The meeting was set for four o'clock, and he was rather surprised at three-thirty when the door opened and McIntyre came in. Samuel could not help respecting the man's attitude, and feeling a bit sorry for him. McIntyre seemed closely related to the prairies, and Samuel had the little flicker of envy that city people feel toward men who live in the open. "Afternoon," said McIntyre, standing in the open doorway, with his feet apart and his hands on his hips. "Hello, Mr. McIntyre." Samuel rose, but omitted the formality of offering his hand. He imagined the rancher cordially loathed him, and he hardly blamed him. McIntyre came in and sat down leisurely. "You got us," he said suddenly. This didn't seem to require any answer. "When I heard Carhart was back of this," he continued, "I gave up." "Mr. Carhart is---" began Samuel, but McIntyre waved him silent. "Don't talk about the dirty sneak-thief!" "Mr. McIntyre," said Samuel briskly, "if this half-hour is to be devoted to that sort of talk---" "Oh, dry up, young man," McIntyre interrupted, "you can't abuse a man who'd do a thing like this." Samuel made no answer. "It's simply a dirty filch. There just ARE skunks like him too big to handle." "You're being paid liberally," offered Samuel. "Shut up!" roared McIntyre suddenly. "I want the privilege of talking." He walked to the door and looked out across the land, the sunny, steaming pasturage that began almost at his feet and ended with the gray-green of the distant mountains. When he turned around his mouth was trembling. "Do you fellows love Wall Street?" he said hoarsely, "or wherever you do your dirty scheming---" He paused. "I suppose you do. No critter gets so low that he doesn't sort of love the place he's worked, where he's sweated out the best he's had in him." Samuel watched him awkwardly. McIntyre wiped his forehead with a huge blue handkerchief, and continued: "I reckon this rotten old devil had to have another million. I reckon we're just a few of the poor he's blotted out to buy a couple more carriages or something." He waved his hand toward the door. "I built a house out there when I was seventeen, with these two hands. I took a wife there at twenty-one, added two wings, and with four mangy steers I started out. Forty summers I've saw the sun come up over those mountains and drop down red as blood in the evening, before the heat drifted off and the stars came out. I been happy in that house. My boy was born there and he died there, late one spring, in the hottest part of an afternoon like this. Then the wife and I lived there alone like we'd lived before, and sort of tried to have a home, after all, not a real home but nigh it--cause the boy always seemed around close, somehow, and we expected a lot of nights to see him runnin' up the path to supper." His voice was shaking so he could hardly speak and he turned again to the door, his gray eyes contracted.