ar the encomiums of Ten-Gallon fell without savor.

"I heard in Meander today that you'd sold out to Boyle," said
Ten-Gallon.

"Well, you got it straight," the doctor told him.

Ten-Gallon slued in his saddle, slouching over confidentially.

"Say, it ain't any of my business, maybe, but how much did you git out
of this pile of rocks?"

"It isn't any of your business, but I'll tell you. I got more out of it
than this whole blasted country's worth!" Slavens replied.

Ten-Gallon chuckled--a deep, fat, well-contented little laugh.

"Pardner," said he admiringly, "you certainly are one smart guy!"

Ten-Gallon rode on in his quest of Boyle, while Slavens sat again beside
his fire, which he allowed to burn down to coals.

Slavens could not share the fellow's jubilation over the transfer of
the homestead to Boyle, for he had surrendered it on Boyle's own
terms--the terms proposed to Agnes at the beginning. As he filled
his big, comforting pipe and smoked, Slavens wondered what she would
say concerning his failure to return to her before signing the
relinquishment. There would be some scolding, perhaps some tears,
but he felt that he was steering the boat, and the return merely to
keep his word inviolate would have been useless.

He reviewed the crowded events of the past two days; his arrival at
Meander, his talk with the county attorney. While that official appeared
to be outwardly honest, he was inwardly a coward, trembling for his
office. He was candid in his expression that Boyle would make a case
against Agnes if he wanted it made, for there was enough to base an
action upon and make a public showing.

When it came to guarding that part of the people's heritage grandiloquently
described as "the public domain," the Boyles were not always at the front,
to be sure. They had entered hundreds of men on the public lands, paid
them a few dollars for their relinquishment, and in that way come into
illegal ownership of hundreds of thousands of acres of grazing land. But
all the big fish of the Northwest did it, said the county attorney; you
couldn't draw a Federal grand jury that would find a true bill in such a
case against a big landowner, for the men in shadow always were drawn on
the juries.

Of course, when one of them turned against somebody else that would be
different. In the case of the person whose entry of lands was covered by
the doctor's hypothetical statement, and whose name was not mentioned
between the