"Not nearly good enough," Dunne returned. "We can't work and improve our ranches with that hanging over us. Such an assurance is of no practical value."
"It is all I can give you."
Casey Dunne nodded as one who sees things turning out as he expected. "Then naturally we shall be forced to fight you."
"As you like," said York indifferently. "You will lose, that's all. I can't do any more for you. It is my duty to my shareholders to increase the value of those lands if I can do so legally."
"I wish I could get your viewpoint," said Casey Dunne, and for the first time his voice lost a shade of its calm and began to vibrate with anger. "I'd like to know just how much it differs from a claim jumper's or a burglar's. You know as well as I do that you have no earthly right to take that water. You know you are taking advantage of the careless wording of an old charter. You know that it means the utter ruin of men who went into a God-forsaken land without a dollar, and took a brown, parched wilderness by the throat, and fought it to a standstill—men who backed their faith in the country with years of toil and privation, who made the trails and dug the ditches, and proved the land. And you have the colossal nerve to set a little additional dividend on watered stock against the homes of those men—old, some of them, now—and the rights of their wives and children to the fruits of their work!"
The railway man surveyed him with quiet amusement. To him this resembled the vicarious indignation of a very young country lawyer at a client's wrongs.
"Are you," he asked, with quiet sarcasm, "one of those who made the trails and dug the ditches and endured the privations? If so, they seem to have agreed with you."
Casey Dunne's blue eyes narrowed, and his voice fell to a level. He leaned forward across the desk with an ugly set to his jaw.
"If you want to know just how strong I'm in on this I'll tell you," he snapped. "I'm thirty-four years old. I've made my own living since I was fifteen. I've roughed it because I had to, and I've gone low enough at times. I've starved and blistered and frozen in places you never heard of; and out of it all I got together a little stake. I put that into Coldstream land. Do you think I'm going to let you take it without a fight? I'm not."
York, who never let go himself, drummed on his desk thoughtfully. This was a sentiment he understood and appreciated. A fighter, he recognized a kindred spirit. Also if this man were influential, as appeared likely, among the Coldstream ranchers, it might be well to make terms with him.