"Do you know that you'll have to mortgage your future for that money, Vance?" He blinked at her, but maintained his smile under fire courageously. "Come, come! Things are booming. You told me yesterday what you'd clean up on the last bunch of Herefords." When she folded her hands, she was most dangerous, he knew. And now the bony fingers linked and she shrugged the shawl more closely around her shoulders. "We're partners, aren't we?" smiled Vance. "Partners, yes. You have one share and I have a thousand. But--you don't want to sell out your final claim, I suppose?" His smile froze. "Eh?" "If you want to get those few thousands, Vance, you have nothing to put up for them except your last shreds of property. That's why I say you'll have to mortgage your future for money from now on." "But--how does it all come about?" "I've warned you. I've been warning you for twenty-five years, Vance." Once again he attempted to turn her. He always had the impression that if he became serious, deadly serious for ten consecutive minutes with his sister, he would be ruined. He kept on with his semi-jovial tone. "There are two arts, Elizabeth. One is making money and the other is spending it. You've mastered one and I've mastered the other. Which balances things, don't you think?" She did not melt; he waved down to the farm land. "Watch that wave of wind, Elizabeth." A gust struck the scattering of aspens, and turned up the silver of the dark green leaves. The breeze rolled across the trees in a long, rippling flash of light. But Elizabeth did not look down. Her glance was fixed on the changeless snow of Mount Discovery's summit. "As long as you have something to spend, spending is a very important art, Vance. But when the purse is empty, it's a bit useless, it seems to me." "Well, then, I'll have to mortgage my future. As a matter of fact, I suppose I could borrow what I want on my prospects." A veritable Indian yell, instantly taken up and prolonged by a chorus of similar shouts, cut off the last of his words. Round the corner of the house shot a blood-bay stallion, red as the red of iron under the blacksmith's hammer, with a long, black tail snapping and flaunting behind him, his ears flattened, his beautiful vicious head outstretched in an effort to tug the reins out of the hands of the rider. Failing in that effort, he leaped into the air like a steeplechaser and pitched down upon stiffened forelegs. The shock rippled through the body of the rider and came to his head with a snap that jerked his chin down against his breast. The stallion rocked back on his hind legs, whirled, and then flung himself deliberately on his back. A sufficiently cunning maneuver--first stunning the enemy with a blow and then crushing him before his senses returned. But he landed on nothing save hard gravel. The rider had whipped out of the saddle and stood poised, strong as the trunk of a silver spruce.