had been baffling, the threats real and unjust, the turn of affairs
when Virginia Albret entered the room most exasperating on the side of
the undesirable and unforeseen. In foiled escape, in thwarted
expedient, his emotions had been many times excited, and then eddied
back on themselves. The potentialities of as blind an anger as that of
Galen Albret were in him. It only needed a touch to loose the flood.
The physical threat of a blow supplied that touch. As the two men
faced each other both were ripe for the extreme of recklessness.

But while Galen Albret looked to nothing less than murder, the
Free-Trader's individual genius turned to dead defiance and resistance
of will. While Galen Albret's countenance reflected the height of
passion, Trent was as smiling and cool and debonair as though he had
at that moment received from the older man an extraordinary and
particular favor. Only his eyes shot a baleful blue flame, and his
words, calmly enough delivered, showed the extent to which his passion
had cast policy to the winds.

"Don't go too far! I warn you!" said he.

As though the words had projected him bodily forward, Galen Albret
sprang to deliver his blow. The Free Trader ducked rapidly, threw his
shoulder across the middle of the older man's body, and by the very
superiority of his position forced his antagonist to give ground. That
the struggle would have then continued body to body there can be no
doubt, had it not been for the fact that the Factor's retrogressive
movement brought his knees sharply against the edge of a chair
standing near the side of the table. Albret lost his balance, wavered,
and finally sat down violently. Ned Trent promptly pinned him by the
shoulder into powerless immobility. Me-en-gan had possessed himself of