And now must come swift action, for we have here some four thousand
words and not a tear shed and never a pistol, joke, safe, nor bottle
cracked.
Old Jacob hired a dozen private detectives to find the heirs, if any
existed, of the old miner, Hugh McLeod.
Get the point? Of course I know as well as you do that Thomas is going
to be the heir. I might have concealed the name; but why always hold
back your mystery till the end? I say, let it come near the middle so
people can stop reading there if they want to.
After the detectives had trailed false clues about three thousand
dollars--I mean miles--they cornered Thomas at the grocery and got his
confession that Hugh McLeod had been his grandfather, and that there
were no other heirs. They arranged a meeting for him and old Jacob one
morning in one of their offices.
Jacob liked the young man very much. He liked the way he looked straight
at him when he talked, and the way he threw his bicycle cap over the top
of a rose-colored vase on the centre-table.
There was a slight flaw in Jacob's system of restitution. He did not
consider that the act, to be perfect, should include confession. So he
represented himself to be the agent of the purchaser of the land who had
sent him to refund the sale price for the ease of his conscience.
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