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Deveril glared at her and for a brief fragment of a second she was afraid of him; it was as though, by the mere mention of the name, she drew on herself something of the hatred he must have felt for this man Standing.

"You heard me read his title clear enough to his one-legged dog Winch," he told her harshly. "He is a man who came into this country with nothing a dozen years ago and who now rolls in the fat of his ill-gotten gains. He's a land hog who has robbed right and left and who has with him the devil's luck. He owns thousands of acres of land out yonder." A wide sweep of his arm indicated the endlessly rolling wilderness land, sombre ridges and ebony cañons, rising into stony barren crests here, thick timbered yonder where they slumbered under the first stars. "He operates mines; he gambles in gold and copper and lumber ... and life, curse him! And in human souls, his own with the rest. He runs half a dozen lumber-camps and has a thousand of the toughest men in the world working for him at one place and another. Men hate him for what he is, a cold-blooded highwayman. They have sent him a warning not to show his face in Big Pine, and being of the devil's spawn he sends me word to meet him at Gallup's! That's his way and his nerve and his colossal conceit. May hell take him!"