“We’re enough,” Tuttle replied, a grim, expectant look on his big, round face.
“You bet we are!” added Nick. “If they see Tom and me comin’ they’ll know they’ve got to give up. They’ve seen us shoot, and that scrub, Haney, has got some sense, though I reckon Jim would be just fool enough to get behind a rock and pop at us till we blowed his brains out.”
“Oh, I say, now! This is a foolhardy scheme! Let them go, and if they come out of there alive we’ll get hold of them somehow. It would be dangerous to the last degree for you two alone to attempt to bring them out across that desert.”
“Don’t you worry,” said Nick. “We ain’t ’lowing to bring ’em out.”
The next morning Tuttle and Ellhorn, with two loaded pack horses, set out on their journey to the Oro Fino mountains, where they felt sure the two kidnappers would still be engaged in their hunt for the lost Winters mine. Mead had already sent word to the Fillmore ranch that Wellesly was at his house and that some one might meet them at Muletown that afternoon and carry him on to Las Plumas.
When the two men parted they looked each other in the eyes and shook hands. Wellesly began to acknowledge his debt of gratitude. Mead cut him short.
“That’s all right, Mr. Wellesly,” he said, “but I don’t want you to think for a minute that I expect this little affair to make any difference in our relations. In the cattle business I still consider you my enemy, and I propose to fight you as long as you try to prevent what I hold to be just and fair dealing between the Fillmore Company and the rest of us cattle raisers. We still stand exactly where we did before.”
Wellesly smiled admiringly. “Personally, I like your pluck, Mr. Mead, but, if you will pardon my saying so, I think it is very ill-advised. I’ll frankly admit that you’ve beaten us this year at every turn. But you can’t keep up this sort of thing year after year, against the resources and organization of a big company. The most distinctive commercial feature of this period is the constant growth of big interests at the expense of smaller ones. It is something that the individual members of a big concern can’t help, because it is bigger than they are. Our stock-holders will undoubtedly wish to enlarge their holdings and increase their profits, and I, being only one of a number, can have no right to put my personal feelings above their interests. You ought to see that the result is going to be inevitable in your case, just as it is everywhere else. The little fellows can’t hold their own against the big ones. I am telling you all this in the most friendly spirit, and I assure you it will be to your interest to take my advice and compromise the whole matter. I’ll guarantee that the Fillmore people will meet you half way, and I am sure it will cost you less in the long run.”
As he listened to Wellesly the good-natured smile left Mead’s face, his lips shut in a hard line, and the defiant yellow flame, the light of battle, which his friends knew to be the sign that he would fight to the death, leaped into his eyes. He stared into Wellesly’s face a moment before he spoke.