Again the grimly humorous smile was twinkling in the gray eyes of the old cattleman.  “What is the market quotation on disappointments, right now, Hardwick?” he inquired.

With another man McVickar might have been too diplomatic to show signs of a shortening temper.  But David Blount was an open-eyed enemy of long standing.

“I don’t know anybody west of the Missouri River who has a better idea of market values than you have,” the vice-president countered smartly.  Then, dropping a heavy hand upon the arm of his chair:  “This thing has got to be settled here and now, Blount.  If you put your son in as public prosecutor, you can have but one object in view—­you mean to squeeze us till the blood runs.  We are willing to discount that object before the fact!”

“So you have said before, a number of times and in a whole heap of different ways.  It’s getting sort of monotonous, don’t you think?”

“I sha’n’t say it many more times, David; you are pushing me too far and too hard.”

“All right; what will you say, then?”

“Just this:  if you won’t meet me half-way—­if you insist upon a fight—­I’ll fight you with any weapons I can get hold of!”

Once more the quiet smile played about the outer angles of the hereditary Blount eyes.

“You’ve said that in other campaigns, Hardwick; in the end you’ve always been like the ’possum that offered to come down out of the tree if the man wouldn’t shoot.”

“I’ll hand you another proverb to go with that one,” snapped the man in the arm-chair:  “The pitcher that goes once too often to the well is sure to be broken.  You’ve got a joint in your armor now, Blount.  You’ve always been able to snap your fingers at public opinion before this; can you afford to do it now?”

“Oh, I don’t know; I reckon I’ll have to grin and bear it if you want to buy up a few newspapers and set them to blacklisting me, as you usually do,” was the half-quizzical reply.  Then:  “I’m pretty well used to it by this time.  You and your folks can’t paint me much blacker than you have always painted me, Hardwick.”

“Maybe not.  But this time we’re going to give you a chance to start a few libel suits—­if you think you can afford to appear in the courts.  We’ve got plenty of evidence, and by heavens we’ll produce it!  You put your son in as public prosecutor and we might be tempted to make your own State too hot to hold you.  Had you thought of that?”

“Go ahead and try it,” was the laconic response.

“But that isn’t all,” the railroad dictator went on remorselessly.  “Your fellow citizens here know you for exactly what you are, Blount.  You rule them with a rod of iron, but that rule can be broken.  When it is broken, you’ll be hounded as a criminal.  In our last talk together you had something to say to me about our not keeping up with the change in public sentiment; public sentiment has changed; changed so far that it is coming to demand the punishment of the great offenders as well as the jailing of the little ones.  If we want to push this fight hard enough, it is not impossible that you might find yourself in a hard row of stumps at the end of it, David.”