a blind hen motherin' a
litter o' dormice. Peters here'll give you his case, seein' he's
plaintiff, in an elegant flow of warm air, an' when he's through I'll
sort of hand you a counterblast. An' when we finished you'll hand out
your dope on the subject, that is if we ain't talked you into a home
for incurable arbitrators. You'll get busy right away, Peters."

The rancher's manner was irresistible in its breezy frankness and
generosity. Jeff wondered at him. Any man of modern business methods,
he felt, would have jumped at the advantage which his wealth would have
given him in the law courts over so insignificant a person as Elias
Peters. The whole situation inspired in him the feeling that he was in
the presence of a really big man. A man who deserved every fraction of
his success.

Nor was there any doubt as to the little gray man's feelings as he took
a drink of whisky, and fixed his small eyes upon the weather and
years-lined features of his adversary.

"Guess you've made me feel 'bout as big as an under-fed skitter," he
complained. "You make me sort o' feel I want to tell you to keep your
darn grazin' rights till I ken hand you a bunch of bills such as I'd
like to pass on to an honest man. But I don't guess I'm goin' to do
it. Y'see, I just can't afford it. If I can't graze my stock on your
grass they got to starve, or I got to get out. An', seein' I doped all
my wad into this lay-out, it 'ud well-nigh mean ruin to act that way."

Then he turned to Jeff, who was almost bewildered at the curious
attitude toward each other of these men.

"Now, I ain't got a fancy yarn to hand you," he went on, fumbling in
his pockets. "I jest got my papers, here, as I got 'em from the law
fellers. You best take 'em, an' after we done get a look into 'em."
He passed them across. "Now these are the fac's of how I bo't, why I
bo't, an' who I bo't from. The place is a haf section, an' they asked
five thousand odd dollars for it. It was a bum sort o' homestead, an'
belonged to a widder woman who'd got her man shot up by some rustlers
workin' around this country. They went by the name of Whitstone, but
their real name, by them papers, was Van Blooren----"

"What name?" Jeff's voice broke sharply in upon the little man.

"Van Blooren."

"Go on."

Jeff's eyes were gazing out through the lacing of creeper. He was no
longer regarding the man's unemotional gray features.

"Wal, the place wa'an't worth the five th