“Nonsense!” said Barkley.  “The whole thing’s so easy I’m almost ashamed of it.”

“That last isn’t usually the case with the Hon. Porter Barkley,” Ellsworth observed grimly.

Barkley laughed a strong, unctuous laugh.  He was a sturdy, thick-set man, florid, confident, masterful, with projecting eyebrows and a chin now beginning its first threat of doubling.  Well known in Eastern corporation life as a good handler of difficult situations, Ellsworth valued his aid; nor could he disabuse himself of the belief that there would be need of it.

“If I don’t put it through, Ellsworth,” reiterated Barkley, biting a new cigar, “I’ll eat the whole town without sugar.  If I failed, I’d be losing more than you know about.”  He turned a half glance in Ellsworth’s way, to see whether his covert thought was caught by the suspicion of the other.  The older man turned upon him in challenge, and Barkley retreated from this tentative position.

“Maybe you can do it,” said Ellsworth, presently, “but I want to say, if I’m any judge, you’ve got to be mighty careful.  Besides, you’ve never been out here before.  We’ll have to go slow.”

“Why’ll we have to?  I tell you, we can go in and take what we want of their blasted valley, and they can’t help themselves a step in the road.”

“I don’t know,” demurred Ellsworth.  “They’re there, and in possession.”

“Nonsense!” snorted Barkley.  “How much title have they got?  You say yourself they’ve never filed a town-site plat.  We can go in there and take the town away from under their feet, and they can’t help themselves.  More than that, I’ll bet there’s not one mining claim out of fifty that we can’t ‘adverse’ in the courts and take away from its dinky locater.  These fellows don’t work assessments.  They never complete legal title to a claim.  There never was a mine in the Rocky Mountains that was located and proved up on without a fight, if it was worth fighting for.  Bah! we just walk in and see what we want, and take it, that’s all.”

“Well,” said Ellsworth, “it’s the best-looking deal I’ve seen for a long while, that’s sure, and I don’t see how it’s been covered up so long.  And yet if you come to talk of law-suits, I’ve noticed it a dozen times that when Eastern men have gone against these Western propositions, they’ve got the worst of it.  They’re a funny lot, these natives.  They’ll live in a shirt and overalls, without a sou marque to bless ’emselves with.  They’ll holler for Eastern Capital, and promise Eastern Capital the time of its life, if it’ll only come; and when Eastern Capital does come—­why, then they give it the time of its life!”

“Nonsense,” rejoined Barkley, walking up and down with his hands under the tails of his coat.  “We’ll eat ’em up.  I’m not afraid of this thing for a minute.  What I want to do now is to get in touch with that Grayson fellow, the head engineer.”