ht, but Sylvane and Merrifield rode to Medora taking
a neighboring cowboy named Pete Marlow along as witness, "for the
Marquis is a hard man to deal with," remarked Merrifield. To Pete it
was all the gayest sort of adventure. He confided the object of the
nocturnal expedition to the first man he came upon.

The Marquis was not at his home. The boys were told that he might
still be at his office, though the time was nearing midnight.

Meanwhile Pete's news had spread. From the base of Graveyard Butte,
Jake Hainsley, the superintendent of the coal mine, who dearly loved a
fight, came running with a rifle in his hand. "I've got forty men
myself," he cried, "and I've Winchesters for every mother's son of
'em, and if you need help you just let me know and we'll back you all
right, we will."

The Marquis was in his office in Medora next to the new Company store,
working with Van Driesche, his valet and secretary. He asked what the
three men wanted of him at that hour in the night. Merrifield
explained the situation.

They told him: "We want you to write an order to move those cattle at
daylight."

"If I refuse?"

Sylvane and Merrifield had thoroughly discussed the question what they
would do in case the Marquis refused. They would take tin pans and
stampede the herd. They were under no illusions concerning the
probabilities in case they took that means of ridding themselves of
the unwelcome herd. There would be shooting, of course.

"Why, Marquis," said Merrifield, "if Matthews don't move those cattle,
I guess there's nothing to it but what we'll have to move them
ourselves."

The Marquis had not lived a year in the Bad Lands without learning
something. In a more conciliatory mood he endeavored to find ground
for a compromise. But "the boys" were not inclined to compromise with
a man who was patently in the wrong. Finally, the Marquis offered them
fifteen hundred dollars on the condition that they would allow him to
use the piece of bottom-land for three weeks.

It was on its face a munificent offer; but Merrifield and Sylvane knew
that the Marquis's "three weeks" might not terminate after twenty-one
days. They knew something else. "After we had made our statement,"
Merrifield explained later, "no matter how much he had offered us we
would not have accepted it. We knew there'd be no living with a man
like the Marquis if you made statements and then backed down for any
price."

_Never draw your gun_, ran a saying