rous men?" she
asked.

Weston laughed in a rather curious fashion, and when he spoke it was
as if he felt that an explanation of his attitude were due from him.

"No," he said, "not yet. In fact, so far we're nothing more than three
remarkably rash adventurers--little men of no account--who have set
ourselves up against the big professional company jobbers. We have won
the first round, but that was fought with nature. It's comparatively
easy to face weariness and wet and frost when one is used to it, but
to fence with the money handler is quite a different matter. To cry
our wares in the market is a thing to which we're wholly new."

He had said all that was required to make the situation reasonably
clear to a girl of her understanding. The battle was less than half
won, and it seemed that he would not claim her unless he came out
victor, which was, in some respects, as she would have it. Though she
now and then chafed at it, she loved the man's pride, and what he
could win by force she would not have him purchase with the money that
she could give him. She fancied, however, that if she chose to exert
her strength she could sweep away all the resolutions he had formed;
and she made a little of her power felt as she turned and looked at
him.

"You feel that you must fight this thing out with such weapons as you
have?" she asked. "I suppose you wouldn't allow your friends to
provide you with more efficient ones? I know I have suggested as much
already, and you would not listen, but it would make success so much
easier."

It was not remarkably explicit, but Weston, to some extent at least,
understood what she had implied, and he gazed at her with a curious
kindling in his eyes. She leaned forward in her chair, wonderfully
alluring, with a suggestive softness in her face, and he felt his
resolution deserting him. It was clear to the girl, who watched every
change of his expression, that the issue of the moment was in her
hands, and had he told her that the rest of the struggle he was
engaged in would be fought out in the snow-bound ranges where men not
infrequently died, she would have exerted all her strength. As it was,
however, and because of her pride in him, she suddenly determined that
she would let him win his spurs. Though it was beyond defining, there
was a subtle change in her manner when she leaned back in her chair.

"I think," said Weston, "the first course you mentioned is the only
one open to me."