"I'm afraid you ask too much," Harding replied. "I can't break off the arrangements now without a loss to your friends and myself, and I see no reason why I should do so."
"Do you consider it gentlemanly conduct to prompt men who acknowledge me as their leader to thwart my wishes?"
"Hardly so. Where you have a clear right to forbid anything that might be hurtful to the settlement, I'd be sorry to interfere."
Mowbray's eyes glinted.
"Do you presume to judge between my people and me?"
"Oh, no," Harding answered with good humor. "That's not my business; but I reserve the right to do what's likely to pay me, and to make friends with whom I please, whether they belong to Allenwood or not."
Mowbray was silent a moment, looking down at him with a frown.
"Then there's nothing more to be said. Your only standard seems to be what is profitable."
Mowbray rode away, and Devine laughed.
"Guess the Colonel isn't used to back talk, Craig. If he wasn't quite so high-toned, he'd go home and throw things about. What he wants is somebody to stand right up to him. You'll have him plumb up against you right along; where you look at a thing one way, he looks at it another. It's clean impossible that you should agree."