“Well, Jackson, a promise is a promise. You don’t want to forget that in more ways than one you owe this ranch to me. It was me who gave you a start. Whenever you needed help you’ve always come to me. I’m old, I know. I ain’t askin’ her to love me. Love is for young bucks. “I’m a man of means, now. Mrs. Aaron Gallup will be a somebody in this country long after I’ve cashed in. She’s got youth, she’s pretty, and that’s what I want. When we run down to Frisco folk’ll turn and look twice at her; like as not they’ll have pictures in the papers, too, of her and me. We’ll let ’em know we’re somebody. And that’s what I want. It’s what I’ve been wantin’ all the years I’ve been savin’ pennies and cheatin’ myself out of things no man should be without.” “But it’s sellin’ her,” Kent groaned. “Sellin’ her like she was a slave. Maybe I’ve been dreamin’ my dreams too. What’s goin’ to happen to me, an old man, without her? I’ve slaved and cheated myself even as you have. It was for her. Don’t smile at me like that. You’re hearin’ the truth. Damn it, I tell you, I’ll let you cut off my right arm before I’ll see her your wife.” “Well, now, I don’t know about that,” Gallup drawled menacingly. “Right arms ain’t so precious. Maybe you’re forgettin’ that I’m holding your paper for thirty thousand dollars. It’s overdue, too. The way the market is, don’t seem as if there’d be much chance of your payin’ up right off.” “The ranch is worth five times the amount I owe you.” “Of course, of course. Tobias consented to the loans, didn’t he? Toby don’t get over his head.” “Are you puttin’ it flat to me, then, that you git my girl, or else you foreclose on my paper?” “You understand me perfectly, Jackson.” “Well, then, foreclose, and to hell with you!” Kent roared, supreme for the moment. Gallup did not move, neither did his eyes leave Jackson’s face. A minute passed before he spoke. “Yes? You’re goin’ to make a pauper out of her, eh, so Dice can put himself in her class and run off with her? You’d better reconsider. Toby and me’ll go outside and look around the place while you do.” CHAPTER XVII GALLUP’S PRICE Kent slunk into his chair as they left him. He had foreseen this day, but events had so happened since the steer-shipping as to leave his mind no time to worry about it. But now, by comparison, Johnny Dice and his evil genius seemed of minor importance. Not for a second did Kent think of begging off. He knew Gallup too well. Yes, and Gallup knew Jackson Kent. Five years before this he would not have dared to beard him as he had done this day. But Kent was no longer the man of old. The last two years had been too much for the cattleman. Every ounce of his energy had gone into fighting the perverse fate which lately seemed to pursue all cattlemen.