He knew it was wrong; he knew he would be a thief, if he did it, no matter what the law might say, no matter what the courts might adjudge.

To Barclay what was legal was right, and what the courts had passed upon--that was legal.

But Hendricks sat with his pencil in his hand, going over and over his figures, trying to silence his conscience.
It was a hot afternoon that he sat there, and idly through his mind went the computation that he had but sixty-six more hours of hope, and as he looked at the clock he added, "and thirty-eight minutes and twenty-seven seconds," when Martin Culpepper came ambling into the back room of the bank.
"Robert," began the colonel, with his eyes on the floor and his hands deep in his trousers pockets, "I've just been talking to John." The colonel rubbed his neck absent-mindedly and went on, "John's a Yankee, Robert--the blue stripe on his belly is fast blue, sir; it won't fade, change colour, or crock, in point of fact, not a damned bit, sir, not till the devil covers it with a griddle stripe, sir, I may say." The colonel slouched into a chair and looked into Hendricks' face with a troubled expression and continued, "That John certainly is Yankee, Robert, and he's too many for me.

Yes, sir, certainly he's got me up in the air, sir--up in the air, and as I may say a mile west, on that wheat deal." Hendricks leaned forward unconsciously, and the colonel dropped both hands to his knees and leaned toward Hendricks.
"Robert Hendricks," asked the colonel, as he bored his deep black eyes into the younger man, "did you know about that option in the wheat land mortgage?
Answer me, sir!" "Not at the time, Colonel," returned Hendricks, and began, "but I--" "Well, neither did I.And I got half of those mortgages myself.

Lige and I did it all, sir.