"If you keep spoutin' it around that I ever slugged you, I'll pull you into court and make you prove it! It'll either be put up or shut up with you, mister!"

"Whenever you're ready," invited Slavens.

With somewhat more of ostentation than the simple act seemed to warrant, Boyle unb.u.t.toned his coat, displaying his revolver as he made an exploration of his vest-pockets for a match to light his cigarette.

"Well, I guess you know what I'm here for?" Boyle suggested, pa.s.sing his glance significantly from one to the other of them.

"Dr. Slavens is acquainted with your proposal," said Agnes; "and it ought to be needless for me to say that I'll not permit him to make any concession to shield myself."

"Fine! fine!" said Boyle in mock applause, throwing his head back and snorting smoke.

"In the first place," said Slavens, "your bluff don't go. Miss Gates has not broken any law in registering and entering this land under an _alias_. There's no crime in a.s.suming a name, and no felony in acquiring property under it, unless fraud is used. She has defrauded n.o.body, and you could not make a case against her in a thousand years!"

"I can get an indictment--that's a cinch!" declared Boyle.

"Go ahead," said the doctor. "We've got some new blood in this country now, and we can find a jury that you don't own and control when it comes to trial."

"And after the indictment comes arrest and jail," Boyle continued, overlooking the doctor's argument in the lofty security of his position.

"It would make a lot of noisy talk, considering the family reputation and all that."

"And the outcome of it might be--and I doubt even that--that Miss Gates would lose her homestead," Slavens supplied.

"You don't know the Federal judge in this district," Boyle grinned.

"Jail's what it means, and plenty of it, for the judge has to approve a bond, if you know what that means."

"Why don't you pay Dr. Slavens for his homestead, as you were ready to pay that man Peterson if you could have filed him on it?" Agnes asked.

"Because it's mine already," said Boyle. "This man stole the description of that land, as I have told you before, at the point of a gun."

"Then you lied!" Slavens calmly charged.

Boyle hitched his hip, throwing the handle of his pistol into sight.

"You can say that," said he, "because I've got to have your name on a paper."

"I'll never permit Dr. Slavens to sign away his valuable claim to you,"

declared Agnes. "I'll not allow----"

Slavens lifted his hand for silence.

"I'll do the talking for this family from now on," said he, smiling rea.s.suringly as he held her eyes a moment with his own.

He turned abruptly to Boyle.

"And the fighting, too, when necessary. You keep that little gun in its place when you're around me, young man, or you'll get hurt! One more break like that to show me that you've got it, and you and I will mix.

Just put that down in your book."

"Oh, all right, pardner!" returned Boyle with that jerky insolence which men of his kind a.s.sume when they realize that they have been called, and called hard. He b.u.t.toned his coat.

"And as far as Miss Gates is concerned, consider her out of this case,"

said Slavens. "But I want to have some private talk with you."

They walked over to the place where Boyle's horse stood, and there, out of the hearing of Agnes, Slavens sounded Jerry sharply on his intentions. It was plain that there was no bluff in Boyle; he meant what he threatened, and he was small enough to carry it through.

As an ill.u.s.tration of his far-reaching influence, Boyle pointed out to Slavens that n.o.body had approached the physician with an offer to buy him out, although one had appeared anxious enough to open negotiations the day he filed.

"When we tell a man to lay down in this part of the country, he lays down," said Boyle; "and when we order him to walk on his hind legs, he walks. n.o.body will offer you any money for that place; it isn't worth anything to a soul on earth but me. You couldn't sell out in a century.

You'll get that through your nut if you hang around here long enough."

For a little while Slavens thought it over, walking away a few paces and appraising the situation studiously. Suddenly he wheeled and confronted Boyle, leveling his finger at his face.

"Your bluff don't go, Boyle!" said he. "You'd just as well get on your horse and light out; and if you want to bring it to a fight, then let it be a fight. We'll meet you on any ground you pick."

"You're a fool!" snarled Boyle.

"Then I'll be a bigger one--big enough to call you to account before another day has pa.s.sed over your head for your part in that dirty work in Comanche that night. And I want to lay it off to you right now that all the influence you can command in this state isn't going to save you when I go after you!"

Boyle picked up his bridle-reins and threaded his arm through them, standing so, legs wide apart, while he rolled a cigarette. As it dangled between his lips and the smoke of it rose up, veiling his eyes, he peered narrowly through it at the doctor.

"There's a man in the graveyard up at Cheyenne that made a talk like that one time," he said.

"I'll have to take your word for that," returned Slavens, quite unmoved.

"I'll meet you at the hotel in Meander tomorrow morning at nine o'clock for a settlement, one way or the other."

"One way or the other," repeated Boyle.

He mounted his horse and rode away toward Meander, trailing a thin line of smoke behind him.

Agnes hurried forward to meet Slavens as he turned toward her. Her face was bloodless, her bosom agitated.

"I heard part of what you said," she told him. "Surely you don't mean to go over there and fight him on his own ground, among his friends?"

"I'm going over there to see the county attorney," said he. "He's from Kansas, and a pretty straight sort of chap, it seemed to me from what I saw of him. I'm going to put this situation of ours before him, citing a hypothetical case, and get his advice. I don't believe that there's a shred of a case against you, and I doubt whether Boyle can bluff the government officials into making a move in it, even with all his influence."

"And you'll come back here and tell me what he says, no matter what his opinion may be, before you act one way or another?"

"If you wish it, although--Well, yes--if you wish it."

"I do, most earnestly," she a.s.sured him.

"You need a good sleep," he counseled. "Turn in as soon as I'm gone, and don't worry about this. There's a good deal of bluff in Boyle."

"He's treacherous, and he shoots wonderfully. He killed that poor fellow last night without ever seeing him at all."

"But I'm not going to take a shot at him out of the dark," said he.

"I know. But I'll be uneasy until you return."

"There's too much trouble in your face today for one of your years," he said, lifting her chin with rather a professional rebuke in his eyes.