"I wouldn't try. I don't want Talapus sold. What right have you to hold us up? That's what it amounts to."
"There's a woman for you!" cried Farwell to the world at large. "Hold you up? Great Scott, that's just what I'm not doing! I offered him the value he put on the ranch himself, not a holdup price. I mean I offered to get it for him. I want you to put it up to him, and get your mother to help you. You ought to have some say in this. He ought to think of you a little."
"It's his ranch," Sheila returned loyally. "He knows what he's doing. When a man has made up his mind, women shouldn't make things harder for him by whining."
"That's right enough, too," said Farwell, whose masculinity was in thorough accord with the last sentiment. "But he is just the same as throwing away a hundred thousand dollars. I don't want to see it. I know what he's up against. I want him to get out while he can break even."
"What about the rest of the ranchers?"
"I don't care a hang for the rest of the ranchers."
"And why do you make a distinction in our favour?"
Farwell was not prepared with an answer, even to himself. Her bluntness was disconcerting. "I don't know," he replied. "It doesn't matter. The main thing is to make your father get out of the way of the tree, for it's going to fall right where he's standing. He can't dodge once it starts. And what hits him hits you."
"Then I won't dodge, either," she declared bravely. "He's right not to sell. I wouldn't if I were in his place."
Farwell slid back in his chair and bit his cigar savagely.