you prove it! It'll either be put up or shut up with
you, mister!"

"Whenever you're ready," invited Slavens.

With somewhat more of ostentation than the simple act seemed to warrant,
Boyle unbuttoned his coat, displaying his revolver as he made an
exploration of his vest-pockets for a match to light his cigarette.

"Well, I guess you know what I'm here for?" Boyle suggested, passing his
glance significantly from one to the other of them.

"Dr. Slavens is acquainted with your proposal," said Agnes; "and it
ought to be needless for me to say that I'll not permit him to make any
concession to shield myself."

"Fine! fine!" said Boyle in mock applause, throwing his head back and
snorting smoke.

"In the first place," said Slavens, "your bluff don't go. Miss Gates has
not broken any law in registering and entering this land under an
_alias_. There's no crime in assuming a name, and no felony in acquiring
property under it, unless fraud is used. She has defrauded nobody, and
you could not make a case against her in a thousand years!"

"I can get an indictment--that's a cinch!" declared Boyle.

"Go ahead," said the doctor. "We've got some new blood in this country
now, and we can find a jury that you don't own and control when it comes
to trial."

"And after the indictment comes arrest and jail," Boyle continued,
overlooking the doctor's argument in the lofty security of his position.
"It would make a lot of noisy talk, considering the family reputation
and all that."

"And the outcome of it might be--and I doubt even that--that Miss Gates
would lose her homestead," Slavens supplied.

"You don't know the Federal judge in this district," Boyle grinned.
"Jail's what it means, and plenty of it, for the judge has to approve a
bond, if you know what that means."

"Why don't you pay Dr. Slavens for his homestead, as you were ready to
pay that man Peterson if you could have filed him on it?" Agnes asked.

"Because it's mine already," said Boyle. "This man stole the description
of that land, as I have told you before, at the point of a gun."

"Then you lied!" Slavens calmly charged.

Boyle hitched his hip, throwing the handle of his pistol into sight.

"You can say that," said he, "because I've got to have your name on a
paper."

"I'll never permit Dr. Slavens to sign away his valuable claim to you,"
declared Agnes. "I'll not allow----"

Slavens lifted his hand for silence.

"I'll do the talking for this fami