r sip of cognac.
"She will go back to Sweeney."

He slightly shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands as if to
say: "I deprecate this for your sake, but the question is definitely
settled; I beg you, therefore, to advance no useless counter-arguments."

But Hanson ignored this unspoken request. "I'm sorry you feel that way
about it," he said, "but your daughter is of age. I guess I'll wait and
see what she has to say about this." He spoke pleasantly, almost
carelessly, no hint of a threat in his tone, at least.

Gallito looked at him from under his brows in surprise, then he laughed,
one single, menacing note. "My daughter will say what I have said."

"I'm not so sure," returned Hanson, and had some difficulty in
restraining himself from speaking violently. Then he forced the issue.

"Look here, Gallito," he cried, "what's all this about, anyway? I came
down here to the desert anxious to secure the Black Pearl as a new
attraction for my vaudeville houses. I see her and I know that she's all
to the good. So, banking on my own judgment, I make her an offer that's
more than generous, just because I've the courage of my convictions and
am willing to back my enthusiasms. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose,"
he snapped his fingers lightly, "but I'm always ready to take the
chances.

"Well--what happens? In the first place, instead of jumping at my offer,
like any sensible man would--I'm talking plain now, Gallito--you got to
drag Sweeney into the game, which, look at it any way you please,
wasn't particularly square. Pah!" scornfully, pitching his cigarette
with a single muscular sweep of the arm into the heart of the garden,
"you don't know it or you wouldn't have been talking to me like you
have, but I've got Sweeney pigeon-holed, know all his resources, and
know positively that he can't come up to my offer. I tell you what,
Gallito, it's cards on the table now, and," he tapped the table between
them with his knuckles, "I'm politely requesting you to draw your nigger
from the woodpile."

Gallito's glance was like the stab of a poignard. "But this is strange
talk." He drew back haughtily. "I do not have to make explanations. I
have my daughter's interests at heart."

"Yes, I know," interrupted Hanson, "but the black man, the black man.
Out with him."

Gallito's face had grown livid, his mouth had tightened until it was
drawn and pinched. "Have it, then," he growled. "Sweeney's straight.
Sweeney hasn't left o