getting
more. I'm going to show Harley that he has met a man at last he can't
either freeze out or bully out. I'm going to let him and his bunch know
I'm on earth and here to stay; that I can beat them at their own game
to a finish."

"Did it ever occur to you, Waring, that it might pay to make this a
limited round contest? You've won on points up to date by a mile, but
in a finish fight endurance counts. Money is the same as endurance
here, and that's where they are long."

Eaton made this suggestion diffidently, for though he was a stockholder
and official of the Mesa Ore-producing Company, he was not used to
offering its head unasked advice. The latter, however, took it without
a trace of resentment.

"Glad of it, my boy. There's no credit in beating a cripple."

To this jaunty retort Eaton had found no answer when Smythe opened the
door to announce the arrival of the Honorable Thomas B. Pelton, very
anxious for an immediate interview with Mr. Ridgway.

"Show him in," nodded the president, adding in an aside: "You better
stay, Steve."

Pelton was a rotund oracular individual in silk hat and a Prince Albert
coat of broadcloth. He regarded himself solemnly as a statesman because
he had served two inconspicuous terms in the House at Washington. He
was fond of proclaiming himself a Southern gentleman, part of which
statement was unnecessary and part untrue. Like many from his section,
he had a decided penchant for politics.

"Have you seen the infamous libel in that scurrilous sheet of the
gutters the Herald?" he demanded immediately of Ridgway.

"Which libel? They don't usually stop at one, colonel."

"The one, seh, which slanders my honorable name; which has the
scoundrelly audacity to charge me with introducing the mining extension
bill for venal reasons, seh."

"Oh! Yes, I've seen that. Rather an unfortunate story to come out just
now."

"I shall force a retraction, seh, or I shall demand the satisfaction
due a Southern gentleman.

"Yes, I would, colonel," replied Ridgway, secretly amused at the vain
threats of this bag of wind which had been punctured.

"It's a vile calumny, an audacious and villainous lie."

"What part of it? I've just glanced over it, but the part I read seems
to be true. That's the trouble with it. If it were a lie you could
explode it."

"I shall deny it over my signature."

"Of course. The trouble will be to get people to believe your denial
with Quinton's affidavit stari