The other complied, and Jadwin took the check and looked it over carefully.

“Now,” he said, “watch here, Dave Scannel. You see this check? And now,” he added, thrusting it into Hargus’s hands, “you see where it goes. There’s the principal of your debt paid off.”

“The principal?”

“You haven’t forgotten the interest, have you? won’t compound it, because that might bust you. But six percent interest on three hundred thousand since 1878, comes to⁠—let’s see⁠—three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. And you still owe me nine hundred thousand bushels of wheat.” He ciphered a moment on a sheet of note paper. “If I charge you a dollar and forty a bushel for that wheat, it will come to that sum exactly.⁠ ⁠… Yes, that’s correct. I’ll let you have the balance of that wheat at a dollar forty. Make the check payable to bearer as before.”