Cunningham had always led a life of intelligent selfishness. He had
usually got what he wanted because he was strong enough to take it. No
scrupulous nicety of means had ever deterred him. Nor ever would. He
played his own hand with a cynical disregard of the rights of others.
It was this that had made him what he was, a man who bulked large in
the sight of the city and state. Long ago he had made up his mind that
altruism was weakness.

He went through his mail with a swift, trained eye. One of the letters
he laid aside and glanced at a second time. It brought a grim, hard
smile to his lips. A paragraph read:


There's no water in your ditch and our crops are burning up. Your
whole irrigation system in Dry Valley is a fake. You knew it, but we
didn't. You've skinned us out of all we had, you damned bloodsucker.
If you ever come up here we'll dry-gulch you, sure.


The letter was signed, "One You Have Robbed." Attached to it was a
clipping from a small-town paper telling of a meeting of farmers to ask
the United States District Attorney for an investigation of the Dry
Valley irrigation project promoted by James Cunningham.

The promoter smiled. He was not afraid of the Government. He had kept
strictly within the law. It was not his fault there was not enough
rainfall in the watershed to irrigate the valley. But the threat to
dry-gulch him was another matter. He had no fancy for being shot in
the back. Some crazy fool of a settler might do just that. He decided