'll go broke and they'll bounce you out into Main Street!" He
chuckled in his chair.

"The line forms on the left," the imperturbable Hardy said. "You're the
fifth that's had that hope this year. I don't care a rap what you think,
old feller! Remember that!"

A shadow appeared on the doorsill; and Morgan Pell came in. His face was
harder than ever. It was obvious that he had not thrown away the bottle of
tequila until he had consumed the contents. His eye lit on Hardy at once,
but he said nothing to him. Instead, he meandered toward Gilbert and
observed, insolently enough:

"Look here, you've kept me waiting too long. What does this mean, eh?"

"I'm sorry," Gilbert returned. "I forgot all about you for the moment. Oh,"
he suddenly remembered that Hardy and Pell were unacquainted, "you two
gentlemen ought to know each other. Mr. Pell, shake hands with Mr. Hardy."

Pell gave the other a curt nod. "How are you?" was all he could bring
himself to say.

"Pleased to meet you," answered Hardy, and turned away, "Red" and Angela,
interested spectators of this foolish proceeding, sat together on the
little settee by the window near the door, and smiled at the
shillyshallying of two grown men who should have known better.
Civilization! A mockery, surely, when two men couldn't be amenable in the
presence of others--two men who apparently had no reason for treating each
other this way.

Pell suddenly addressed Jones. "I forgot to tell you that we're going this
afternoon."

"I'm sorry," said his host.

"And before I go," Pell went on, "there's a matter of business I want to
talk over with you. So if this gentleman is through--" he indicated Hardy
with his thumb.

"Oh, I'll be through, all right--at eight o'clock to-night!" Jasper Hardy
announced, and drew several silver dollars out of his trousers pocket and
rattled them about in his hand, significantly.

"What do you mean, eight o'clock?" Pell wondered.

Hardy's eyes pierced him through and through. "When I foreclose the
mortgage I hold on this ranch. Understand now?"

"When you foreclose...." Pell repeated the words as if he had not quite
comprehended. Then he said to young Jones: "You said this ranch belongs to
you?" What was the matter with him? Was his mind clouding? The stuff he had
drunk? He put his hand to his forehead.

"It does," Gilbert explained. "You see, it isn't eight o'clock yet." A
faint smile came to his lips.

Hardy failed to see the humor of the