is ranch on a sound business basis. Not like many of
those about me. In short, I am here to make money. And why not? I own
the land."

The last was said as though in argument. Tresler could not help being
struck by the manner in which he alluded to the making of money. There
was an air of the miser about him when he spoke of it, a hardness
about the mouth which the close-trimmed beard made no pretense of
concealing. And there was a world of arrogance in the way he said, "I
own the land." However, he was given no time for further observation,
for Marbolt seemed to realize his own digression and came back
abruptly to the object of his discourse.

"Then this spectre, Red Mask, comes along. He moves with the mystery
of the Wandering Jew, and, like that imaginary person, scourges the
country wherever he goes, only in a different manner. Anton had been
with me three years when this raider appeared. Since then there have
been no less than twenty-eight robberies, accompanied more or less by
manslaughter." He became more animated and leaned forward in his
chair, pointing the ruler he still held in his hand at Tresler as he
named the figures. His red eyes seemed to stare harder and his heavy
brows to knit more closely across his forehead. "Yes," he reiterated,
"twenty-eight robberies. And I, with others, have estimated the number
and value of stock that has been lost to this scoundrel. In round
figures five thousand head of cattle, one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars, whisked away, spirited out of this district alone in the
course of a few years. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars; one
hundred and fifty thousand," he mouthed the words as though he
delighted in the sound of so large a sum of money. Then his whole
manner changed. A fiend could not have looked more vicious. "And in
all I have lost five hundred beeves to him. Five hundred," he cried,
his voice high-pitched in his anger, "fifteen thousand dollars,
besides horses, and--and some of my men wounded, even killed."

Again he ceased speaking, and relapsed into a brooding attitude. And
the two men watched him. His personality fascinated Tresler. He even
began to understand something of the general fear he inspired. He
thought of Jake who had been so many years with him, and he thought he
understood something of the condition he must inspire in any one of no
great moral strength who remained with him long. Then he thought of
Diane, and moved uneasily. He remembered J