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"What in the world does it all mean, Doctor?" Dick Balderson asked, as the surgeon came up to the spot where the four midshipmen were leaning on the rail. "It means that there is a good deal of life in the woods. That splashing sound you hear with deep grunts and snorts, is probably made by a hippopotamus wallowing in shallow water; but it may be a rhinoceros, or even a buffalo.
He had made his whole speech up on the line that Balderson as an old soldier would appeal to the sympathies of the jury. Over and over the lawyer pressed Balderson to know why nothing should be said of his soldier record, and finally in exasperation the lawyer broke out: "Lookee here, Baldy; you're too old to get coy. I'm going to make my speech as I've mapped it out, soldier racket and all.
He was in the dealer's chair, running the game. The statute of limitations had covered all his Kansas misdeeds, and he nodded affably as his old acquaintance came in. Later in the day the two men went to Mrs. Smith's boarding-house to take a social bite. They sat in front of the log-house in the evening, Balderson mellow and reminiscent.
They were locating a reservoir site which Balderson has taken up on Burro Creek for the Balderson Irrigation Company and for supplying the Look Out Townsite Company with water. These are Balderson's schemes, and, if established, will put the Jingle-bob ranch people out of business, as they have no title to the land on which they are operating.
At last an old man wearing a Loyal Legion button went into the jury-box. Balderson saw him; they exchanged recognising glances, and Balderson turned scarlet and looked away quickly. He nudged an attorney for the strikers and said: "Keep him, whatever you do."
He was prospecting on a gopher-hole somewhere up in the hills, and was trying to get his wildcat mine listed on the Salt Lake Mining Exchange. No one gave bond for the little man in the seersucker coat, and he went to jail. He was Balderson. He seemed to give little heed to the trial, and sat with the strikers rather stolidly. Venire after venire of jurymen was gone through.
It is said that he has given them two thousand dollars apiece in Irrigation Company stock, has promised to defend them if they are charged with the murder of the two surveyors, and has given each cow-man a deed to a corner lot on the public square of the prospective Balderson town.
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