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 Seventy-five dollars, at five dollars a month, will require fifteen months to pay."

"Five dollars a month! I'll not work for any man for five dollars a month, Don Abrahan!"

"That is the highest wages I pay to any peon on my ranch," Don Abrahan said loftily. "You can see how the matter stands."

"You didn't say what wages you paid, what you were going to pay me," Henderson protested, knowing as he spoke that his position was weak; that he had been foolish to go into the service of this man without a definite agreement from the beginning.

"You did not ask me, Gabriel, my son."

"I guess I'll have to owe you for a while, then," Henderson said, determination in his manner. "According to the value I put on my services, I've paid you the fifty dollars you charged me for helping me get away from the ship. That's all right; it was worth that to me, and a great deal more. I'll find something to do at better pay and send you the rest of it as soon as I can."

"It is impossible to permit you to desert me in this way," Don Abrahan said, gently enough, even a tinge of sorrowful regret in his soft tone for being under the necessity of taking this apparently unfriendly stand. Yet he was coldly firm beneath his suavity; merciless, inflexible. The threat that lay behind his manner caused Henderson's heart to grow cold in a foreboding of trouble.

"I give you my word that you'll be paid, even