."

Sheila was not accustomed to hear a man blow his own horn so frankly.
The best men of her acquaintance--her father, Casey Dunne, Tom McHale,
and others--seldom talked of themselves, never bragged, never mentioned
their proficiency in anything. She had been brought up to regard a
boaster and a bluff as synonymous. To her an egotist was also a bluff.
His bad taste repelled her. And yet he did not seem to stress the
announcement.

"A first-class man should not waste his time," she observed, but to
save her life she could not keep her tone free from sarcasm. He took up
her meaning with extraordinary quickness.

"You think I might have let somebody else say that? Pshaw! I'm not
mock-modest. I _am_ a good man, and I'm paid accordingly. I want you
to know it. I don't want you to take me for a poor devil of a line
runner."

"What on earth does it matter what I take you for?" said Sheila. "I
don't care whether you have a hundred or a thousand a month. What
difference does it make to me?"

"None--but it makes a whole lot to me," said Farwell. "I'm interested
in my profession. I want to get to the top of it. I'm halfway up, and
time counts. And then to be sent down here on this rotten job! Pah! it
makes me sick."

"I'm glad to hear you admit that it's rotten," said Sheila. "It's
outrageous--a straight steal."

He stared at her a moment, laughed, and shook his head.

"You don't understand me. It's rotten from my standpoint--too trivial
to waste time on."

"It's rotten from our standpoint. Can't you get away from your supreme
self for a moment? Can't you appreciate what it means to us?"

"I know exactly what it means, but I can't help it. You know--but you
can't help it. What are you going to do, anyway?"

"I don't know," she admitted, thinking of her conversation with Casey
Dunne.

"You're sure you don't? We heard rumours--I may as well tell you--that
the ranchers were prepared to make trouble for us."

"Then you've heard more than I have."

He eyed her a moment in silence. She returned his glance unwaveringly.

"I'm glad to know it," he said at length. "I don't want a row. Now, you
people here--on this ranch--why don't you sell and get out?"

She thought it brutally put. "In the first place, we don't want to sell
out. And in the next place who would buy?"

"That's so," he said. "I guess you wouldn't find many buyers. Still, if
you got the chance----"

Whatever he was about to say was lost in a clamour o