"Yes; and if she had, you would have had to back her, wouldn't you? You would have trained that filly and paid a couple of hundred for it. You would have fitted her at the track and paid several hundred more. You would have bet a couple of thousand, anyway, as a matter of principle, and, like enough, you'd have lost it. Now, if this road paid you fifteen dollars for that filly and saved you twenty-five hundred or three thousand into the bargain, how ought you to feel about it? Are you twenty-five hundred behind, or fifteen ahead?" Colonel Calvin Blount had now feverishly finished his julep, and as the other stopped, he placed his glass beside him on the board-pile and swung a long leg across so that he sat directly facing his enigmatical guest. The latter, in the enthusiasm of his argument, swung into a similar position, and so they sat, both hammering on the board between them. "Well, I would like to _see_ that damned claim agent offer me fifteen dollars for that filly," said Blount. "I might take fifty, for the sake of the road; but fifteen--why, you see, it's not the money; I don't care fifteen cents for the fifteen dollars, but it's the principle of the thing. T'aint right." "Well, what would you do?" "Well, by God, sir, if I saw that claim agent--" "Well, by God, sir, _I'm_ that claim agent; and I _do_ offer you fifteen dollars for that filly, right now!" "What! You--" "Yes, me!" "Fifteen dollars!" "Yes, sir, fifteen dollars." Colonel Blount burst into a sudden song--"On _Jor_-dan's strand I'll _take_ my stand!" he began. "It's all she's worth," interrupted the claim agent. Blount fairly gasped. "Do you mean to tell me," said he, in forced calm, "that you are this claim agent?" "I have told you. That's the way I make my living. That's my duty." "Your duty to give me fifteen dollars for a Himyah filly!" "I said fifteen." "And I said fifty." "You don't get it." "I don't, eh? Say, my friend,"--Blount pushed the glasses away, his choler rising at the temerity of this, the only man who in many a year had dared to confront him. "You look here. Write me a check for fifty; and write it now." "I've heard about that filly," said the claim agent, "and I've come here ready to pay you for it. Here you are." Blount glanced at the check. "Why, it's fifteen dollars," said he, "and I said fifty." "But I said fifteen." "Look here," said Blount, his calm becoming still more menacing, as with a sudden whip of his hand he reached behind him. Like a flash he pulled a long revolver from its holster. Eddring gazed into the round aperture of the muzzle and certain surrounding apertures of the cylinder. "Write me a check," said Blount, slowly, "and write it for fifty. I'll tear it up when I get it if I feel like it, but no man shall ever tell me that I took fifteen dollars for a Himyah filly. Now you write it." He spoke slowly. His pistol hand rested on his knee, now suddenly drawn up. Both voice and pistol barrel were steady.