st trip out here."

"What about this lawyer of yours?"

"Well, he's a young man that I knew something about before he went
West. He knows every foot of the ground up there, and every man that
lives there, and I want to tell you, he's got the whole situation by
the ear. That gang will do pretty hear what he tells them to do. He's
got nerve, too. He's the most influential man in that town."

"Oh, ho! Well, that's different. I'm always right after the man who's
got the goods in his pocket. We'll trade with Mr. Anderson mighty
quick, if he can deliver the goods. What does he hold out for? What
does he want?"

"Well, I don't know. He talked to me rather stiff, up there, and we
didn't hitch very well. He sort of drifted off, and I didn't see him
at all the day I left, when I'd laid out to talk to him. He's the
fellow that put me on to this deal, too. It was through him I got word
there was coal in that valley."

"How would it do to charter him for our local counsel? Is he strong
enough man for that?"

"Strong enough! I'm only afraid he's _too_ strong."

"Well, now, let's not take everything for granted, you know. Let's go
at this thing a little at a time. There's got to be a system of courts
established in here, and we've got to know our judiciary, as a matter
of course. Then we've got to know our own lawyers, as another matter
of course. Did you say you knew him before, that is, to get a line on
him, before he came out here?"

Ellsworth colored just a trifle. "Well, yes," he admitted. "He's a
Princeton man. He comes of good family--maybe a little wild and
headstrong--wouldn't settle down, you know. Why, I offered him a place
in my office once, and he--well, he refused it. He started out West
some five years ago. Of course--well, you know, in a good many cases
of this sort, there's a girl at the bottom of the Western emigration."

"What girl?" asked Porter Barkley, sharply.

"One back East somewhere," said Ellsworth, evasively.

Porter Barkley came and seated himself beside the older man, leaning
forward, his elbows resting on his knees, meditatively crumbling a bit
of bark in his hands.

"I was just going to say, Mr. Ellsworth," said he, "that a girl in a
case like this--always provided that this man is as influential as you
think--may be a mighty useful thing. Maybe you couldn't buy the man
for himself, but you could buy him for the girl. Do you see?"

Ellsworth did not answer.