hance after the showing already made. I tried to say
just now that you have no right to throw away your ward's money, and you
are a fool to throw away your own. People buy stock as a gamble."

"No sense in you talkin' any mo' that way, Keith. Mebbe you sell paper
to folks who gamble on it, an' on what you tell 'em about the chances,
makin' yore story gold-colored. Folks may like to git somethin' fo' nex'
to nothin', but I won't sell 'em nothin' fo' somethin', neitheh will my
partners, neitheh will Molly Casey. She's a western gel. Above all, I
won't gold-brick my friends. I know the mine is petered out. You won't
call my play about havin' an expert examine it, which same is no bluff.
I believe in Westlake's report. We've had our share of the gold in it
an', we won't sell the dirt. No mo' w'ud Pat Casey, lyin' out there by
the spring, if he was alive."

"Suppose I refuse?" asked Keith, his square face obstinate. "I've done
nothing outside the law."

"To hell with that kind of law! We make laws of our own out here once in
a while. Justice is what we look fo', not law. We aim to trail straight.
I reckon you'll come through. Fo' one thing I expect to have yore boy
visit with us till you do."

The promoter's face twisted uglily and he lost control of himself.

"Kidnapping? A western method of justice. Not the first time you've been
mixed up in it either, from what I hear. You don't dare...."

Keith stopped abruptly. Sandy had not moved, but his eyes, from
resembling orbs of chilled steel, seemed suddenly to throw off the blaze
and heat of the molten metal.

"Fo' a promoter yo're a mighty pore judge of men," he said. "I'm warnin'
you not to ride any further along that trail. Yore son can stay here, or
we can tell the Herefo'd folk what you've tried to hand to them. Yo're
apt to look like a buzzard that's fallen into a tar barrel after they
git through with you, Keith. Trouble with you is that you've been
bullin' the market an' havin' it yore own way too long. Now you see a
b'ar on the horizon, you don't like the view.

"When we bring up stock fo' shipment we sometimes have trouble with the
longhorns. We've got a dehornin' machine fo' them. That's yore trubble,
so fur as this locality is concerned. You need dehornin'. I can find out
who you sold stock to easy enough, but I don't care to waste the time.
An' if I do there'll be more publicity about it than you'd care fo'.
Might even git back to New Yo'k. I'm givin' you t