"Well, Mr. Dean, I admit that you have right on your side, even if there is not much wisdom at the back of it. There is just one more thing I should like to know. Why do you treat me as an enemy?"
"Because we don't like your actions, and we don't think much of you. You're a city man, and we don't trust any such."
"But Mr. Banks, who gave me the letter to your chief, is not only a city man, but a lawyer. He has been here, and spoke highly of his reception."
"That was before the mine was opened, and as for being a lawyer, we hate 'em, of course, but they're like rattlesnakes. In some seasons of the year they are harmless. The opening of the silver mine opened the rattlesnake season, and that's why this lawyer snake in Bleachers is trying to cheat Armstrong out of his ranch. He came over here with a mining engineer and learnt the whole value of the ground. How do we know you're not a mining engineer?"
"And didn't you send Miss Armstrong into Bleachers to see that villain Ricketts? What connection have you with him?"
"None at all, Mr. Dean. I never saw Ricketts in my life, and never heard of him before the day you mistook me for the sheriff."
Dean glanced at his companions, who had taken no part in the colloquy, but who listened with an interest at once critical and suspicious. It was evident that their distrust could not be dissipated, or even mitigated, by strenuous talk, and for a moment Stranleigh was tempted to tell them that he had lent three thousand dollars to Miss Armstrong, in the hope that this money, added to her own, would gain some sort of concession from the obdurate lawyer. But he remembered that the girl was in constant communication with these men, and if she had not already informed them of his futile assistance, it was because she did not want them to know.
Dean pondered for a few moments before he spoke. He seemed to have gathered in the purport of his men's thoughts without the necessity for words. At last he said:
"May I take it you agree hereafter to attend to your own business?"
"There would be no use in my making that promise, for I have never in my life attended to my own business. My business affairs are all looked after by men who are experts. They live in New York and in London, and although I make a decision now and then, I do that as seldom as possible. It fatigues me."