"I wish you all the joy in your victory that you deserve, and I hope
the supreme court will reaffirm the decision of Judge Purcell, if it is
a just one," was the form in which she acceded to his demand.

She flicked her whip, and Ridgway fell back, laughing. "You've been
subsidized by the Consolidated," he shouted after her.

Hobart watched silently the businesslike directness with which the girl
handled the ribbons. She looked every inch the thoroughbred in her
well-made covert coat and dainty driving gauntlets. The grace of the
alert, slender figure, the perfect poise of the beautiful little tawny
head, proclaimed her distinction no less certainly than the fine
modeling of the mobile face. It was a distinction that stirred the
pulse of his emotion and disarmed his keen, critical sense. Ridgway
could study her with an amused, detached interest, but Hobart's
admiration had traveled past that point. He found it as impossible to
define her charm as to evade it. Her inheritance of blood and her
environment should have made her a finished product of civilization,
but her salty breeziness, her nerve, vivid as a flame at times,
disturbed delightfully the poise that held her when in repose.

When Virginia spoke, it was to ask abruptly: "Is it really his mine?"

"Judge Purcell says so."

"But do YOU think so--down in the bottom of your heart?"

"Wouldn't I naturally be prejudiced?"

"I suppose you would. Everybody in Mesa seems to have taken sides
either with Mr. Ridgway or the Consolidated. Still, you have an option.
Is he what his friends proclaim him--the generous-hearted independent
fighting against trust domination? Or is he merely an audacious
ore-thief, as his enemies say? The truth must be somewhere."

"It seems to lie mostly in point of view here the angle of observation
being determined by interest," he answered.

"And from your angle of observation?"

"He is the most unusual man I ever saw, the most resourceful and the
most competent. He never knows when he is beaten. I suppose that's the
reason he never is beaten finally. We have driven him to the wall a
score of times. My experience with him is that he's most dangerous when
one thinks he must be about hammered out. He always hits back then in
the most daring and unexpected way."

"With a coupling-pin," she suggested with a little reminiscent laugh.

"Metaphorically speaking. He reaches for the first effective weapon to
his hand."

"You haven't qu