Even if he proved able to buy out Simmons, he thought walking home, it would be a delicate operation to return the timber rights to where he thought they belonged. He considered the possibility of making a gift of the options to the men from whom they had been wrongfully obtained. But something of Simmons’ shrewd knowledge of the world, something of the priest’s contemptuous arraignment of material values, lingering in Gordon’s mind, convinced him of the potential folly of that course. It would be more practical to sell back the options to those from which they had been purchased at the nominal prices paid. He had only a vague idea of his balances at the Stenton banks, the possibilities of the investments from which he received profit. He was certain, however, that the sum asked by Valentine Simmons would obliterate his present resources. Yet he was forced to admit that it did not seem exorbitant.

He continued his altruistic deliberations throughout the evening at his dwelling. It might be well, before investing such a paramount sum, to communicate with the Tennessee and Northern Company, receive a fresh ratification of their intention. Yet he could not do that without incurring the danger of premature questioning, investigation. It was patent that he would have to be prepared to make an immediate distribution of the options when his intention became known in Greenstream. He was aware that when the coming of a railroad to the County became common knowledge the excitement of the valley would grow intense.

Again, it might be better first to organize the timber of Greenstream, so that a harmonious local condition would facilitate all negotiations, and avert the danger, which Valentine Simmons had pointed out, of individual blindness and competition. But, in order to accomplish that, he would have to bring into concord fifty or more wary, suspicious, and largely ignorant adults. He would have to deal with swift and secret avarice, with vain golden dreams born of years of bitter poverty, privation, ceaseless and incredible toil. The magnitude of the latter task appalled him; fact and figure whirled in his confused mind. He was standing, and he suddenly felt dizzy, and sat down. The giddiness vanished, but left him with twitching fingers, a clouded vision. He might get them all together, explain, persuade.... Goddy! it was for their good. They needn’t be cross-grained. There it would be, the offer, for them to take or leave. But, if they delayed, watch out! Railroad people couldn’t be fooled with. They might get left; that was all.

This, he felt, was more than he could undertake, more than any reasonable person would ask. If he paid Valentine Simmons all that money, and then let them have back their own again, without a cent to himself, they must be content. They should be able to bargain as well as he—who was getting on and had difficulty in adding figures to the same amount twice—with the Tennessee and Northern.

The following morning he departed for Stenton.