The Settling of the Sage | Page 5

He nodded.
"Could you spare me about ten minutes some time to-day?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "I'll send for you when I have time."
The man headed back for his horses and unlashed the buckskin's
top-pack, dropping it to the ground, then led the two of them back
toward the corral, stripped the saddle from the pinto, the side panniers
and packsaddle from the buckskin and turned them into the corral. He
rambled among the outbuildings on a tour of inspection and the girl
saw him stand long in one spot before the solid log cabin, now used as
a storeroom for odds and ends, that had been the first one erected on the
Three Bar and had sheltered the Harrises before her father took over
their brand.

II
The Three Bar girl sat looking from the window of her own room, the
living room of the ranch house, one end of which was curtained off to
serve as sleeping quarters. The rattle of pots and pans came from the
big room in the rear which was used by Waddles as a kitchen and
dining hall for the hands. The new man was still prowling about the
place, inspecting every detail, and she wondered if he could tell her
anything which would prove of benefit in her fight to stop the
shrinkage of the Three Bar herds and help her to face the drastic
changes that were reshaping the policies of the range country.
The Three Bar home range was one of many similar isolated spots
where the inhabitants held out for a continuance of the old order of
things. All through the West, from the Mexican border to the Canadian
line, a score of bitter feuds were in progress, the principles involved
differing widely according to conditions and locality. There were
existing laws,--and certain clans that denied the justice of each one,
holding out against its enforcement and making laws of their own. In

some spots the paramount issue was over the relative grazing rights of
cows and sheep, fanning a flame of hatred between those whose
occupations were in any way concerned with these rival interests. In
others the stockmen ignored the homestead laws which proclaimed that
settlers could file their rights on land. As always before, wherever men
resorted to lawlessness to protect their fancied rights, the established
order of things had broken down, all laws disregarded instead of the
single one originally involved.
In many communities these clashes between rival interests had
furnished opportunity for rustlers to build up in power and practically
take the range. Each clan was outside the law in some one particular
and so could not have recourse to it against those who violated it in
some other respect; could not appear against neighbors in one matter
lest their friends do likewise against themselves in another.
This attitude had enabled the wild bunch to saddle themselves on
certain communities and ply their trade without restraint. Rustling had
come to be a recognized occupation to be reckoned with; the identity of
the thieves was often known, and they visited from ranch to ranch,
whose owners possibly were honest themselves but had friends among
the outlaws for whom the latch-string was always out. The rustlers' toll
was in the nature of a tribute levied against every brand and the various
outfits expected certain losses from this source. It was good business to
recoup these losses at another's expense and thus neighbor preyed on
neighbor. Big outfits fought to crush others who would start up in a
small way, and between periods of defending their own interests
against the rustlers they hired them to harry their smaller competitors
from the range; clover for outlaws where all factions, by mutual assent,
played their own hands without recourse to the law. It was a case of
dog eat dog and the slogan ran: "Catch your calves in a basket or some
other thief will put his iron on them first."
It was to this pass that the Three Bar home range had come in the last
five years. As Billie Warren watched the new hand moving slowly
toward the bunk house she pondered over what manner of man this
could be who had played a single-handed game in the hills for almost a

year. Was he leagued with the wild bunch, with the law, or was he
merely an eccentric who might have some special knowledge that
would help her save the Three Bar from extinction?
The stranger picked up his bed roll and disappeared through the
bunk-house door as she watched him.
The lean man who had first greeted him jerked a thumb toward an
unoccupied bunk.
"Pay roll?" he inquired; then, as the new man nodded, "I'm most
generally referred to as Lanky," he offered