a. It was not his way to procrastinate; he meant to exert every force
at his command, quickly, resistlessly, to destroy Trevison, to blacken him
and damn him, in the eyes of the girl who sat beside him. But he knew that
in the girl's presence he must be wise and subtle.

"It's a great country, isn't it?" he said, his eyes on the broad reaches
of plain, green-brown in the shimmering sunlight. "Look at it--almost as
big as some of the Old-world states! It's a wonderful country. I feel like
a feudal baron, with the destinies of an important principality in the
clutch of my hand!"

"Yes; it must give one a feeling of great responsibility to know that one
has an important part in the development of a section like this."

He laughed, deep in his throat, at the awe in her voice. "I ought to have
seen its possibilities years ago--I should have been out here, preparing
for this. But when I bought the land I had no idea it would one day be so
valuable."

"Bought it?"

"A hundred thousand acres of it. I got it very cheap." He told her about
the Midland grant and his purchase from Marchmont.

"I never heard of that before!" she told him.

"It wasn't generally known. In fact, it was apparently generally
considered that the land had been sold by the Midland Company to various
people--in small parcels. Unscrupulous agents engineered the sales, I
suppose. But the fact is that I made the purchase from the Midland Company
years ago--largely as a personal favor to Jim Marchmont, who needed money
badly. And a great many of the ranch-owners around here really have no
title to their land, and will have to give it up."

She breathed deeply. "That will be a great disappointment to them, now
that there exists the probability of a great advance in the value of the
land."

"That was the owners' lookout. A purchaser should see that his deed is
clear before closing a deal."

"What owners will be affected?" She spoke with a slight breathlessness.

"Many." He named some of them, leaving Trevison to the last, and then
watching her furtively out of the corners of his eyes and noting, with
straightened lips, the quick gasp she gave. She said nothing; she was
thinking of the great light that had been in Trevison's eyes on the day he
had told her of his ten years of exile; she could remember his words, they
had been vivid fixtures in her mind ever since: "I own five thousand
acres, and about a thousand acres of it is the best coal land in the