The Settling of the Sage | Page 6

brand.
A dark, thin-faced man with a slender black mustache was the first to voice a query, not from the fact that his curiosity was large--it was perhaps less than that of any other man in the room--but for the reason that he chose to satisfy it at once. Morrow's personality was cold and bleak, inviting no close friendships or intimacies; uncommunicative to a degree that had impressed itself on his companions of the last few days and they looked up, mildly surprised at his abrupt interrogation.
"Box L," he commented. "Where does that brand run?"
"Southwest Kansas and Oklahoma," the stranger answered.
"Squatter country," Morrow said. "Every third section under fence."
Harris sat looking through the door at the valley spread out below and after a moment he answered the thrust as if he had been long prepared for it.
"Yes," he said. "And that's what all range country will come to in a few more years; farm what they can and graze what they can't--and the sooner the better for all concerned." He waved an arm down the valley. "Good alfalfa dirt going to waste down there--overrun with sage and only growing enough grass to keep ten cows to the quarter. If that was ripped up and seeded to hay it would grow enough to winter five thousand head."
This remark led to the old debate that was never-ending in the cow country, breaking out afresh in every bunk house and exhaustively rediscussed. There were men there who had viewed both ends of the game,--had seen the foremost outfits in other parts tearing up the sage and putting in hay for winter feed and had seen that this way was good.
Evans regarded Harris curiously as he deliberately provoked the argument, then sat back and listened to the various ideas of the others as the discussion became heated and general. It occurred to Evans that Harris was classifying the men by their views, and when the argument lagged the lean man grinned and gave it fresh impetus.
"It's a settled fact that the outfits that have put in hay are better off," he said. "But there's a dozen localities like this, a dozen little civil wars going on right now where the inhabitants are so mulish that they lay their ears and fight their own interests by upholding a flea-bit prejudice that was good for twenty years ago but is a dead issue to-day."
"And why is it dead to-day?" Morrow demanded. "And not as good as it always was?"
"Only a hundred or so different reasons," Evans returned indifferently. "Then beef-tops brought ten dollars a head and they're worth three times that now; then you bought a brand on the hoof, come as they run, for round five dollars straight through, exclusive of calves; now it's based at ten on the round-up tally. In those days a man could better afford to let part of his cows winter-kill than to raise feed to winter the whole of them through--among other things. These days he can't."
"And have your water holes fenced," Morrow said. "As soon as you let the first squatter light."
"The government has prohibited fencing water holes necessary to the adjacent range," Harris cut in. "If that valley was mine I'd have put it in hay this long time back."
"But it wasn't yours," Morrow pointed out.
"No; but it is now, or at least a part of it is," Harris said. "I picked up that school section that lays across the valley and filed on a home quarter that butts up against the rims." He sat gazing indifferently out the door as if unconscious of the dead silence that followed his remark. More men had drifted in till nearly a dozen were gathered in the room.
"That's never been done out here--buying school sections and filing squatter's rights," Morrow said at last. "This is cow country and will never be anything else."
"Good cow country," Harris agreed. "And it stands to reason it could be made better with a little help."
"Whenever you start helping a country with fence and plow you ruin it for cows," Morrow stated. "I know!"
"It always loomed up in the light of a good move to me," the newcomer returned. "One of us has likely read his signs wrong."
"There's some signs round here you better read," Morrow said. "They were posted for such as you."
"It appears like I'd maybe made a bad selection then. I'm sorry about that," Harris deprecated in a negligent tone that belied his words. "It's hard to tell just how it will pan out."
"Not so very hard--if you can read," the dark man contradicted.
The newcomer's gaze returned from down the valley and settled on Morrow's face.
"Do you run a brand of your own--so's you'd stand to lose a dollar if every foot of range was fenced?" he inquired.
"What are you trying to get