when you cross the imaginary line I spoke of, you are
trespassing, and no jury will convict a man who shoots a trespasser
after he has been fully warned, as we warn you."

"Well, Mr. Dean, I admit that you have right on your side, even if there
is not much wisdom at the back of it. There is just one more thing I
should like to know. Why do you treat me as an enemy?"

"As a possible enemy," corrected Dean.

"As a possible enemy, then?"

"Because we don't like your actions, and we don't think much of you.
You're a city man, and we don't trust any such."

"But Mr. Banks, who gave me the letter to your chief, is not only a city
man, but a lawyer. He has been here, and spoke highly of his reception."

"That was before the mine was opened, and as for being a lawyer, we hate
'em, of course, but they're like rattlesnakes. In some seasons of the
year they are harmless. The opening of the silver mine opened the
rattlesnake season, and that's why this lawyer snake in Bleachers is
trying to cheat Armstrong out of his ranch. He came over here with a
mining engineer and learnt the whole value of the ground. How do we know
you're not a mining engineer?"

"I regret to say I'm nothing so useful."

"And didn't you send Miss Armstrong into Bleachers to see that villain
Ricketts? What connection have you with him?"

"None at all, Mr. Dean. I never saw Ricketts in my life, and never heard
of him before the day you mistook me for the sheriff."

Dean glanced at his companions, who had taken no part in the colloquy,
but who listened with an interest at once critical and suspicious. It
was evident that their distrust could not be dissipated, or even
mitigated, by strenuous talk, and for a moment Stranleigh was tempted to
tell them that he had lent three thousand dollars to Miss Armstrong, in
the hope that this money, added to her own, would gain some sort of
concession from the obdurate lawyer. But he remembered that the girl was
in constant communication with these men, and if she had not already
informed them of his futile assistance, it was because she did not want
them to know.

Dean pondered for a few moments before he spoke. He seemed to have
gathered in the purport of his men's thoughts without the necessity for
words. At last he said:

"May I take it you agree hereafter to attend to your own business?"

Stranleigh laughed.

"There would be no use in my making that promise, for I have never in my
life attended to my own