t would be all right if it weren't for that last
clause. Didn't you read it? 'Prompt settlement on due dates to be the
essence of the agreement.' Couldn't you see that the property reverts
to Dalton immediately you fail to make any one payment on the dates
agreed?"

Jim laughed in a woe-begone way.

"Ay!--Dalton put one over on me that time, all right. But it's the
very last. Can't stand for this happening again. It hurts, right on my
professional dignity. Won't he have the haw-haw on me?

"Ah, well! What's done can't be undone. 'My deed's upon my head.'"

"Gosh, but he's a rotter," growled Phil. "Put a thing like that over
on a drunken man!"

"Hush! Not drunk, Phil;--call it indisposed! You know I am an aesthete
on these matters.

"But wasn't it some bait though, Phil?"

"Oh, great stuff all right! The ranch must be worth six or seven
thousand dollars. But a fat chance you had of ever getting it. Why, he
had you every way you turned. All you did was to give him a present
of nine horses worth five hundred dollars."

"He'll never get his spuds back, that's one blessing."

"Go to it;--be philosophic! Lovely consolation that! A ton and a half
of potatoes for five hundred bucks!"

"That's right, Shadow, dearie,--rub it in."

Phil did not answer, but sat on Jim's bed and looked at the carpet in
evident disgust.

After a few minutes of silence, Jim grunted, then he began to laugh.

"You seem to be quite pleased with your performance," commented Phil
sarcastically.

"Man,--I was just thinkin' what a grand thing it would be if only I
could make these payments."

"A fine chance you have--about fifty dollars in the wide world and
five days left in which to make two thousand. Nobody in this town will
lend you a red cent. They are all too anxious putting their money in a
hole in the ground themselves. Of course, you might write forty dime
novels at fifty dollars apiece and make it that way:--that means just
eight a day for five days."

Phil got up and clapped Jim on the shoulder. "Guess you'd best forget
it, old boy! Let the tail follow the dog."

"But you must admit, Phil, that the weak spot in this deal of
Rattlesnake's, after all, is right on the question of my ability to
raise the dough."

"Yes!--I admit it--but the real weak point is one he never reckoned
on."

"And what's that, pray?"

"He knew you had just gone on one of your crazy bouts. The law of
averages informed him that you would get back to