“I’m not so sure about that,” commented Ellsworth, seating himself in the sun at the edge of the gallery.  “If you want to see the real head engineer of this whole Heart’s Desire situation, the man you want isn’t Grayson, but a young fellow by the name of Anderson, a lawyer up there.”

“Lawyer?”

“Yes, and I shouldn’t wonder if he was a pretty goodish one, too.  Oh, don’t think these people are all easy, Barkley, I tell you.  This isn’t my own first trip out here.”

“What about this lawyer of yours?”

“Well, he’s a young man that I knew something about before he went West.  He knows every foot of the ground up there, and every man that lives there, and I want to tell you, he’s got the whole situation by the ear.  That gang will do pretty hear what he tells them to do.  He’s got nerve, too.  He’s the most influential man in that town.”

“Oh, ho!  Well, that’s different.  I’m always right after the man who’s got the goods in his pocket.  We’ll trade with Mr. Anderson mighty quick, if he can deliver the goods.  What does he hold out for?  What does he want?”

“Well, I don’t know.  He talked to me rather stiff, up there, and we didn’t hitch very well.  He sort of drifted off, and I didn’t see him at all the day I left, when I’d laid out to talk to him.  He’s the fellow that put me on to this deal, too.  It was through him I got word there was coal in that valley.”

“How would it do to charter him for our local counsel?  Is he strong enough man for that?”

“Strong enough!  I’m only afraid he’s too strong.”

“Well, now, let’s not take everything for granted, you know.  Let’s go at this thing a little at a time.  There’s got to be a system of courts established in here, and we’ve got to know our judiciary, as a matter of course.  Then we’ve got to know our own lawyers, as another matter of course.  Did you say you knew him before, that is, to get a line on him, before he came out here?”

Ellsworth colored just a trifle.  “Well, yes,” he admitted.  “He’s a Princeton man.  He comes of good family—­maybe a little wild and headstrong—­wouldn’t settle down, you know.  Why, I offered him a place in my office once, and he—­well, he refused it.  He started out West some five years ago.  Of course—­well, you know, in a good many cases of this sort, there’s a girl at the bottom of the Western emigration.”

“What girl?” asked Porter Barkley, sharply.

“One back East somewhere,” said Ellsworth, evasively.

Porter Barkley came and seated himself beside the older man, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, meditatively crumbling a bit of bark in his hands.

“I was just going to say, Mr. Ellsworth,” said he, “that a girl in a case like this—­always provided that this man is as influential as you think—­may be a mighty useful thing.  Maybe you couldn’t buy the man for himself, but you could buy him for the girl.  Do you see?”