Mr. Ellsworth put the bottle down on the floor, and sat up on the chair with his hands in his pockets, wondering. "But why?" he demanded sternly, "why? What are you doing out here? Why have you thrown away your life? Come--you're a bright young man, and you--" "Friend," said Dan Anderson, with a sudden cold quality in his voice, "I think that'll about do. I am no brighter than I was a few years ago." "But this is no place to live." "Why isn't it? It takes a man to live here. Do you reckon you could qualify?" The older man raised his head with a snort, but Dan Anderson stood looking at him calmly. "Now let me tell you one thing," said he. "If you heard of our coal-mines here through me, at least I didn't ask you to come out here, and I didn't ask you to bring anybody along with you. I've played fair with you. You don't come here to do me any favor, do you?" "Oh, well,"--began the other. "Then you think there might be something here, after all?" "What is there here?" "A very great deal. There's just as much here as there is anywhere else in the world." Mr. Ellsworth arose and stepped to the door. For a moment he stood looking out at the twilight. He turned suddenly to the young man. "I'll tell you," said he. "There's something to you--I don't know what. Drop all this. Come on back. I'll think it over--I'll give you a place in my office." "You'd give me _what_? Did you ever stop to think that you can't give me _anything_?" Surprise sat on his visitor's face. "_Nada_!" cried Dan Anderson. "Me go back there and work on a salary for you? Me check my immortal soul on your hat-rack? Me live scared of my life, like all the rest of the slaves in that infernal system of living, that hell? If I should do that, I'd be giving you some license for the opinion of me you once expressed, before you really knew me." "But what have you got out here?" repeated the other, stupidly. Dan Anderson made no answer, except a sweep of his hand to the mountains, and an unconscious swell of the broad chest beneath his blue shirt. "What made you come?" insisted Mr. Ellsworth, feeling around for the neck of the bottle, which had been forgotten. "You know almighty well why I came. But let that go. Let's say I came for the express purpose of handling your local interests when you buy our coal-mines and try to get a railroad somewhere near our valley if you have luck later. I'm going to be your kind and loving partner in that deal, and I'll soak you the limit in everything I do for you. You watch me. I'm going to stay here, and I'm going to work all I want to. When I don't want to, there isn't any living mortal soul that's going to crack a whip over me and tell me I've got to." "Things seem rather strange," began Mr. Ellsworth. "You talk as though I were obliged to put money into these mines."