, but--Here's 'how,'" he
added, as he gulped down the dash of spirit he had poured out for
himself. He smacked his heavy, appreciative lips, and fondly
contemplated the label on the bottle. But he was not really reading it.

"Your trade in the dope's growing," he said, his fat fingers fondling
the glass bottle neck as though he were loth to release it. "Nearly
fifty thousand dollars. That's your credit for a year's trade. It's the
biggest in--fourteen years. And it don't begin to touch the demand I got
for the darn stuff. I could sell you a hundred thousand dollars' worth,
and still ask for more at the same price. You don't get what that means
to me," he went on, with a laugh intended to be disarming. "You ain't
running a great store that's crazy to hand out dividends. Here's a
market gasping. Prices are sky high, an' we can't 'touch.' I tell you it
wouldn't lower the price a haf cent if you quadrupled your output. I
want to weep. I sure do."

The man in buckskin was filling his pipe from a bag of Indian
manufacture.

"Sure," he nodded. "I get that." Then he added very deliberately.
"That's why you send your boys out scouting my trail."

Lorson laughed immoderately to hide the effect of the quietly spoken
challenge.

"That's business, boy. I buy your stuff--all you can hand me. But if I
can jump into your market, why--it's up to me."

"It certainly is up to you." The man lit his pipe and pressed down the
tobacco with one of his powerful fingers. "It's up to you more than you
know. I once sent back one of your boys. I shan't worry to send back any
more. Best save their skins whole, Harris. You'll never jump my market
till you can find a feller who can hit a trail such as you never dreamed
of. And it's a trail they got to locate first."

The trader leant back in his chair and linked his fat fingers across his
wide stomach. His eyes were twinkling as he regarded the visitor from
the North. The smile was still in them, but there was a keen speculation
in them, too.

"You can't blame me, boy," he said, with perfect amiability. "Hand me
all the stuff I'm asking, and your market's as sacred as a woman's
virtue. But you don't hand it me, or maybe you can't. Well, it's up to
me to supply my needs any way I know. There's nothing crooked in that.
If you're reckoning to squeeze my market you can't kick if I try to open
it wide. You see, Brand, this stuff _grows_. I guess it grows in plenty,
because you admit you trade it,