tively as a bullet.

Wallie heard his step and asked plaintively but without turning:

"What'll I do with him?"

"As you are, until I pull his fangs."

Pinkey threw the shells from Boise Bill's rifle and removed the
cartridges from his six-shooter. Handing the latter back to him he said
laconically:

"Drift! And don't you take the beef-herd gait, neither."

The malevolent look Boise Bill sent over his shoulder was wasted on
Wallie who was picking out of the ashes and dusting the ham for which he
had stood ready to shed his blood.

CHAPTER VIII

NEIGHBOURS

The modest herring had been the foundation of the great Canby fortune.
Small and unpretentious, the herring had swum in the icy waters of the
Maine coast until transformed into a French sardine by Canby, Sr. It had
brought wealth and renown to the shrewd old Yankee, who was alleged to
have smelled of herring even in his coffin, but the Canby family were
not given to boasting of the source of their income to strangers, and by
the time Canby, Jr., was graduated from Harvard they were fairly well
deodorized.

In the East many things had conspired to make the young Canby the
misanthrope and recluse he had come to be in Wyoming, where he was fully
aided and abetted in his desire for seclusion by his neighbours, who
disliked him so thoroughly that they went out of their way to avoid
speaking to him.

Having been graduated without distinction, he concentrated his efforts
upon an attempt to become one of a New England coterie that politely but
firmly refused to do more than admit his existence.

In pursuance of his ambition he built a castle-like residence and
specialized in orchids and roses, purchased a yacht, became an exhibitor
at the Horse Show. Society praised his roses, but their admiration did
not extend to Canby; he went on solitary cruises, in his floating palace
and the Horse Show, which had proved an open sesame to others, in his
case was a failure.

Finally he married a girl who had the _entree_ to the circle he coveted,
but his wife received invitations which did not include her husband. The
divorce court ended the arrangement, and Canby had the privilege of
paying a king's ransom in alimony into one of Boston's first families.

Petty, unscrupulous, overbearing, Canby never attributed his failure to
the proper cause, which was his unpleasant personality, but regarded it
as a conspiracy on the part of Society to defeat him in his ambitio