"Gol darn, the gol darn—" cried Uncle Henry; and then he swerved on Jasper Hardy: "Maybe you can persuade him," he suggested.
"Persuade him to what?"
"To marry her," Smith brazenly said.
"I don't want him to marry her," the father was honest enough to say.
This had never occurred to Uncle Henry. "What's the matter with him?" he asked, his eyes opening wide in amazement.
"It would take too long to tell you." Hardy considered the argument closed; but Uncle Henry came right back again:
"But he's my nevyer!"
"That's one of my main reasons," Hardy cruelly announced; and the only come-back poor Uncle Henry had was an exasperated, "Oh, is that so!" drawled out peevishly, weakly.
"I want his ranch, not him," Hardy went on. He might have been discussing someone not in the room.
"But he's a fine young feller, if I do say so!" Uncle Henry came to Gilbert's rescue, after the manner of all relatives when an outsider steps in with criticism.