He marked a spot with his lead-pencil and passed the map to
Oscar.
"Do you think you could find that place?"
The man breathed hard over it for several minutes.
"Yes; it would be easy," and he nodded his head several times as he named
the railroad stations nearest the point indicated by Armitage. The place
was in one of the mountainous counties of Virginia, fifteen miles from an
east and west railway line. Armitage opened a duly recorded deed which
conveyed to himself the title to two thousand acres of land; also a
curiously complicated abstract of title showing the successive transfers
of ownership from colonial days down through the years of Virginia's
splendor to the dread time when battle shook the world. The title had
passed from the receiver of a defunct shooting-club to Armitage, who had
been charmed by the description of the property as set forth in an
advertisement, and lured, moreover, by the amazingly small price at which
the preserve was offered.
"It is a farm--yes?"
"It is a wilderness, I fancy," said Armitage. "I have never seen it;
I may never see it, for that matter; but you will find your way
there--going first to this town, Lamar, studying the country, keeping
your mouth shut, and seeing what the improvements on the ground amount
to.
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