"Yes, me!"

   "Fifteen dollars!"

   "Yes, sir, fifteen dollars."

   Colonel Blount burst into a sudden song—"On

    Jor

   dan's strand I'll

    take

   my stand!" he began.

   "It's all she's worth," interrupted the claim agent.

   Blount fairly gasped. "Do you mean to tell me," said he, in forced calm, "that you are this claim agent?"

   "I have told you. That's the way I make my living. That's my duty."

   "Your duty to give me fifteen dollars for a Himyah filly?"

   "I said fifteen."

   "And I said fifty."

   "You don't get it."

   "I don't, eh? Say, my friend"—Blount pushed the glasses away, his choler rising at the temerity of this, the only man who in many a year had dared to confront him. "You look here. Write me a check for fifty; an' write it now." With a sudden whip of his hand he reached behind him. Like a flash he pulled a long revolver from its holster. Eddring gazed into the round aperture of the muzzle and certain surrounding apertures of the cylinder. "Write me a check," said Blount, slowly, "and write it for fifty. I may tear it up when I get it—I don't care fifty cents for it—but you write it!"

   The eyes of the two met, and which were the braver man it 

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