For fifty years my father has played the game in this community like
a sport and a gentleman, and I'll be damned if his son will dog it
now, at the finish. I gather from your remarks that we could find
ready sale for those thirty-two little farms?"
"I am continually receiving offers for them."
"Then they were not included in the list of properties covered by our
bonded indebtedness?"
"No, your father refused to include them. He said he would take a
chance on the financial future of himself and his boy, but not on his
helpless dependents."
"Good old John Cardigan! Well, Sinclair, I'll not take a chance on
them either; so to-morrow morning you will instruct our attorney to
draw up formal life-leases on those farms, and to make certain they
are absolutely unassailable. Colonel Pennington may have the lands
sold to satisfy a deficiency judgment against us, but while those
life-leases from the former owner are in force, my father's proteges
cannot be dispossessed. After they are dead, of course, Pennington
may take the farms--and be damned to him."
Sinclair stared in frank amazement at his youthful superior. "You are
throwing away two hundred thousand dollars," he said distinctly.
"I haven't thrown it away--yet. You forget, Sinclair, that we're
going to fight first--and fight like fiends; then if we lose--well,
the tail goes with the hide, By the way, Sinclair, are any of those
farms untenanted at the present time?"
"Yes.
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