"Yes," she said simply. "I think I know all there is to know about the
position."

She hesitated again. Then she went on in a fashion that displayed the
effort her words were costing.

"We're out to buy you or break you, and I shall play the part they
assign me in the game. Oh, I've nothing to hide. I've no excuse to make.
You will fight your battle, and we shall fight ours. Maybe we shall
learn to hate each other in the course of it. I don't know. Yet there's
nothing personal in the fight. That's the queer thing in commercial
warfare, isn't it? I'd be glad for our two concerns to run right along
side by side. But they can't. They just can't. And, as I understand, one
or the other's got to go right to the wall before we're through. Can't
all this be saved? Must all this sort of--bloodshed--go on? We're two
great enterprises, and, combined, we'd be just that much greater.
Together we'd rule the whole world's markets and dictate our own terms.
And then, and then--"

"We'd be doing the thing I'm out to stop--if it costs me all I have or
am in this world."

For a moment the man's eyes forgot to smile, and Nancy was permitted to
gaze on the great, absorbing purpose his manner had hitherto held
concealed. She was startled at the passionate denial, and robbed of all
desire to reply.

"Here!" Bull set his elbows on the table and supported his chin on his
hands. "Get this. Get it good, and all the time. I wouldn't work with
the Skandinavia for all the dollars this country's presses could print.
I'm not going to hand you the reason. Some day, maybe when your folks
have smashed me, or I've smashed them, I'll tell you about it. But I
tell you this now, there's no sort of business arrangement I ever
figgered to enter into with Elas Peterman, and there's no sort of thing
in God's world ever could, or would, induce me to come to any terms of
his."

Then his manner changed again, and his passionate moment became lost in
a great laugh.

"Maybe you'll want to know why I changed my plans so easily, and came
along down in a hurry to see Peterman. Why I seemed ready to fall for
his proposition. Well, I guess I won't hand you the reason of that,
either. I'd like to, but I won't." He shook his head and his laugh had
gone again. "Anyway, it served my purpose, and Peterman knows just how
things stand--and are going to stand--between us."

"Then it's war? Ruthless, implacable--war?" There was awe in the girl's
tone and her lips were