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 to get, and thought mebbe, to hush it, he might give in, admit I did have a claim, and come over to us."

"Not in a thousand years," said Hutchinson; "not unless you've really got a claim. He's just bull-headed enough to fight it out. I saw that by the way he met me when I showed him the piece in the News. He wouldn't admit that his name was Hazelton."

Suddenly Riley let his feet fall with a thud to the floor, the swivel chair swinging forward with his huge body, and brought his clenched fist down on the desk.

"By thunder!" he exclaimed.

Hutchinson looked at him expectantly.

"By thunder!" repeated Mike. "Perhaps it ain't!"

"Isn't what?"

"Perhaps it isn't Hazelton. I have private information that, being cornered fair and square, he has denied it flat."

For a fleeting moment Hutchinson seemed startled out of his usual cold indifference, but he quickly recovered.

"Preposterous," he said. "The fellow must be Hazelton."

"I dunno. I reckoned so myself, but—"

"Look here, Mike, if he isn't, why should he let