u; and
they'll follow mighty quick when the railroad comes, as you know very
well."

"My friend Tom Osby used those very words this morning, when he heard
the whistle of your esteemed railroad train."

"Precisely," Ellsworth went on. "We'll give you a town to live in.
We'll give you professional work to do."

"So you'll build me a town, in order to get me work? That's very nice
of you, indeed."

"Now, there you go with your infernal priggishness," protested
Ellsworth, testily. "Have we asked you to do anything but straight
business?"

"Exactly," said Barkley.

They were playing now with Dan Anderson's heartstrings, but his face
did not show it. They were putting him in the balance against Heart's
Desire, but his speech offered no evidence of it. They were making
Constance Ellsworth the price of Heart's Desire, but Dan Anderson did
not divulge it, as he sat and looked at them.

"Gentlemen," said he, at length, "I am a lawyer, the best one in
Heart's Desire. The law here is complex in practice. The titles are
very much involved. Between Chitty on Pleading and the land grants of
the Spanish crown, the law may be a very slow and deliberate matter in
this country. Now, I understand the practice. I speak the language--I
don't need an interpreter--so that I am probably as good as any lawyer
you can secure at this time. In straight matters of business I am open
for employment."

"Now you are beginning to talk," said Barkley. "And just to get right
_down_ to business, and show you we're not all talk, I want to give
you a little retainer fee. I'm sorry it isn't larger, but it'll grow,
I hope." He drew a goodly wallet from his breast pocket, and counted
out ten one-hundred-dollar bills, which he threw down carelessly on the
pine needles in front of Dan Anderson. "Is that satisfactory?" he
asked.

"Yes," said the latter; but he did not take up the money.

"Oh, there'll be more," suggested Mr. Ellsworth. "This business ought
to net you between five and ten thousand dollars this year. It might
mean more than that if we got into town without a fight."

"That would be about the only way you would get in at all," and Dan
Anderson smiled incomprehensibly.

"Exactly! And now, since you are our counsel--" Barkley spoke with an
increased firmness--"we want to know your idea on the right-of-way
question. What's the nature of the titles in that town, anyhow?"

"As near as I can tell," replied Dan Anderson,