Hardy looked at him, but with no pity in his gaze.  “That’s your lookout, Smith.  Everybody for himself—­that’s my motto.”

“And you’d throw me, old and sick, a invalid, out into the streets?” Uncle Henry whined.  No one could get more pathos into his tones than Uncle Henry when he wanted to do so.

“No; I’d let you wheel yourself out,” Jasper Hardy, again the literal-minded Hardy, said.  It was one of the meanest remarks that even he had ever made.

“Say, ain’t you got no heart at all?” Uncle Henry wanted to know.

“I used to have; but it cost me too much money,” was Hardy’s explanation and vindication.  “Sentiment?  Bosh!” And he made a gesture of deep disgust.

Uncle Henry wanted to put a curse on him!  “Well, all I hope is that some day you’ll go broke and they’ll bounce you out into Main Street!” He chuckled in his chair.

“The line forms on the left,” the imperturbable Hardy said.  “You’re the fifth that’s had that hope this year.  I don’t care a rap what you think, old feller!  Remember that!”

A shadow appeared on the doorsill; and Morgan Pell came in.  His face was harder than ever.  It was obvious that he had not thrown away the bottle of tequila until he had consumed the contents.  His eye lit on Hardy at once, but he said nothing to him.  Instead, he meandered toward Gilbert and observed, insolently enough: 

“Look here, you’ve kept me waiting too long.  What does this mean, eh?”

“I’m sorry,” Gilbert returned.  “I forgot all about you for the moment.  Oh,” he suddenly remembered that Hardy and Pell were unacquainted, “you two gentlemen ought to know each other.  Mr. Pell, shake hands with Mr. Hardy.”

Pell gave the other a curt nod.  “How are you?” was all he could bring himself to say.

“Pleased to meet you,” answered Hardy, and turned away, “Red” and Angela, interested spectators of this foolish proceeding, sat together on the little settee by the window near the door, and smiled at the shillyshallying of two grown men who should have known better.  Civilization!  A mockery, surely, when two men couldn’t be amenable in the presence of others—­two men who apparently had no reason for treating each other this way.

Pell suddenly addressed Jones.  “I forgot to tell you that we’re going this afternoon.”

“I’m sorry,” said his host.

“And before I go,” Pell went on, “there’s a matter of business I want to talk over with you.  So if this gentleman is through—­” he indicated Hardy with his thumb.

“Oh, I’ll be through, all right—­at eight o’clock to-night!” Jasper Hardy announced, and drew several silver dollars out of his trousers pocket and rattled them about in his hand, significantly.

“What do you mean, eight o’clock?” Pell wondered.

Hardy’s eyes pierced him through and through.  “When I foreclose the mortgage I hold on this ranch.  Understand now?”