I want you to
know. In the first place, my niece, Miss Burnaby, is going to marry
this man Dunne. And, in the second place, I'm now running this
irrigation company and the railway that owns it, and so far as any
prosecutions are concerned I won't have anything to do with them. Does
that make any difference to you?"

"Some," said the sheriff. "It lets young McCrae out, I reckon."

"How about McHale?"

"That's a killin'. You got nothin' to do with that. Anyway, he's got a
good defence."

"I'll sign his bail bond to any amount."

"I reckon there won't be no trouble about that," said the sheriff. "I
know a man when I see him. McHale's all right. You won't find me makin'
things hard for anybody around here, Mr. Hess."

In half an hour Casey rode up, bringing with him a man of medicine in
the person of Doctor Billy Swift. And Billy Swift, whose chronic
grievance was that Coldstream was altogether too healthy for a
physician to live in, greeted his patients with enthusiasm and got busy
at once.

Hess, strolling up from a confidential talk with Sheriff Dove, ran into
Clyde and Casey snugly ensconced in a corner of the veranda, where
thick hop vines shaded them from the public gaze.

"Excuse _me_!" said Hess, with little originality, but much
embarrassment.

"Not at all," Casey replied, under the impression that he was carrying
off matters very nonchalantly. Clyde laughed at both of them.

"We don't mind you, Uncle Jim, do we, Casey?"

"Look here," said Hess, "if this is the young man who has been raisin'
Cain around here, and destroying my property before I owned it, suppose
you introduce me?"

The two men shook hands, gripping hard, measuring each other with their
eyes. And Clyde was tactful enough to leave them to develop their
acquaintance alone.

"I want to thank you for your wire to Clyde," said Casey. "You can
guess what it meant to all of us here."

"I've a fair notion," said Hess. "Of course, I only know what Clyde has
told me, but I can see that you people have been up against a hard
proposition. After this I hope you won't have much to kick at. We won't
take advantage of that clause in the old railway charter--at least not
enough to interfere with men who are actually using water now. But I
want you to be satisfied with enough to irrigate, used economically."

"That's all we ever wanted."

"I'm glad to hear it. Now I've fixed up this matter of young McCrae's.
That's settled. No more trouble abou