ooked obliquely at Duncan, drawling
significantly--"force?"

"I have tried everything, I told you."

Duncan gazed at Langford with a new interest. It was the first time since
the new owner had come to the Double R that he had dropped the mask of
sleek smoothness behind which he concealed his passions. Even now the
significance was more in his voice than in his words, and Duncan began to
comprehend that Langford was deeper than he had thought.

"I'm glad to see that you appreciate the situation," he said, smiling
craftily. "Some men are mighty careful not to do anything to hurt anybody
else."

Langford favored Duncan with a steady gaze, which the latter returned, and
both smiled.

"Business," presently said Langford with a quiet significance which was
not lost on Duncan, "good business, demands the application of certain
methods which are not always agreeable to the opposition." He took another
sly glance at Duncan. "There ought to be a good many ways of making it
plain to Doubler that he isn't wanted in this section of the country," he
insinuated.

"I've tried to make some of the ways plain," said Duncan with a cold grin.
"I got to the end of my string and hadn't any more things to try. That's
why I decided to sell. I wanted to get away where I wouldn't be bothered.
But I reckon that you'll be able to fix up something for him."

During the two weeks that Langford had been at the Double R Duncan had
studied him from many angles and this exchange of talk had convinced him
that he had not erred in his estimate of the new owner's character. As he
had hinted to Langford, he had tried many plans to rid the country of the
nester, and he remembered a time when Doubler had seen through one of his
schemes to fasten the crime of rustling on him and had called him to
account, and the recollection of what had happened at the interview
between them was not pleasant. He had not bothered Doubler since that
time, though there had lingered in his heart a desire for revenge. Many
times, on some pretext or other, he had tried to induce his men to clash
with Doubler, but without success. It had appeared to him that his men
suspected his motives and deliberately avoided the nester.

With a secret satisfaction he had watched Langford's face this morning
when he had told him that Doubler had long been suspected of rustling;
that the men of the Double R had never been able to catch him in the act,
but that the number of cattle missing