"Listen," he said, tapping his knee with a forefinger to emphasize his point. "Cal Warren always wanted to put the Three Bar flats under cultivation. He's probably told you that a hundred times."
"A thousand," she amplified. "But the sentiment of the country was against it the same as it is to-day."
"But it's not," he contradicted.
"Then why all those signs?" she asked. "They run every squatter out now just as they always did."
"Who?" he asked. "Do you have a hand in it?"
"No," she said. "The others do."
"Probably they think the same of you," he pointed out. "There's just one man in this country that profits by keeping that no-squatter sentiment alive."
"You must hate Slade," she observed.
"I haven't any feeling toward him one way or the other," he asserted. "He's an obstacle, that's all. That's the way he would feel about me if I stood in his way. There's at least one Slade in every locality and in every line of business throughout the world. Ambition for power. He wants the whole countryside. If he'd win out on that he'd want the next—and finally he'd want the world."
"He has this particular part of the world under his thumb," she said.