For all his apparent deference a note had crept into Gordon's tone which caught the suspicious ears of the railroad agent. He peered sharply into the blue eyes of the man across the desk.

"You have absolute power to deal in Mallinsbee's interest?" he questioned harshly.

"In _Mr._ Mallinsbee's interests," assented Gordon.

"Wal, what's his proposition?" The man's mustached upper lip was slightly lifted and he showed his teeth.

"Precisely what it was when he first explained it to you."

The deference had gone out of Gordon's voice. Then, after the briefest of smiling pauses, he added--

"That is in so far as the railroad is concerned. For your own personal consideration his offer of sites to you remains the same as regards price, but the selection of position will be made by--us."

Gordon was enjoying himself enormously. He had taken the law into his own hands, and intended to put things through in his own way. He expected an outburst, but none was forthcoming. David Slosson was beginning to understand. He was taking the measure of this man. He was taking other measures--the measure of the whole situation. Of a sudden he realized that he was being told, in his own pet phraseology, to--go to hell. He had consigned many people in that direction during his life, but somehow his own consignment was quite a different matter, especially through the present channel.

He pulled himself up in his chair and squared his shoulders truculently.

"I guess Mallinsbee knows what this means--for him?" he inquired sharply, but coldly.

"I fancy _Mr._ Mallinsbee does."

"Now, see here, Mister--I ferget your name," Slosson cried, with sudden heat. "I'm not the man to be played around with. If this is your _Mister_ Mallinsbee's final offer, it just means that the railroad can't do business with him. Which means also that his whole wild-cat land scheme falls flat, and is so much waste ground, only fit for grazing his rotten cattle on. I'm not here to mince words----"

"No," concurred Gordon in a steady, cold tone.

"I said I'm not here to mince words. If I can't get my original terms there's nothing doing, and I'll even promise, seeing we're alone, to get right out of my way to sew up this concern, lock, stock and barrel."

"That seems to be the obvious thing to do from your point of view--if you can," said Gordon calmly. "Seeing that _Mr._ Mallinsbee is nearly as rich as a railroad corporation, there may be difficulties. Anyway, threats aren't business talk, and generally display weakness. So, if you've no business to talk, if you don't feel like coming in on our terms--why, that's the door, and I guess your horse is still waiting for that hay you seemed to think just now he needed."

Gordon picked up a pen and proceeded deliberately to start writing a letter. He felt that David Slosson had something to digest, and needed time. All he feared now was that Mallinsbee or Hazel might come in before he rid the place of this precious representative of the railroad.

After a few moments he glanced up from his letter.

"Still here?" he remarked, with upraised brows.

In a moment Slosson started from the brown study into which he had fallen and leaped to his feet. His narrow black eyes were blazing.

His pasty features were ghastly with fury, and Gordon, gazing up at him, found himself wondering how it came that the hot summer sun of the prairie was powerless to change its hue.

The agent thrust out one clenched fist threateningly, and fairly shouted at the man behind the desk--

"I'll make you all pay for this--Mallinsbee as well as you. You think you can play me--me! You think you can play the railroad I represent!

I'll show you just what your bluff is worth. You, a miserable crowd of land pirates! I tell you your land isn't worth grazing price without our depot. And I promise you I'll break the whole concern----"

"Meanwhile," said Gordon, deliberately rising from his seat and moving round his desk, "try that doorway, before I--break you. There it is."

He pointed. "Hustle!"

There comes a moment when the wildest temper reaches its limits. And even the most furious will pause at the brick wall of possible physical violence. David Slosson had spat out all his venom, or as much of it as seemed politic. The threatening attitude of Gordon, his monumental size and obvious strength, his cold determination, all convinced him that further debate was useless. So he drew back at the "brick wall"

and negotiated the doorway as quickly as possible.

Two minutes later Gordon sighed in a great relief, and passed a hand across his perspiring forehead. Slosson had passed out of view as Mallinsbee, on the back of the great Sunset, appeared on the horizon.

"That was a close call," he muttered. "Two minutes more and the old man might have spoiled the whole scheme."

Silas Mallinsbee's personality seemed to crowd the little office when, five minutes later, he entered to find Gordon busy at his desk writing a letter home to his mother.

Gordon displayed no sign of his recent encounter when he looked up.

His ingenuous face was smiling, and his blue eyes were full of an obvious satisfaction. Mallinsbee read the signs and rumbled out an inquiry.

"Slosson been around?"

Gordon nodded.

"Sure."

"Fixed anything?"

"Quite a--lot."

"You're lookin' kind of--happy?"

"Guess that's more than--Slosson was."

Mallinsbee's eyes became quite serious.

"I told Hazel just now I'd get along back. You see, I kind of remembered you just weren't sweet on Slosson, and guessed after all I'd best be around when he came. Hazel thought it might be as well, too.

Specially as she didn't want to sit around and find no Slosson turn up.

So----"

Gordon was on his feet in an instant. All his smile had vanished. A look of real alarm had taken its place.

"She was waiting for that skunk? Where?" he demanded in a tone that suddenly filled the father with genuine alarm.

"He was to go on to the coalpits after he was through here, and she was to meet him there an' ride over to the young horse corrals where they been breaking. She was to let him see the boys doin' a bit o' broncho bustin'. What's----"

"The coalpits? That's the way he took. Say, for God's sake stay right here--and let me use Sunset. I----"

But Gordon did not wait to finish what he had to say. He was out of the house and had leaped into the saddle before Mallinsbee could attempt to protest. The next moment he was galloping straight across country in the direction of the Bude and Sideley's Coal Company's workings.

CHAPTER XIII

SLOSSON SNATCHES AT OPPORTUNITY

Gordon had taken David Slosson's measure perfectly, notwithstanding his own comparative inexperience of the world. Apart from the agent's business methods, he had seen through the man himself with regard to Hazel. Hence, now his most serious alarm. The memory of those lascivious eyes gazing after Hazel in the Main Street of Snake's Fall, on his first day in the town, had never left him, and though he had listened to Hazel's positive assurance of her own safety in dealing with the man a subtle fear had continually haunted him. This was quite apart from his own jealous feelings. It was utterly unprejudiced by them. He knew that sooner or later, unless a miracle happened, Hazel would become the victim of insult. Deep down in his heart, somewhere, far underneath his passionate jealousy, he knew that Hazel was only encouraging Slosson that she might help on their common ends, but he had always doubted her cleverness to carry such a matter through successfully. To his mind there could only be one end to it all, and that end--insult.

Now the thing was almost a certainty. With Slosson in his present mood anything might happen. So he pressed Sunset to a rattling gallop. If Slosson insulted her----? But he was not in the mood to think--only to act.