“Now, I don’t know what induced you to hide yourself out here—­” went on Barkley, affably.

“No,” replied Dan Anderson, “you don’t.  As for myself personally, it’s no one’s damned business.  I may say in a general way, however, that the prevailing high prices of sealskins and breakfast food in the Eastern States have had a great deal to do with our Western civilization.  The edge of the West is mostly inhabited by fools and philosophers, all mostly broke.”

“I think I follow you,” assented Barkley; “but I’d rather classify you as a philosopher.”

“Perhaps.  At least I am not fool enough to talk about my own affairs.  You say you are here to talk business.  It is your belief that I understand some of the chemical constituents of the population of Heart’s Desire.  Now, in what way can we be useful to each other?”

Ellsworth broke in, “It’s as Barkley says; I’ve been watching you, Mr. Anderson, and I’ve had an interest in you for quite a while.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, I have.  I want to see you win out.  Now, if you won’t go to the mountain, the mountain will have to come to you.  If you won’t go back and live in the States, we will have to bring the States to you; and they’ll follow mighty quick when the railroad comes, as you know very well.”

“My friend Tom Osby used those very words this morning, when he heard the whistle of your esteemed railroad train.”

“Precisely,” Ellsworth went on.  “We’ll give you a town to live in.  We’ll give you professional work to do.”

“So you’ll build me a town, in order to get me work?  That’s very nice of you, indeed.”

“Now, there you go with your infernal priggishness,” protested Ellsworth, testily.  “Have we asked you to do anything but straight business?”

“Exactly,” said Barkley.

They were playing now with Dan Anderson’s heartstrings, but his face did not show it.  They were putting him in the balance against Heart’s Desire, but his speech offered no evidence of it.  They were making Constance Ellsworth the price of Heart’s Desire, but Dan Anderson did not divulge it, as he sat and looked at them.

“Gentlemen,” said he, at length, “I am a lawyer, the best one in Heart’s Desire.  The law here is complex in practice.  The titles are very much involved.  Between Chitty on Pleading and the land grants of the Spanish crown, the law may be a very slow and deliberate matter in this country.  Now, I understand the practice.  I speak the language—­I don’t need an interpreter—­so that I am probably as good as any lawyer you can secure at this time.  In straight matters of business I am open for employment.”

“Now you are beginning to talk,” said Barkley.  “And just to get right down to business, and show you we’re not all talk, I want to give you a little retainer fee.  I’m sorry it isn’t larger, but it’ll grow, I hope.”  He drew a goodly wallet from his breast pocket, and counted out ten one-hundred-dollar bills, which he threw down carelessly on the pine needles in front of Dan Anderson.  “Is that satisfactory?” he asked.