She looked at him squarely and the fair-fighting Rimrock had to agree, though reluctantly, that she was right. "Well, now that you've won when nobody expected you to, now that you've got money enough to get the whole town drunk, is that any reason why you should come to a poor typist and ask her to give up her rights? I'm putting it frankly and unless you can answer me I want you to give me that stock." "Well, all right, I'll do it," answered Rimrock impulsively. "I promised you, and that's enough. But you've got to agree not to sell that stock--and to vote it with me, every time." "Very well," she said, "I'll agree not to sell it--at least not to any one but you. And as far as the voting goes, I think we can arrange that; I'll vote for whatever seems right." "No, right or wrong!" challenged Rimrock instantly. "I'm not going to be beat out of my mine!" "What do you mean?" she demanded. "I hope you don't think----" "Never mind what I think," answered Rimrock grimly, "I got bit once, and that's enough. I lost the old Gunsight just by trusting my friends, and this time I'm not trusting anybody." "Oh, you're one of these cynics, these worldly-wise fellows that have lost all their faith in mankind? I've seen them before, but it wasn't much trouble to find somebody else that _they'd_ wronged!" She said the words bitterly with a lash to her tongue that cut Rimrock Jones to the quick. It had always been his boast that there was no man or woman that could claim he had done them a wrong, and he answered back sharply, while the anger was upon him, that he was not and there was no such thing. "Well, if that's the case, then," she suggested delicately but with a touch of malice in her smile, "it seems rather personal to begin now with me, and take away my right to vote. Did this man in New York, when he bought into your company, agree to vote with you, right or wrong? Well then, why should I? Wasn't my money just as necessary, when I gave it to you, as his was when he gave it, later?" "Oh--" Rimrock choked back an oath and then fell back on personalities to refute her maddening logic. "Say, your father was a judge," he burst out insultingly. "Was he a promoted lawyer, too; or did you learn that line of talk from McBain?" "Never mind about that. You haven't answered my question. Wasn't my money just as necessary as his? It was! Yes, you know it. Well, then, why should you choose me for the very first person that you ever intentionally wronged?" "Well, by grab," moaned Rimrock, slumping down in his chair as he saw his last argument gone, "it was a black day for me when I took that four hundred from you. I'd have done a heap better to have held up some Chinaman or made old L. W. come through. And to be trimmed by a woman! Well, gimme your paper and I'll sign whatever you write!"