Business! What business can he or
any other decent man have with the nest of rattlesnakes that we can't
drag out from under that bluff?"
"It is a very simple matter, sir, if you would permit me to explain,"
William said more coldly and deliberately than ever. "Mr. Alston is
merely making a trade for a boatload of horses, and simply asked me, as
his attorney, to meet him at Duff's Fort to draw up the contract with
Mason and Sturtevant."
The judge stared blankly for a moment, so overwhelmed by surprise that
he forgot his anger. "Mason and Sturtevant," he repeated. "Do you mean
to tell me that a man of half Alston's intelligence doesn't know that
those men never have a horse that they haven't stolen?"
William Pressley said nothing more; he suspected that his uncle had been
drinking a little more heavily than common. Moreover, it scarcely seemed
worth while to argue with blind prejudice, drunk or sober.
"Then if you've got nothing more to say, it's with Alston that I will
settle this matter. But all the same, I forbid you to go near Duff's
Fort.
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