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Sgd. Chief Light of the Aurora.

Booker did not look up as he finished the reading. He sat gazing at the paper, and once or twice Jake Forner observed that he swallowed drily. Then, as the man remained furiously silent, the clerk cleared his throat.

“That’s about as ugly as I’ve known ’em to play,” he said in a tone of mild sympathy.

Booker laid the paper down and raised a pair of angry eyes. The clerk saw the storm in them and waited for it to break. It came on the instant.

“The swines!” Booker’s body was squared in the well-padded chair. He was sitting up and breathing heavily. “The dirty, low-down swines!” he cried. Then a heavy fist was raised and fell with a crash on the ill-drawn sign of the skull. “If they think they can scare me with a bluff like that I reckon they’re crazy. It’s a hold-up, and I’m falling for no hold-up. By God! I’ll fight them! Eight thousand? Not on your life. I’ll press that two thousand home right away and show ’em they can’t throw a bluff at me and get away with it. They want a written offer. Well, I guess they’ll get it. I’ll write it now an’ you can beat it out to the Carver woman, and put it right into her hands. But it’s for two thousand dollars. And I guess she’ll fall for it quick or—starve.”