ughingly, with much good-humored jest, they had made up the $25,000
between them and then trailed off to Harrah's box at the opera, taking
Bruce with them, where he contributed his share to the gaiety of the
evening by observing quite seriously that the famous tenor sounded to
him like nothing so much as a bull-elk bugling.

Harrah's subscription which had headed the list had been half of his
winnings and the other half had gone to his favorite charity--The Home
For Crippled Children. "If you get in a hole and need a little more I
might dig up a few thousand," he told Bruce privately, but the others
stated plainly that they would not commit themselves to further sums or
be liable for assessments.

Bruce had gone about with Harrah since then and with so notable a
sponsor the world became suddenly a pleasant, friendly place and life
plain sailing; but now every detail had been attended to, and, eager to
begin, Bruce was leaving on the morrow, this dinner being in the nature
of a farewell party.

To see Bruce in the East and in the company of these men on top of
Dill's telegram was a culminating blow to Sprudell, as effective as
though it had been planned. Stunned at first by the loss of the
water-right which made the ground valueless, then startled, and
astonished by Bruce's unexpected appearance, all his thoughts finally
resolved themselves into a furious, overmastering desire to defeat him.
Revenge, always his first impulse when injured, was to become an
obsession. Whatever there was of magnanimity, of justice, or of honor,
in Sprudell's nature was to become poisoned by the venom of his
vindictive malice where it concerned Bruce Burt.

Bruce had altered materially in appearance since that one occasion in
his life, in Sprudell's office, when he had been conscious of his
clothes. Those he now wore were not expensive but they fitted him and
for the first time in many years he had something on his feet other than
hob-nailed miner's shoes. Also he laid aside his stetson because, as he
explained when Harrah deplored the change, he thought "it made folks
look at him." "Folks" still looked at him for even in the correct
habiliments of civilization he somehow looked picturesque and alien.
Powerfully built, tanned, with his wide, forceful gestures, his utter
lack of self-consciousness, there was stamped upon him indelibly the
freedom and broadness of the great outdoors.

He was the last person, even in that group, all of who