The _denouement_ came within half an hour of Hip-Lee's clearing of the table. It came with the sound of galloping hoofs, with the rush of a horseman up to the veranda.

The two men inside the office looked at each other, and Gordon rose and dashed at the window.

"It's McSwain," he said, and returned to the haven of his seat behind his desk. His announcement had been cool enough, but his heart was hammering against his ribs.

"Then I guess things are going queer," said the rancher pessimistically.

Gordon was about to reply when the door was abruptly thrust open, and the hot face and hotter eyes of Peter appeared in the doorway.

"Well?"

For the life of him Gordon could not have withheld that sharp, nervous inquiry.

McSwain came right into the room and drew the door closed after him.

Quite suddenly his eyes began to smile in that fashion which so expresses chagrin. He flung his hat on Gordon's desk and sat himself on the corner of it. Then he deliberately drew a long breath.

"I'm as worried as a cat goin' to have kittens," he said. "That feller Slosson's beat us. Maybe he's stark, starin' crazy, maybe he ain't.

Anyways he came right along to me this morning with a face like chewed up dogs' meat, with a limp on him that 'ud ha' made the fortune of a tramp, and a mitt all doped up with a dry goods store o' cotton-batten, and asked me the price of my holdings in Snake's. I guessed I wasn't selling my hotel lot, but I'd two Main Street frontages that were worth ten thousand dollars each, and a few other bits going at the waste ground price of five thousand each."

"Well?"

This time it was Mallinsbee's inquiry.

"He closed the deal for his company, and planted the deposit."

"He closed the deal?" cried Gordon thickly, all his dreams of the future tumbling about his ears.

"Why, yes." McSwain regarded the younger man's hopelessly staring eyes for one brief moment. Then he went on: "I was only the first. This was after dinner. Say, in half an hour he's put his company in at Snake's to the tune of nearly a quarter million dollars. He's mad.

They'll fire him. They'll repudiate the whole outfit. I tell you he never squealed at any old price. He's beat our play here. But how do we stand up there? A crazy man comes along and makes deals which no corporation in the world would stand for. There ain't a site in Snake's worth more'n a hundred dollars to a railroad who's got to boom a place. Well, if his corporation turns him down, how do we stand?

Are they goin' to pay? No, sir; not on your life."

"They'll have to stand it," said Mallinsbee.

"They'll try and fight it," retorted Peter hotly.

"And you can't graft the courts like a railroad can," put in Gordon quickly.

"They'll have to stand it," repeated Mallinsbee doggedly. "An' I'll tell you how. Maybe Slosson's crazy. Maybe he's crazy to beat us, an'

I allow he's not without reason for doin' it--now. But it would cost the railroad a big pile to shift that depot here. It would have been better for them in the end. You see, they'd have got their holdings in the township here for pretty well nix, and so they wouldn't have felt the cost of the depot. The city would have paid that, as well as other old profits. Anyway, the capital would have had to be laid out. In Snake's they are laying out capital in their holdings only. They'll get it back all right, all right--and profits. Slosson's relying on making up their leeway for them in the boom. He's takin' that chance, because he's crazy to beat--us."

"And he's done it," said Gordon sharply.

"Yep. He's done it," muttered McSwain regretfully.

"He surely has," agreed Mallinsbee, without emotion.

Gordon was the only one of the trio who appeared to be depressed.

McSwain had the consolation of getting his profit in Snake's Fall. The only sense in which he was a loser was that his holdings in Buffalo Point were larger than in the other place. Therefore he was able to regard the matter more calmly, in the light of the fortunes of war.

Mallinsbee, who had staked all his hopes on Buffalo Point, seemed utterly unaffected.

A few minutes later McSwain hurried away for the purpose of watching further developments, promising to return in the evening and report.

Neither he nor Gordon felt that there was the least hope whatever.

Mallinsbee offered no opinion.

When Peter had ridden off, and the two men were left alone, Gordon, weighed down with his failure, began to give expression to his feelings.

He looked over at the strong face of his benefactor, and took his courage in both hands.

"Mr. Mallinsbee," he said diffidently, "I want to tell you something of what I feel at the way things have gone through--my failure. I----"

Mallinsbee had thrust his fingers into his waistcoat pocket, and now drew forth a cigar.

"Say, have a smoke, boy," he said, in his blunt, kindly fashion.

"That's a dollar an' a half smoke," he went on, "an' I brought two of 'em over from the ranch to celebrate on. Guess we best celebrate right now."

It was a doleful smile which looked back at the rancher as Gordon accepted the proffered cigar.

"But I----"

"Say, don't bite the end off," interrupted Mallinsbee. "Here's a piercer."

"Thanks. But you must let----"

"I'll be mighty glad to have a light," the other went on hastily.

Gordon was thus forced to silence, and Mallinsbee continued.

"Say, boy," he said, as he settled himself comfortably to enjoy his expensive cigar, "a business life is just the only thing better than ranching, I'm beginning to guess. You got to figure on things this way: ranching you got so many hands around, so much grazin', so many cattle. Your only enemy is disease. So many head of cows will produce so many calves, and Nature does the rest. That's ranching in a kind of outline which sort of reduces it to a question of figures which it wouldn't need a trick reckoner to work out. Now business is diff'rent.

Ther's always the other feller, and you 'most always feel he's brighter than you. But he ain't. He's just figurin' the same way at his end of the deal. So, you see, the real principles of commerce aren't dependent on the things you got and Nature, same as ranching. Your assets ain't worth the paper they're written on--till you've got your man where you want him. Now, to do that you got to ferget you ever were born honest. You've just got one object in life, and that is to get the other feller where you want him. It don't matter how you do it, short of murder. If you succeed, folks'll shout an' say what a bright boy you are. If you fail they'll say you're a mutt. The whole thing's a play there ain't no rules to except those the p'lice handle, and even they don't count when your assets are plenty. You'll hear folks shouting at revival meetings, an' psalm-smitin' around their city churches. You'll hear them brag honesty an' righteousness till you feel you're a worse sinner than ever was found in the Bible. You'll have 'em come an' look you in the eye and swear to truth, and every other old play invented to allay suspicions. And all the time it's a great big bluff for them to get you where _they_ want you. An' that's why the game's worth playing--even when you're beat. If business was dead straight; if you could stake your all on a man's word; if ther'

weren't a man who would take graft; if you didn't know the other feller was yearning to handle your wad--why, the game wouldn't be a circumstance to ranching."

"That sounds pretty cynical," protested Gordon. He, too, was smoking, but the failure of his scheme left him unsmiling.

"It's the truth. We were trying to get Slosson where we wanted him.

He's doing the same by us. So far he seems to monopolize most of the advantage. The question remaining to us now--and it's the only one of interest from our end of the line--is: Will the President of the Union Grayling and Ukataw Railroad do as I think he will--back his agent's play? Will he stand for his crazy buying? Will he fall for Slosson's game to get us where he wants us? I believe he will, but we can't be dead certain. Our only chance is to try and make it so he won't--even if the Snake's boys lose their stuff up there."

Gordon was sitting up. His cigar was removed from the corner of his mouth and held poised over an ash-tray. There was a sharp look of inquiry in his eyes.

"What's the President of the Union Grayling and Ukataw Railroad got to do with it?" he demanded quickly.

The rancher raised his heavy brows.

"This is a branch of his road, I guess."

"A--a branch?" Gordon's breath was coming rapidly.

"Sure. You see, it's a branch linking up with the Southern Trunk route. It runs into the Grayling line where it enters the Rockies.

That's how you make the coast this way."