a little while ago, I thought he was straight. And I always
thought old French was a gentleman."

"So he is."

"Not if he is a crook."

"Nonsense!" the judge returned. "Gentlemen have been pirates, outlaws
and highwaymen. A gentleman may be a blackguard, just as a well-bred dog
may be a sheep-killer, or run wild with wolves. It's one word, not two.
It's a name for a breed, not a descriptive term for qualities such as
honesty, courtesy or the like."

"If a man has those qualities, isn't he a gentleman?"

"No," said the judge, "though he may be something a good deal better.
I'm as democratic as they make 'em, but it is an undoubted fact that
there are strains of men, just as there are strains of animals.
Considered as a strain of mankind, a gentleman is a gentleman, no matter
how big a rascal he is. The Frenches are all gentlemen--that is, all but
Blake."

"Why not Blake, if it is a breed?"

"God knows," the judge replied. "Blake is a full brother to the rest,
but he's not the same breed. He's a throwback to something that crept in
somehow, maybe a century or so ago, when nobody was looking. He has the
body, but not the heart. He is a cur, while the rest are--wolves." He
drummed on his blotter. "In confidence, Angus, I am going to tell you
one or two things: The first is that the Frenches have little or no
money left. They have been going down hill steadily for years. This
horse racing and gambling is not amusement, but their living. Their
ranch is mortgaged for all it will stand, and more. So you see, it's not
likely French could repay the girl, even if we proved he cheated Winton.

"And now for Braden:" He paused for a moment, and his bushy brows drew
down. "If there is one thing I despise," he said with emphasis, "it is a
hypocrite. More repulsive to me than even sordid crime is hypocrisy,
snivelling righteousness, a lip-and-broadcloth service of the Almighty,
the broad phylacteries of the Pharisee. All my life I have hated such
things. And Braden, mark you, is a hypocrite. Outwardly, he is full of
good works. Your father was deceived in him, and I told him so when he
would have made Braden his executor, but I had merely my own opinion.

"Well, when your father died, Braden conceived an ingenious plan to get
hold of the ranch, knowing that it would increase in value very much,
eventually. The first step was to get you children off it, to put
somebody else on, to allow the rent to get into arrears, to let the