im in challenge,
and Barkley retreated from this tentative position.

"Maybe you can do it," said Ellsworth, presently, "but I want to say,
if I'm any judge, you've got to be mighty careful. Besides, you've
never been out here before. We'll have to go slow."

"Why'll we have to? I tell you, we can go in and take what we want of
their blasted valley, and they can't help themselves a step in the
road."

"I don't know," demurred Ellsworth. "They're there, and in possession."

"Nonsense!" snorted Barkley. "How much title have they got? You say
yourself they've never filed a town-site plat. We can go in there and
take the town away from under their feet, and they can't help
themselves. More than that, I'll bet there's not one mining claim out
of fifty that we can't 'adverse' in the courts and take away from its
dinky locater. These fellows don't work assessments. They never
complete legal title to a claim. There never was a mine in the Rocky
Mountains that was located and proved up on without a fight, if it was
worth fighting for. Bah! we just walk in and see what we want, and
take it, that's all."

"Well," said Ellsworth, "it's the best-looking deal I've seen for a
long while, that's sure, and I don't see how it's been covered up so
long. And yet if you come to talk of law-suits, I've noticed it a
dozen times that when Eastern men have gone against these Western
propositions, they've got the worst of it. They're a funny lot, these
natives. They'll live in a shirt and overalls, without a _sou marque_
to bless 'emselves with. They'll holler for Eastern Capital, and
promise Eastern Capital the time of its life, if it'll only come; and
when Eastern Capital does come--why, then they _give_ it the time of
its life!"

"Nonsense," rejoined Barkley, walking up and down with his hands under
the tails of his coat. "We'll eat 'em up. I'm not afraid of this
thing for a minute. What I want to do now is to get in touch with that
Grayson fellow, the head engineer."

"I'm not so sure about that," commented Ellsworth, seating himself in
the sun at the edge of the gallery. "If you want to see the real head
engineer of this whole Heart's Desire situation, the man you want isn't
Grayson, but a young fellow by the name of Anderson, a lawyer up there."

"Lawyer?"

"Yes, and I shouldn't wonder if he was a pretty goodish one, too. Oh,
don't think these people are all easy, Barkley, I tell you. This isn't
my own fir