"The first, and always, I hope. It depends on you. Why did you kick him off of here yesterday, Jack? He's full of poison over it."
"Let him keep off then," was the gruff response.
Both looked again at the clump where Fitch could be seen through the thin screen of bushes. After a while Dempster took out his tobacco, cut off a piece, and passed the rest to us.
"You're in a dirty way of business when you're mixed up with him," he said slowly. "An' I 'spose you've come to run me out."
"What's at the bottom of this trouble?" returned Borden, evading the point. "'Tain't the land—what is it he's after?"
Dempster spat. "He's gettin' even. I knocked him down last spring when I was at Nebraska City, for lyin' about—never mind. That's all. So he sneaked around an' hunted out where I live an' filed on the land." A dull fire lighted up under his bushy eyebrows.
"Why didn't you file long ago?"
"Does the gover'ment take away a man's home when he's fought in the war?"
"You know how I feel about it," replied Borden, and he laid his hand on the other's shoulder. "But it's too late for you to try to keep it now. You'd better look up another place."
"No, I'm goin' to stay here, I guess, or nowhere."