ly.

"Yer NOT," returned Scranton. "Not if I knows it. Yer goin' to climb
down. Yer goin' to get up and get! Yer goin' to step down and out! Yer
goin' to shut up your desk and your books and this hull consarn inside
of an hour, and vamose the ranch. Arter an hour from now thar won't be
any Mr. Farendell, and no weddin' to-morrow."

"If that's your game--perhaps you'd like to murder me at once?" said
Farendell with a shifting eye, as his hand again moved towards his
revolver.

But again the thin hand of the stranger was also lifted. "We ain't in
the business o' murderin' or bein' murdered, or we might hev kem here
together, me and Duffy. Now if anything happens to me Duffy will be
left, and HE'S got the proofs."

Farendell seemed to recognize the fact with the same directness. "That's
it, is it?" he said bluntly. "Well, how much do you want? Only, I warn
you that I haven't much to give."

"Wotever you've got, if it was millions, it ain't enough to buy us up,
and ye ought to know that by this time," responded Scranton, with
a momentary flash in his eyes. But the next moment his previous
passionless deliberation returned, and leaning his arm on the desk of
the man before him he picked up a paperweight carelessly and turned it
over as he said slowly, "The fact is, Mr. Farendell, you've been making
us, me and Duffy, tired. We've bin watchin' you and your doin's, lyin'
low and sayin' nothin', till we concluded that it was about time you
handed in your checks and left the board. We ain't wanted nothin' of
ye, we ain't begrudged ye nothin', but we've allowed that this yer thing
must stop."

"And what if I refuse?" said Farendell.

"Thar'll be some cussin' and a big row from YOU, I kalkilate--and maybe
some fightin' all round," said Scranton dispassionately. "But it will be
all the same in the end. The hull thing will come out, and you'll hev
to slide just the same. T'otherwise, ef ye slide out NOW, it's without a
row."

"And do you suppose a business man like me can disappear without a fuss
over it?" said Farendell angrily. "Are you mad?"

"I reckon the hole YOU'LL make kin be filled up," said Scranton dryly.
"But ef ye go NOW, you won't be bothered by the fuss, while if you stay
you'll have to face the music, and go too!"

Farendell was silent. Possibly the truth of this had long since been
borne upon him. No one but himself knew the incessant strain of these
years of evasion and concealment, and how he often had