o grow greater.
Little could be expected, judging by the experiences of the past few
days, from those who suffered most. The day of extremest pressure in
their poor affairs was being hastened by the cattlemen, as Chadron's
threat had foretold. Would they when the time came to fight do so, or
harness their lean teams and drive on into the west? That was the big
question upon which the success or the failure of his work depended.

As he had come down from the hillside out of the sunshine and peace to
meet shadow and violence, so his high spirits, hopes, and intentions
seemed this bitter hour steeped in sudden gloom. In more ways than one
that evening on the white river road, Alan Macdonald felt that he was
afoot and alone.

CHAPTER IX

BUSINESS, NOT COMPANY

Saul Chadron was at breakfast next morning when Maggie the cook
appeared in the dining-room and announced a visitor for the senor
boss. Maggie's eyes were bulging, and she did a great deal of
pantomime with her shapely shoulders to express her combined fright,
disgust, and indignation.

Chadron looked up from his ham and eggs, with a considerable portion
of the eggs on the blade of his knife, handle-down in one fist, his
fork standing like a lightning rod in the other, and asked her who the
man was and what he wanted at that hour of the day. Chadron was eating
by lamplight, and alone, according to his thrifty custom of slipping
up on the day before it was awake, as if in the hope of surprising it
at a vast disadvantage to itself, after his way of handling men and
things.

"_Es un extranjero_," replied Maggie, forgetting her English in her
excitement.

"Talk white man, you old sow!" Chadron growled.

"He ees a es-trenger, I do not knowed to heem."

"Tell him to go to the barn and wait, I'll be out there in a minute."

"He will not a-goed. I told to heem--whee!" Maggie clamped her hands
to her back as if somebody had caught her in a ticklish spot, as she
squealed, and jumped into the room where the grand duke of the
cattlemen's nobility was taking his refreshment.

Chadron had returned to his meal after ordering her to send his
visitor to the barn. He was swabbing his knife in the fold of a
pancake when Maggie made that frightful, shivering exclamation and
jumped aside out of the door. Now he looked up to reprove her, and met
the smoky eyes of Mark Thorn peering in from the kitchen.

"What're you doin' around here, you old--come in--shut that doo