“It is easy for you to talk,” said Williston, simply. “It would be different if your bread and butter and your little girl’s as well depended on a scrawny little bunch like mine.” “Maybe,” said Langford, shrugging his shoulders. “Doesn’t seem to have exempted you, though, does it? But Black is no respecter of persons, you know. However, the time has come for Dick Gordon to show of what stuff he is made. It was for this that I worked for his election, though I confess I little thought at the time that proofs for him would be furnished from my own herds. Present conditions humiliate me utterly. Am I a weakling that they should exist? Are we all weaklings?” A faint, appreciative smile passed over Williston’s face. No, Langford did not look a weakling, neither had the professed humiliation lowered his proud head. Here was a man—a godlike type, with his sunny hair and his great strength. This was the man who had thrown not only the whole weight of his personal influence, which was much, but his whole-hearted and aggressive service as well, into the long and bitter campaign for county sovereignty, and had thus turned the scale in favor of the scarcely hoped-for victory over the puppet of the cattle rustlers. Williston knew his great object had been to rid the county of its brigands. True it was that this big, ruddy, self-confident ranchman was no weakling. Langford strode to the door. Then he turned quickly. “Look here, Williston, I shall make you angry, I suppose, but it has to go in the cattle country, and you little fellows haven’t shown up very white in these deals; you know that yourself.” “Well?” “Are you going to stand pat with us?” “If you mean, am I going to tell what I know when called upon,” answered Williston, with a simple dignity that made Langford color with sudden shame, “I am. There are many of us ‘little fellows’ who would have been glad to stand up against the rustling outrage long ago had we received any backing. The moral support of men of your class has not been what you might call a sort of ‘on the spot’ support, now, has it?” relapsing into a gentle sarcasm. “At least, until you came to the front,” he qualified. “You will not be the loser, and there’s my hand on it,” said Langford, frankly and earnestly, ignoring the latter part of the speech. “The Three Bars never forgets a friend. They may do you before we are through with them, Williston, but remember, the Three Bars never forgets.” Braggadocio? Maybe. But there was strength back of it, there was determination back of it, and there was an abiding faith in the power of the Three Bars to make things happen, and a big wrath destined to sleep not nor slumber till some things had happened in the cattle country.