“I get you. But why put all of your own money into the ranch? Ora has taken something like half a million out of that mine. I could let you have that.” “I’ll risk no woman’s money. Of course I shouldn’t put my own in if I didn’t believe it to be a dead sure thing, but there’s always risk.” He took a packet of papers from his overcoat pocket. “Here are the option and abstract of titles. I wish you would examine them. Say nothing of all this at present--nor for a long time after. I’ll spring it when I’m ready--which will be after I’ve disposed of the irrigated land. Will you go out with me when I return to Circle-G? I shall want you to attend to the details of sale and to the location of the water rights.” “I’ll go all right. And I’m only living to see what you’ll do next.” XXIX Meanwhile the story of the Compton-Amalgamated war was the sensation not only of Montana but of the entire country. The Butte morning papers ignored it, but the _Evening Bugle_ reaped a golden harvest. The editor himself, who was the Montana correspondent of one of the great New York dailies, made his reputation with the most sensational “stuff” that had gone from the Northwest since Heinze retired from the field. The hill swarmed with reporters. Two Eastern newspapers sent special correspondents to the spot. In less than a fortnight the public knew all there was to know and far more. Perch of the Devil Mine was photographed inside and out, and its uncompromising ugliness but added to its magnetism; which emanated from a “solid hill of metal just below a thin layer of barren soil.” The general reader, who admired the colour of copper, conceived that it emerged in solid sheets. Gregory refused to be interviewed or photographed, but was snapshotted; and his long sinewy figure and lean dark face, his narrow eyes and fine mouth, won the championship of every woman partial to the type. The women’s papers, as well as those run by radicals, socialists, and conservative men of independent tendencies, advocated his cause against the wicked trust; nor was there a newspaper in the country, however capitalised, that resisted the temptation to make him “big news.” To his unspeakable annoyance he began to receive letters by the score, most of them from women; but he lost no time employing a secretary whose duty was to read and burn them. He appreciated his fame very vaguely, for between his mine and the innumerable details connected with his new ranch, he had little time to devote to newspapers or his own sensations. But although personal notoriety was distasteful to him and reporters a nuisance, he felt more than compensated by the success of his publicity scheme, and the assurance that it was causing the enemy unspeakable annoyance and apprehension.