“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Alan, hiding his face in the smoke of his cigar and speaking with an apparent indifference which had its effect upon Rossland.  “Your presence inclines me to believe that luck has rather turned against me.  Where can my advantage be?”

A grim seriousness settled in Rossland’s eyes, and his voice became cool and hard.  “Holt, as two men who are not afraid to meet unusual situations, we may as well call a spade a spade in this matter, don’t you think so?”

“Decidedly,” said Alan.

“You know that Mary Standish is really Mary Standish Graham, John Graham’s wife?”

“Yes.”

“And you probably know—­now—­why she jumped into the sea, and why she ran away from Graham.”

“I do.”

“That saves a lot of talk.  But there is another side to the story which you probably don’t know, and I am here to tell it to you.  John Graham doesn’t care for a dollar of the Standish fortune.  It’s the girl he wants, and has always wanted.  She has grown up under his eyes.  From the day she was fourteen years old he has lived and planned with the thought of possessing her.  You know how he got her to marry him, and you know what happened afterward.  But it makes no difference to him whether she hates him or not.  He wants her.  And this”—­he swept his arms out, “is the most beautiful place in the world in which to have her returned to him.  I’ve been figuring from your books.  Your property isn’t worth over a hundred thousand dollars as it stands on hoof today.  I’m here to offer you five times that for it.  In other words, Graham is willing to forfeit all action he might have personally against you for stealing his wife, and in place of that will pay you five hundred thousand dollars for the privilege of having his honeymoon here, and making of this place a country estate where his wife may reside indefinitely, subject to her husband’s visits when he is so inclined.  There will be a stipulation, of course, requiring that the personal details of the deal be kept strictly confidential, and that you leave the country.  Do I make myself clear?”

Alan rose to his feet and paced thoughtfully across the room.  At least, Rossland measured his action as one of sudden, intensive reflection as he watched him, smiling complacently at the effect of his knock-out proposition upon the other.  He had not minced matters.  He had come to the point without an effort at bargaining, and he possessed sufficient dramatic sense to appreciate what the offer of half a million dollars meant to an individual who was struggling for existence at the edge of a raw frontier.  Alan stood with his back toward him, facing a window.  His voice was oddly strained when he answered.  But that was quite natural, too, Rossland thought.

“I am wondering if I understand you,” he said.  “Do you mean that if I sell Graham the range, leave it bag and baggage, and agree to keep my mouth shut thereafter, he will give me half a million dollars?”