Davy's sarcasm struck home. Logan's face flushed. He realized that he was talking to an adult, not a child. He resented the criticism. But for the fact that the little man was a friend of Landy Spencer he would have made a harsh reply or ignored him entirely. "Well, just what is your interest in the matter?" he questioned. "I don't see your name on the list of bank stockholders. Maybe you are kin to the Barrows, sort of looking after their interests?" "No, I am not related to the Barrows. Never had the pleasure of ever seeing one of 'em. I don't know where they live, couldn't find the place without a guide. Wouldn't know how big it was after I'd seen it. I'm just an innocent bystander with big ears and a lot of curiosity. There is a rumor abroad that the ranch is in the hands of a receiver, that it's for sale, that the receiver is having some trouble about possession. If I could get just a few facts and find this receiver, I'd make him a proposition to buy it 'as is,' as the auctioneers sometimes say." "You have never seen the ranch?" questioned the astonished Logan. "You would bid sight-unseen for a property that you don't know where it's located--would accept a deed without possession? Young man, you need a guardian." "I had one once," retorted the midget, "and in the eight months of his management he turned over quite a lot of money to me, enough to gamble on, to buy a block of blue sky or a pig in a poke. Maybe there's enough to make a bid on a ranch, a property with a crazy man on it, armed with a gun and threatening to shoot intruders. If you are the receiver, I want to make a bid for the Bar-O ranch, as it is." "No bids are solicited," said Logan severely. "The judgment is for forty-two hundred dollars. I bid it in for that, and must account for that amount. Then there are expenses and costs being added from time to time--" "Now you've hit center," interrupted the midget. "You've pricked the sore spot. There are costs being added, and time being frittered, and nothing accomplished. It might run on this way for months, and you hoping to have the collection cleaned up and get the bank opened soon thereafter. "Now I'm wanting to help, wanting to get on the payroll. Here's how. Between now and next Thursday I'll pay you four thousand dollars for a deed to the Bar-O ranch. You make the consideration the full forty-two hundred and show, in your report, an expense of two hundred in getting possession. Then it's up to me to get old Shells, or Hulls, or what's his name, to move out. It might cost me the two hundred, it might cost a lot more; that's my lookout. Maybe the old guy won't move at all. But in any event, I shall not resort to law, won't call the sheriff to get killed or get action. With winter coming on and a woman mixed up in the case, it would be too bad to set 'em out in the snow without shelter or money."