he placable rejoinder. "I'm sorry--right sorry. I've been hoping
that you had learned your lesson--you and your tribe. I came to town
this evening prepared to show you a decent way out of your troubles, so
far as this State is concerned; but since you have posted your 'de-fi,'
as we cow-punchers say, I reckon it isn't worth while to wade any deeper
into the creek."

Again the railroad magnate rested his arms on the table-edge. "What was
your 'decent way,' Senator?" he asked, fixing his gaze upon the shrewd
old eyes of the other, which, for the first time in the conference,
seemed to be losing a little of their grimly good-natured
aggressiveness.

"I don't mind telling you, though you will likely call it an old man's
foolishness. I have a grown son, McVickar. Did you know that?"

The vice-president nodded, and the big man opposite went on
half-reminiscently:

"He is a lawyer, and a mighty bright one, so they tell me. As I happen
to know, he is pretty well up on the corporation side of the argument,
and the one thing I've been afraid of is that he would marry and settle
down somewhere in the East, where the big corporations have their home
ranches. I'm getting old, Hardwick, and I'd like mighty well to have the
boy with me. Out of that notion grew another. I said to myself this:
Now, here's McVickar; if he could have a good, clean-cut young man in
this State representing his railroad--a man who not only knew his way
around in a court-room, but who might also know how to plead his
client's case before the public--if McVickar could have such a young
fellow as that for his corporation counsel, and would agree to make his
railroad company live somewhere within shouting distance of such a young
fellow's ideals, we might all be persuaded to bury the hatchet and live
together in peace and amity."

A slow smile was spreading itself over the strong face of the railway
magnate as he listened.

"Say, David," he retorted mildly, "it isn't much like you to go forty
miles around when there is a short way across. Why didn't you tell me
plainly in the beginning that you wanted a place for your boy?"

"Hold on; don't let's get too far along before we get started; I'm not
saying it now," was the sober protest. "You forget that you've just been
telling me that you don't intend to comply with the one hard-and-fast
condition to such an arrangement as the one I've been pipe-dreaming
about."

"What condition?"

"That you turn over a