"No," said Saxton, drily. "He didn't. It wouldn't have suited me. When I come to clinch with Devine, I want to be sure I have the whip-hand of him. Still, it wouldn't have been a case of pistols out and getting behind a tree. It's quite a long while since I had any, and, though you don't seem to think so in England, nobody has any use for a circus of that kind now. I don't know that the way they had in '49 wasn't better than trying to get ahead of the other man quietly." Brooke made a little gesture of resignation. Saxton, he realized, had sufficient discretion not to persist in a useless attempt to hold him to his compact, but he was addicted to moralizing, and Brooke, who lighted another cigar, listened, as patiently as he could, while he discoursed upon the anxieties of the enterprising business man. XXI. DEVINE'S OFFER. Evening had come round again when Brooke called at the ranch, in response to a brief note from Devine, and found the latter sitting, cigar in hand, at his office table. "Take a cigar, if you feel like it, Mr. Brooke. We have got to have a talk," he said. Brooke did as he suggested, and when he sat down, Devine passed a strip of paper across to him. "There's your cheque for the tramway. I'll ask you for a receipt," he said. "Make up an account of what the dam has cost you to-morrow, and we'll try to arrange the thing so's to suit both of us." Brooke appeared a trifle astonished. "It is by no means finished, sir." "Well," said Devine, drily, "I'm not quite sure it ever will be. The mine no longer belongs to me. It's part of the Dayspring Consolidated Mineral Properties. I've been working the thing up quietly for quite a while now, and I've a cable from London that the deal's put through." Brooke, remembering what he had heard from Saxton, looked hard at him. "You have sold it out to English company promoters?" "Not exactly! I'm taking so many thousand dollars down, and a controlling share of the stock. I'm also the boss director, with full power to run operations as appears advisable at the mines. How does the deal strike you?" "Since you ask for my opinion, I fancy I should have preferred a good many dollars, and very little stock." Devine glanced at him with a curious smile. "You believe Allonby's a crank?" "Other people do. On my part, I'm not quite sure of it. Still, it seems to me that the men who spend their money to prove him right will run a tolerably heavy risk, especially as, so far, at least, there appears to be no ore that's worth reduction in the mine, so far as it has been opened up." "How do you know what is in the Dayspring?" and Devine looked at him steadily. Brooke made a little gesture. "I don't think that point's important," he said. "You, no doubt, had a purpose in telling me as much as you have done?"