"Nonsense!" snorted Barkley. "How much title have they got? You say yourself they've never filed a town-site plat. We can go in there and take the town away from under their feet, and they can't help themselves. More than that, I'll bet there's not one mining claim out of fifty that we can't 'adverse' in the courts and take away from its dinky locater. These fellows don't work assessments. They never complete legal title to a claim. There never was a mine in the Rocky Mountains that was located and proved up on without a fight, if it was worth fighting for. Bah! we just walk in and see what we want, and take it, that's all." "Well," said Ellsworth, "it's the best-looking deal I've seen for a long while, that's sure, and I don't see how it's been covered up so long. And yet if you come to talk of law-suits, I've noticed it a dozen times that when Eastern men have gone against these Western propositions, they've got the worst of it. They're a funny lot, these natives. They'll live in a shirt and overalls, without a _sou marque_ to bless 'emselves with. They'll holler for Eastern Capital, and promise Eastern Capital the time of its life, if it'll only come; and when Eastern Capital does come--why, then they _give_ it the time of its life!" "Nonsense," rejoined Barkley, walking up and down with his hands under the tails of his coat. "We'll eat 'em up. I'm not afraid of this thing for a minute. What I want to do now is to get in touch with that Grayson fellow, the head engineer." "I'm not so sure about that," commented Ellsworth, seating himself in the sun at the edge of the gallery. "If you want to see the real head engineer of this whole Heart's Desire situation, the man you want isn't Grayson, but a young fellow by the name of Anderson, a lawyer up there." "Lawyer?" "Yes, and I shouldn't wonder if he was a pretty goodish one, too. Oh, don't think these people are all easy, Barkley, I tell you. This isn't my own first trip out here." "What about this lawyer of yours?" "Well, he's a young man that I knew something about before he went West. He knows every foot of the ground up there, and every man that lives there, and I want to tell you, he's got the whole situation by the ear. That gang will do pretty hear what he tells them to do. He's got nerve, too. He's the most influential man in that town." "Oh, ho! Well, that's different. I'm always right after the man who's got the goods in his pocket. We'll trade with Mr. Anderson mighty quick, if he can deliver the goods. What does he hold out for? What does he want?" "Well, I don't know. He talked to me rather stiff, up there, and we didn't hitch very well. He sort of drifted off, and I didn't see him at all the day I left, when I'd laid out to talk to him. He's the fellow that put me on to this deal, too. It was through him I got word there was coal in that valley." "How would it do to charter him for our local counsel? Is he strong enough man for that?"