Tug knew that neither of these two in the room with him had any regard for the sanctity of human life. There are such people, a few among many millions, essentially feral, untouched by any sense of common kinship in the human race. Prowers would be moved by one consideration only. Would it pay to obliterate him? The greatest factor in the strength of the cattleman’s position was that men regarded him with fear and awe. The disappearance of Hollister would stir up whisperings and suspicions. Others would read the obvious lesson. Daunted, they would sidestep the old man rather than oppose him. Yet no proof could be found to establish definitely a crime, or at any rate to connect him with it. The issue of the Sweetwater Dam project meant more to Prowers than dollars and cents. His power and influence in the neighborhood were at stake, and it was for these that he lived. If the irrigation project should be successful, it would bring about a change in the character of the country. Settlers would pour in, farm the Flat Tops, and gobble up the remnants of the open range. To the new phase of cattle-raising that must develop, he was unalterably opposed. He had no intention, if he could prevent it, of seeing Paradise Valley dominated by other men and other ways. The development of the land would make Clint Reed bulk larger in the county; it would inevitably push Jake into the background and make of him a minor figure. To prevent this, Prowers would stick at nothing. Hollister was only a subordinate, but his death would serve excellently to point a sinister moral. If more important persons did not take warning, they, too, might vanish from the paths of the living. “You’re neighborly enough, even if you visited us by deputy this morning,” Hollister answered, level gaze fixed on the cattleman. “Did I visit you by deputy?” Jake asked, gently ironical. “Didn’t you? One with six sticks of dynamite to help us on the job.” “News to me. How about it, Cig? What’s yore smart-aleck friend drivin’ at?” Cig had crept forward to the fire and lay crouched on the hearth. His twitching face registered the torture of a circulation beginning to normalize itself again in frozen hands and feet. “Said he’d turn me over to that guy Reed. Took advantage of me while I was played out to beat me up,” snarled the city tough. He finished with a string of vile epithets. The splenetic laughter of the cattleman cackled out. “So you’re aimin’ to take Cig here down to Daniels with that cock-an’-bull story you cooked up. Is that the play?” “Yes, I’m going to take him down--now or later.” This appeared to amuse the little man. His cracked laughter sounded again. “Now or later, by jimmy by jinks. My hobo friend, if you’d lived in this country long as I have, you wouldn’t gamble heavy on that ‘later.’ If you’d read yore Bible proper, you’d know that man’s days are as grass, which withers up considerable an’ sudden. Things happen in this world of woe right onexpected.”