What's the use? All Virginia knows that Randolph Carringford is a black
sheep--that no decent man or woman will acknowledge him for a friend.
Wonder what Joshua Kinkaid meant, anyhow, by ringing him in. But are the
lands worth as much as it was believed, Jack?"
"I learn in this letter from our lawyer that the richest kind of coal
veins have been located on the Burson property in West Virginia; and that
they promise to be valued at possibly a million dollars. Think of what
that would mean to the Parmly family! For we are far from being rich.
Father lost his grip on business you know, Tom, when he volunteered, and
went into the Spanish war, and when he died did not leave very much."
"Do you suppose your cousin knows anything about this new development?"
continued Tom sympathetically.
"He is too greedy not to have looked after every possible chance," came
Jack's despondent reply. "And now that this thing's come up I can begin
to understand why he kept smiling in that way all the time he chatted
with me a week ago when we chanced to meet. I think he had had a tip
even then that this thing was coming off, and was laying his plans.
Though how he could known, I can't imagine."
"Then you suspect he may already be on his way across, and will arrive
before you can get there to put in your claim?" asked Tom.
"Even allowing that he had no news until this mail got in, Tom, he'd get
off a whole lot easier that I'll ever be able to, and so could catch a
boat, while I kept untwisting the army red tape.
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