"Because you're wrong!" answered Eells without giving back an inch, "you're trying to evade the law. And any man that breaks the law is a coward at heart, because he knows that all society is against him." "Sounds good," admitted Wunpost, "and I'd almost believe it if _you_ didn't show such a nerve But you know and I know that you break the law every day--and some time, Mr. Banker, you're going to get caught. No, you can guess again on why I don't shoot you--I just like to see you wiggle. I just like to see a big fat slob like you, that's got the whole world bluffed, twist around in his seat when a _man_ comes along and tells him what a dastard he is. And besides, I git a laugh, every time I come back and you make me think of the Stinging Lizard--and the road! But the biggest laugh I get is when you pull this virtuous stuff, like the widow-robbing old screw you are, and then have the nerve to tell me to my face that it's the Sockdolager Mine or nothing. Well, it's nothing then, Mr. Penny-pincher; and if I ever get the chance I'll make you squeal like a pig. And don't send no more Apaches after _me_!" He rose up and slapped the desk, then picked up the scalp-lock and strode majestically out the door. But Judson Eells was unimpressed, for he had seen them squirm before. He was a banker, and he knew all the signs. Nor did John C. Calhoun laugh as he rode off through the night, for his schemes had gone awry again. Every word that he had said was as true as Gospel and he could sit around and wait a life-time--but waiting was not his long suit. In Los Angeles he seemed to attract all the bar-flies in the city, who swarmed about and bummed him for the drinks; and no man could stand their company for more than a few days without getting thoroughly disgusted. And on the desert, every time he went out into the hills he was lucky to come back with his life. So what was he to do, while he was waiting around for this banker to find out he was whipped? For Eells was whipped, he was foiled at every turn; and yet that muley-cow lip came up as stubbornly as ever and he tried to tell him, Wunpost, he was wrong. And that because he was wrong and a law-breaker at heart he was therefore a coward and doomed to lose. It was ludicrous, the way Eells stood up for his "rights," when everyone knew he was a thief; and yet that purse-proud intolerance which is the hall-mark of his class made him think he was entirely right. He even had the nerve to preach little homilies about trying to evade the law. But that was it, his very self-sufficiency made him immune against anything but a club. He had got the idea into his George the Third head that the king can do no wrong--and he, of course was the king. If Wunpost made a threat, or concealed the location of a mine, that was wrong, it was against the law; but Eells himself had hired some assassins who had shot him, Wunpost, twice, and yet Eells was game to let it go before the sheriff--he could not believe he was wrong.