sites for all enterprises that will reflect credit on the town, to just half the selling price?" He looked from one to the other eagerly. "The selling price is going up steadily, you know. Having to pay something for a site will shut out the little shoestring propositions that go broke and leave empty houses behind them. That always looks bad in a town. If they have to pay for their building site, it means they'll have to have capital behind them. And no firm is going to sink money in real estate unless they mean business." "Oh, come on up to our sitting room and let's have the meeting there and get it over with," said Doris. "I'm terribly interested in the whole thing--but honestly, my feet are just ready to drop off! It's a radical change from desert shoes to French-heeled pumps, let me tell you." "All right--come on up," Bill invited resignedly. Rayfield looked at Emmett. "Sure, if your wife isn't too tired," Emmett hesitated. "You've got an early start to make in the morning, remember." "Oh, fudge!" Doris placed a finger tip on the elevator button. "This is important. We don't want to go away and leave a lot of tag ends, do we, Bill? Because," she added, smiling up at them, "goodness only knows when we'll come back!" The elevator slid down, the door slid open and Doris stepped inside, Bill just behind her, his hand placed solicitously under her elbow.