ts inspiration in the least. For Mr. Boutts
was too sharp for the law, and all his sins were forgiven him on account
of his genuine devotion to Rosewater. Far from battening on her, after
the fashion of the San Francisco cormorant, he had never taken a dollar
out of her that he had not returned a hundred-fold, and he was the
author of much of her wealth.

This gentleman was the first to indicate that they had not driven out
to Lumalitas to discuss the weather and the scenery.

"Best come to business," he said, abruptly. "Judge, will you do the
talking?"

But Judge Leslie, who was a modest man, waved his hand deprecatingly.
"The idea is yours, sir, and yours is the right to state the case."

The host hastily poured whiskey-and-soda lest he should look haughtily
expectant.

"It's just this, Mr. Gwynne," began Boutts, in his suave even tones. "We
have seen your ads. We know that you contemplate selling off a good part
of your ranch--Well, there was a buzz round town when those ads were
read, and I was not long passing the word that there would be a
mass-meeting that night in Armory Hall. That's where we thresh things
out, and in this case there was no time to lose. We had a pretty full
meeting. Judge Leslie took the chair, and I opened with some of the most
pointed remarks I ever made. I was followed with more unanimity than
usually falls to my lot. The upshot was that resolutions were passed
before nine o'clock, and a committee of four was appointed to wait upon
you to-day--and endeavor to win you to our point of view," he continued,
suddenly lame, for by this time Gwynne, forgetting Isabel and his good
resolutions, was staring at the common little man with all the arrogance
of his nature in arms, and the color rising in his cheeks. Mr. Boutts's
hands gripped his knees as if for anchorage, and he proceeded, firmly:
"No offence, sir, I assure you. This is a free country. The man who
tells another man what he'd orter do should be called down good and
hard. Nothing could be further from our intention. The meeting was
called only in the cause of what you might call both self-defence and
patriotic local sentiment, although it's a sentiment that's local to
about two-thirds of California--only we do more acting and less talking
than most. It's now some weeks since we adopted resolutions in a still
bigger mass-meeting and got the best part of the county to subscribe to
them; on the ground that an ounce of prevention and so f