Adventure (magazine)/Volume 39/Number 1/The Mad Commanders

by Frank Chester Robertson

 

The MAD COMMANDERS
A Complete Novelette

by Frank C. Robertson

Author of “That Finer Fiber,” “Silver Zone” etc.

I

ROUND the steep face of the mountains which enclosed the lower end of Pocatello Valley crawled a dozen herds of sheep, spread out like enormous, dingy, white blankets, and moving ahead in straight, horizontal lines except when a herder would send his dog to one flank or the other to edge in the stragglers.

Below the herd, on a dim wagon-road that skirted the base of the mountains, the camp wagons kept pace with the herds, all keeping about the same distance apart, usually around a mile.

This was but a fragment of the great Spring exodus of sheep from the Nevada Desert to the Spring and Summer ranges in Idaho—fruit of the incessant, interminable search and struggle for “free range.”

Just at sunset the leading camp of the dozen pulled away from the road to the top of a small knoll—bed-ground of a thousand herds in the past—and stopped. A straight, medium-sized man of sixty, with a well-trimmed iron-gray beard, dressed in old yet substantial corduroys, hopped out of the wagon and with lively fingers began unhitching the team.

It was but the work of minutes until the horses were unharnessed, the hobbles on their ankles, and huge leather nose-bags, half-full of oats, on their heads. Then the elderly camp-mover lifted out a pair of ten-gallon water-kegs, and hopped back into the wagon and began unpacking. Valises were picked up off the bed and arranged on the shelf above the bed in the back of the wagon. Pots and pans were hung on their accustomed hooks. The water-bucket filled and hung in its place at the end of the right-hand projection, just inside the door. The wash basin was stuck in the canvas pocket where it belonged just outside the door. Then the broom was used industriously on the floor and stuck inconspicuously behind a bow in the top of the camp.

Next, the clock was fished out of the bed where it had been packed for the ride, and suspended from a bent wire in the top of the camp. The most fragile articles to be unpacked came last. These were a No. 2 Betz camp-lamp and its chimney. They were carefully wiped and placed on the small, boxed-in shelf provided for the purpose. In a sheep-camp every inch of space must be utilized.

Satisfied that all was neat and clean inside, the camp-mover fished out a few dry kindlings from beneath the camp range, and soon had a fire roaring. Then he hopped outside again and around to the back where he unfastened a small, dead cedar tree from the boot. While the tea-kettle boiled he chopped the night's wood and ricked it up in the small space behind the stove. All these preparations had taken, according to the camp-mover's watch—which was a good one—just twenty-five minutes.

At the eleven other camps belonging to the same outfit the camp-movers were going through practically the same procedure, though possibly without displaying quite so much speed and vim. In fact it was plainly to be seen that the elderly camp-mover did his work zestfully, and was inordinately pleased with himself.

“I reckon the old man can git out an' step with the best of 'em yet when he has to,” he congratulated himself.

He jerked open the end-gate in the back of the wagon, which was incidentally the door to the storeroom beneath the bed, and dragged out a hind quarter of a freshly killed mutton. In a moment he was busily engaged cooking supper.

There were approximately twenty-five thousand sheep in those twelve herds, each sheep worth in excess of ten dollars. Therefore it was a quarter of a million dollar outfit, and this represented, so it was said, less than one fourth the wealth of the owner.

The owner was Bill Matthews—the elderly camp-mover in the lead camp.

MATTHEWS was worthy of a word in any man's country. Green as the Ozark hills he came from, he had started out to win fortune in the West. By sheer accident he had started in the sheep business and had hung grimly on for forty years, triumphing over the sheepman's worst enemies—cattlemen, and the perils of nature. And in those years those two had been something to triumph over. Yet Matthews had come through cleanly, except that one part of his nature had become corroded wherever cattlemen were concerned.

He had introduced a better grade of sheep than were common on the range, and had not made the mistake of trying to make all the money there was to be made in the business. Several close escapes from financial disaster had taught him to limit his live stock holdings, and invest the earnings in various other enterprises. The net result was that he was quite properly termed a u millionaire.

He had married, raised one daughter to maturity, and been left a widower. He was of the hardy breed of pioneers, and though he had maintained a luxurious home in Salt Lake City for a good many years he was never so happy as when he could get out among his herds and camps.

He had known but one master; the slim, chestnut-haired girl who called him “dad,” and who was surprizingly like him in the matter of wilfulness.

So busy was Matthews with his cooking operations that he failed to hear a horseman riding up until some one shouted—

“Supper ready?”

Matthews' head popped out of the camp door like a grizzled Jack-in-the-box.

“Gee, I was afraid it was the herder already, an' me not havin' supper ready,” he said. Despite his later years as a financier he still clung to the speech of the range. “Git down, Martin, an' we'll have a bite of supper directly.”

Martin Phillips climbed off the big, brown horse he was riding, slipped the bridle off, and climbed into the camp where he rolled back on the bed out of the way. He was a smooth-shaven, clean-cut fellow standing just under six feet and weighing a hundred and seventy pounds, and he was still on the good side of thirty. In his eyes lurked a quizzical expression which betrayed a lively imagination. Every swift, sure movement that he made marked habitual efficiency.

Mart was Bill Matthews' foreman.

“How's everything back along the line?” Bill queried.

“Moving along fine,” Mart responded.

“Things always do when I'm around,” Bill Matthews remarked.

Mart grinned.

“Say, Bill,” he said, “seeing that things always run so smooth when you're around, suppose you sort of look after things for a few days while I ride on ahead and see how the lambing ground looks. We'll have to hire a couple of men and fix up around headquarters before the herds get there.”

“I didn't come out here to work,” Matthews demurred smilingly. “I'm on my vacation. Still, I can stay ten days longer I reckon; but I'm goin' to stick to this wagon. I'm not goin' to go prancin' up an' down the line on a horse.”

“We've got a good bunch of boys, and every one of them has been over the trail at least once. All you need do is set the pace and they'll follow.”

“All right. All right. Run along,” Matthews agreed. “I'd kinda like to be boss over my own outfit fer a while, an' I ain't had a chance since you've been bossin' me around.”

At that moment the herder came in and the three men crowded around the table which Bill let down from the side of the camp, and which he had covered with smoking mutton chops, fried potatoes, hot sourdough biscuits, butter, jam, and hot coffee.

“Sheep-herders make me tired by always kickin' about the lonesome life,” Matthews commented. “Why even on trail, an' in the lambin' season they don't often have to work more'n eighteen or twenty hours a day, so what does a little lonesomeness amount to. Why, when I begun herdin' sheep out in Wyoming years ago a shep' couldn't get out from behind a bush without stoppin' a charge of buck-shot from some cattleman. Didn't have no time to get lonesome then.”

“That time is likely to come again,” Mart observed, “if this range-grabbing isn't stopped. There's a rush of homesteaders starting in, and if the government doesn't take steps to control the range, or the stockmen make voluntary allotments, range-wars will surely come. The stockmen that are crowded out by homesteaders are going to crowd somebody else out. In fact they are doing it all the time. Look at the range-wars in Wyoming last year!”

“It ain't because the range is gittin' scarce. It's because of the hoggishness of cattlemen,” Matthews argued. “I'm absolutely opposed to government interference—especially this Forest Reserve business they're talkin' up.”

Mart studied the face of his employer. It was in the days when conservation was just beginning to be strongly advocated, and the young foreman was one of the few stockmen who did not see in it a menace to the live stock industry.

“It's not cattlemen alone, Bill,” Mart remarked. “Sheep outfits are every bit as hoggish. The fact is they all know that soon there won't be enough range to go around so they are trying to get theirs while the getting is good. The result is that sheep are tramping out the range. If it isn't stopped in a few years there won't be any range for anybody. That's why I'm in favor of government control of the range.”

“Bosh! As long as I'm in the sheep business I'm goin' to control my own range. I've scrapped cattlemen all my life, an' I've always held my own without help. I reckon I can keep on.”

Mart knew it was of no use to argue. Matthews was a good man to work for and all that, but he was settled in his views. Through long years of bitter, vicious struggle he had always been able to hold his own, and he resented any outside interference.

The next morning Mart was on his way to the lambing ground. It was a little more than a hundred miles to the little town of Weaver where the Spring supplies were bought. Here Mart stayed all night after his two days ride. Also he hired a couple of dry farmers to go over “the hump,” as the low mountain-range that separated the agricultural land from the grazing land was called.

THIS grazing land was rough, chopped-up country, too high and frosty for farming purposes; yet not strictly mountainous. Years before it had been a cattleman's paradise, but the cattlemen had gradually given way before the swarms of sheep which swooped in by the tens of thousands. Five years before, Bill Matthews had seized a strip of range rather more than a township in extent, and because his outfit was large he had been able to repel all invaders. Though it was Government land he exercised all the right of ownership over it, even to the extent of building upon it and fencing part of it.

At first he had only built a shack beside a small creek in the center of the range, known as Sunday Creek, in which to store supplies—salt and such. Finally this was found insufficient and another building was put up to serve as a central camp for the camp-movers to live in. Then several hundred acres were fenced to serve as horse pasture and buck pasture. Then cutting-out corrals were built, and eventually these were enlarged to shearing pens.

Soon a dipping vat was installed, and this required more corrals. Also, as these improvements required an extra crew of men considerable of the time, a larger cook-shack and a bunkhouse had to be added. All told it represented an investment of several thousand dollars. And it was all on Government land.

Because sheep can not be properly maneuvered in the timber these improvements had been clustered in the center of a small meadow through which the creek ran, and which was bounded on two sides by low, rolling ridges covered with timber. The men naturally fell into the habit of calling the place “headquarters.”

Headquarters was about fifteen miles from the town of Weaver. Mart rode on ahead, leaving his two hired men to follow in a buck-board containing their grub and the necessary tools to fix up the buildings and the fences which were sure to be in bad condition after a long, hard Winter.

Mart, however, did not go at once to headquarters. His main object in coming on ahead was to ascertain the condition of the range. There had been a heavy snowfall, but an early Spring and plenty of warm weather. Already the grass was well up and hardened enough not to be washy.

Well pleased with the outlook for a good lambing, Mart set out for headquarters. He looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly noon, so he figured that his two men had had ample time to get to headquarters and prepare dinner. He set out on a lope and soon struck the trail that followed Sunday Creek through the brush.

He came out at the head of the meadow, not three hundred yards from the maze of corrals and shacks which composed headquarters before he got a glance at the place. The first look caused him to pull up his horse suddenly. He would not have been greatly surprised at the thin twist of smoke that curled out of the cook-shack, for any chance passer-by might have stopped to cook a meal; but the whole place lacked that dead air which it always had after four or five months of desertion. It was this which warned him something was amiss.

Then his eyes rested upon his two men. They were standing by their buck-board on the edge of the meadow, and their team had not been unhitched. Mart turned his horse and rode to them.

“What's the matter?” he demanded.

“There's a nigger in there what ordered us away—says you ain't got any right here,” one of the men informed him nervously.

“Well, that nigger has got a crust,” Mart said. “Why didn't you throw him out?”

“We're peaceable men, we are, an' ain't lookin fer no trouble,” the men explained.

“Besides,” said the man who had spoken first, “it ain't jus' the nigger alone. He says there's a cow outfit pre-empted this range, an' that there's a bunch o' men out now fixin' fence, an' when they come back they'd fix us plenty if we stayed here, an'——”

“An' the boss of the gang is no other than Dead-eye Bender,” his mate cut in, determined to announce the climax.

“The ——,” Mart blurted in genuine alarm. If Dead-eye Bender was around then almost certainly serious trouble was at hand. In three range states the one-eyed gunman had left a bloody trail of murdered sheepherders behind him, and it was known that his gun was for hire to any cattleman willing to pay the price.

Silent, moody, morose, he went his deadly way, shooting from ambush and leaving his lonely victims to be picked up days afterward when all clues of the slayer would be gone, if such clues ever existed.

In time the very mention of his presence on any range was sufficient to make sheepherders call for their time. It was a safe business, his. A few casual words regarding a successful war upon sheepmen on some other range, and the discerning cattleman knew, of course without positive proof, that Dead-eye had no scruples about killing. In the man's cankerous soul was a moral dry-rot which had dulled his conscience until he thought no more of killing a man than he did of killing a mosquito.

Mart knew well enough that not one cattleman in fifty would resort to the methods employed by Bender; yet on every range there was sure to be at least one outfit willing to take any steps whatever to win their point. The fact of Bender's presence here told him that he was opposed to one of these outfits.

“Lookit! There they come,” one of the dry farmers pointed out.

From the wagon-road just below them five men rode toward the cook-shack. Stern, shaggy looking men on good horses. Four of them rode in pairs, but the leader rode alone. This man swerved his horse and rode close to where Mart stood with his two men. He was a squat, heavily built man with face, hands, and chest entirely covered with coarse black hair.

He only glanced inquiringly in their direction as he rode by, but Mart saw that one baleful eye was fixed and sightless.

II

THE five horsemen passed on to the corrals without a word or a second glance. Mart took his eyes from them as he heard the grinding of wheels. His two hired men were in the seat of their buckboard and were going home.

“Wait,” Mart called. “This matter isn't settled yet.”

“It is as far as we're concerned. We ain't huntin' fer no trouble,” they chorused.

Mart was not at all pleased at being left alone, though he knew the two farmers would be of no help in case of trouble. At any rate he was not going to go away until he had had a talk with the men who had now disappeared inside the cook-shack. He turned his horse and rode toward the cook-shack. He noticed that his two men had stopped at a safe distance to watch developments.

Without getting off his horse Mart shouted. A tall, raw-boned, ungainly negro, unprepossessing in appearance, and with a steel hook in lieu of a left hand, appeared.

“What are you fellows doing here?” Mart demanded crisply.

The negro leered.

“Jus' what might yuh be doin' heah, white man?” he countered.

“This is the property of the Matthews Sheep Company, and I'm the foreman. You're trespassing,” Mart snapped.

“Dat's good—trespassin' on free range!” the negro chuckled.

“What's the idea anyway?” Mart demanded indignantly. “Who are you speaking for—sheep outfit, cattle outfit, or what?”

“Sheep? Man, dat is good!” the negro sneered. “Fella, you let one dem white men in heah ketch you makin' any such an asperasion as dat an' jus' one moh clean shirt'll do you.”

“I want to talk to your boss. Send him outside,” Mart said curtly.

“Restrain yo' se'f, bo'. T'ain't healthy to git too rambunctious wid yo' curiousity. But if you is got any idear' dat yuh is got a claim on dis heah range de quickah yuh disabuse yo min' o' dem false conceptions the longer yo gwine live. F'om heah on dis range am gwine be occupied by de J. W. Cow Comp'ny.”

“Who's running it?” Mart asked.

“Ja'vis an' Wentworth am de proprietors. Huck Steadman am fo'man, Dead-eye Bender persarves law an' o'dah, an' me, Pot-hook Brown, am de gen'ral factotum. It am a combination dat kain't be beat. Any mo' infomation you pines foh?”

“Not from you,” Mart replied curtly. “If this Dead-eye Bender is inside send him out.”

“I'll ask him to come out; but yuh heah me, white man, theh ain't no man sendin' Dead-eye Bender no whah, nor yit any place.”

Pot-hook disappeared inside the shack and Mart shifted his position in the saddle so that he sat facing the open door. The holster of his gun was shoved well up ahead so that the gun inside could be got at easily and swiftly. Yet both hands rested idly on the saddle-horn as Dead-eye appeared.

The nerveless eye of the gunman gazed steadily at the sheep foreman, but the good eye could scarcely be seen as it shifted warily about behind the shelter of a hedgelike row of eye-winkers.

Dead-eye strode a few feet from the door and stood with his thumbs hooked into his belt. Behind him were grouped the four cowboys and the negro cook. Mart ignored the others and focused his gaze on the gunman.

“What d'ye want?” Dead-eye demanded gruffly.

“An explanation, first thing, of what you and your men are doing in these buildings,” Martin retorted coldly.

“What's it to you? This is free range.”

“The ground is free, perhaps, but the buildings, corrals, and fences are private property,” Mart said.

“I think not,” the gunman replied. “You ain't got no right to build on guv'ment land. If you do anybody can occupy it that wants to.”

“A man has a right to hold the range he is using, and that right extends to the privilege of building upon it.”

“Sort of a range-lawyer ain't you,” Dead-eye sneered. “At that you may be right; but you see, bo', you ain't usin' this range around here, an' you ain't goin' to use it. So I reckon the buildin's go with the land.”

POT-HOOK and the cowboys were grinning over Dead-eye's shoulder irritatingly. This bare-faced confiscation of the fruits of other men's labor, and the contemptuous treatment they accorded him made Mart seethe with anger, but his good sense warned him that he was at a hopeless disadvantage in case of violence. And violence was what Dead-eye was working for. Mart made his tone firmly civil when he spoke again.

“The point is that we have used this range for five years, which gives us a claim prior to all others. As long as we need it this range is ours to use.”

“Nix. Guv'ment land belongs to him who can hold it,” Dead-eye jeered. “An I'm here to say that Jarvis an' Wentworth can hold it.”

The name of the cattle outfit sounded familiar, but Mart was too angry to think about that.

“I think not,” he challenged.

Considerably to his surprize the men did not accept the gage of battle. But the time was not yet ready for them to offer violence.

“Possession am de hefty side ob de law, sheep man,” Pot-hook contributed with a grin.

“Possession? You lose on that issue too,” Mart said steadily. “You haven't any cattle here, so you're trespassing on private property when you occupy these buildings.”

“Don't you worry none about no cattle bein' here,” Dead-eye retorted. “They'll be here, an' they'll stay here.”

To be barred out from what he considered practically his own property made Mart feel helpless, but he still tried to argue the point.

“Listen,” he said, “don't you know it's customary in any white man's country for an outfit to have the unmolested right to use a range they've had the year before? So what right have you fellows to blow in here and order us off?”

“We've got the one law of the range we recognize—first come, first served, if the powder hangs out,” Dead-eye snapped.

“Then if that's the only way you'll settle it we'll have to accept your terms—but we're going to have this range,” Mart said evenly.

He reached in his inside pocket and brought forth a check book.

“I was going to give those two men out there fifty dollars for making repairs here, but as you've already done it I'll pay you instead—only, I'll deduct ten dollars that I'll have to pay them for coming over.”

Resting the check book on the fork of his saddle he scrawled out a check for forty dollars, payable to Jarvis and Wentworth. Not until he saw the name on the check in his own handwriting did he realize where he had heard the name before. He was smiling as he tore out the check and handed it down to Dead-eye.

“If you'll take my advice you'll accept that check, for I'll tell you frankly that we are going to get this range, and I don't think there'll be any trouble about it as soon as Samuel Jarvis knows whose range he's trying to hog. Why Jarvis and Bill Matthews are next-door neighbors, and their—their——”

Some way Mart could not bring himself to mention the other connecting link, though it was a very real one.

“Bein' neighbors don't mean nothin' when free range is at stake,” Dead-eye sneered. He scrutinized the check with beetling brows. His education was meager and he had to plow through the written lines laboriously. When he finished he tore the check in two and stepped upon it.

“Don't never git fresh with me again, stranger, unless you want your carcass —— well ventilated,” he said.

“I'm not getting fresh. I'm merely making you a fair offer. It's the best you'll ever get. If you won't take it, well and good; but you've got to get out of here. You can't occupy these buildings, and you can't use this range,” Mart stated.

“We can't, eh?” Dead-eye demanded furiously.

“That's saying it,” Mart agreed. “I'll give you three days to move off.”

Bender glared at the sheepman, his hairy hands opening and closing convulsively, unable for the moment to subdue his wrath enough to speak.

Mart leaned ahead over the saddle horn, his gaze fixed upon the killer, and his right hand hovering just above the handle of his gun. He had already recognized that the other white men were not going to take the offensive away from their champion, so, for the moment, they did not require watching. Pot-hook was a menace, but that was a danger that had to be risked.

Bender's good eye wavered, but the other, dead and sightless, seemed fixed upon the sheep foreman with hypnotic intensity. Mart had a curious feeling as his whole attention came to be absorbed with that eye. With an effort of will he wrenched his eyes away, and that moment saw the killer's gun hand, flash downward. Instantly his own weapon seemed fairly to leap from the holster and cuddle in his hand.

Dead-eye Bender's hand left his gun as though it had touched hot iron. That moment Mart knew that Dead-eye would never kill in a fair fight.

“I'm sayin' this to you,” Bender jerked out. “We'll give you just ten minutes to git away from here—an' stay away.”

There was nothing to be gained by staying, and there was a big possibility of being murdered. Mart was not inclined to think that his usefulness on earth was over, so he discreetly reined his horse and rode away at an angle that enabled him to keep the shack under surveillance. The white men went into the shack, but Pot-hook broke into derisive song.

“Heah's yo' hat—oh, what's yo' hurry?” he croaked in a shrill tenor.

Mart had taken a violent dislike to the negro.

“You'll have to go home, men; I won't be able to use you just now,” Mart told the two farmers when he came up to them.

He wrote them out a check for five dollars each and rode away.

The men winked at one another and drove on. Phillips, they were sure, had backed down—as it was in the very nature of every sheepman to back down when confronted by cattlemen.

At nine o'clock the following morning Mart met his outfit just entering Portneuf Cañon. He passed through the lead-herd, which was in a lane, and found Bill Matthews driving the camp behind the herd, and helping to keep the tag end of the herd, moving along.

“Well, boy,” old Bill greeted him, “you musta made a flyin' trip.”

Mart's big brown horse dropped his head wearily between his knees, and the action told Matthews that something was wrong. The genial smile faded from his face.

“What's the matter?” he snapped.

In terse sentences Mart related what had happened.

“And what did you do?” Matthews demanded crisply.

“Gave 'em three days to get off.”

“An' what answer did you get?”

“Ten minutes to get off.”

“An' you——”

“Got off!”

“Well?”

“Their cattle aren't there yet. I'm going to pick the three best men in the outfit, and the best dog, and start the sheep up the trail with the wether band. Those wethers can be pushed to twenty-five miles a day. If we get stock on the range first we'll have public opinion back of us at any rate,” Mart stated.

“All right. All right,” Matthews concurred absently, not half understanding what Mart had said because he was deep in thought.

Mart glanced at his employer curiously. He scarcely knew the man. The genial Bill Matthew's was gone, and in his clothes stood a grim man with a hard, unrelenting visage. All the old, ingrained hatred toward cattlemen had come to the surface, completely smothering every kindly impulse unil the range war was over.

“I don't think this is going to amount to much,” Mart said in as light a tone as he could command. “You see, that cow outfit belongs mostly to Sam Jarvis who is your next-door neighbor, and when you tell him it's you he's trying to crowd out he'll quit.”

“You're —— right he'll quit,” said Matthews bitterly. His face was white, and his grizzled beard fairly quivered with anger. “No —— cattleman ever made me eat dirt yet, an' I don't intend to begin here.”

“Now look here, Bill,” Mart coaxed softly. “Don't make a row. Go to Jarvis quietly as a man and neighbor and show him where he is in the wrong. I'll bet that he orders his outfit to pass on.”

“Your authority as foreman only goes so far, remember,” Matthews said. “I'll deal with Jarvis to suit myself. You don't know cattlemen. They'll never leave a range till they're run out.”

“I'm not trying to tell you how to run your business, Bill,” Mart declared mildly; “but I want you to realize what you're lettin' us in for if you make Jarvis mad. You know as well as I do that one or two sheepherders ain't got a chance on earth with a slow moving band of sheep against ten or twelve well-mounted cowboys, let alone the professional killers that go around shooting in the dark.”

“If you're afraid, I'll give you your time,” Matthews cried.

“I'm not afraid, Bill. I think we've got the best right to that range, and I'll go the limit to hold it; but I want to avoid trouble if I can. If it comes to a range war a lot of men are going to get hurt—or killed,” Mart said quietly.

“Nobody'll git hurt,” Matthews said harshly. “I know a way to make Sam Jarvis pull in his horns. The bottom has been fallin' out of beef, while wool's been climbin'. I happen to know a certain bank that's been carryin' Jarvis over, an' he ain't even paid the interest on a loan of a hundred thousand dollars that's a month overdue. An' I control that bank.”

Matthews looked up at his foreman triumphantly. Mart knew that his employer's attitude, if persisted in, would destroy the last chance to avert the range war. Yet it was hard to argue against blind fanaticism, and Matthews' hatred of cattlemen amounted to just that. Still, he felt that he must make the effort.

“You may be able to smash Jarvis financially, and all that. But it will take time, and time is the one thing we can't afford to waste. We'll be lambing in a week, and if we can't have our range we're done for. You know that an outfit the size of ours can't find a place to squeeze in.”

“Then I've got a card in the hole that will make 'em quit,” Matthews said, his tone even more harsh and bitter than it had been before.

“You have?” Mart queried in surprize.

“I have. Effie!”

“My God, man, you're not going to drag Effie into this are you?” Mart asked in amazement.

“No cattlemen can do me,” Matthews said. “Young Burt Jarvis thinks he's goin' to marry Effie, but if they don't pull off our range I'll bust that up pronto.”

Mart found an excuse to go behind the wagon. His thoughts were in a turmoil. He knew Effie Matthews rather well. She had always been something of a tom-boy, and had spent several Summers in the mountains with the outfit and her father. Mart had been a camp-mover then, and he and Effie had been mighty good pals. Then Mart had taken a belated course in the Business College which Effie was attending, and that Winter he had had hopes.

But he had failed to get Effie to commit herself seriously, and then had come young Burt Jarvis with nothing, apparently, but time and money; and with just as happy-go-lucky an attitude toward life as Effie herself. Serious-minded Mart had quietly dropped out.

Now it occurred to him that if circumstances should suddenly drop young Jarvis out of the running—. The possibilities were rather enticing to say the least. Mart ran the matter swiftly over in his mind; then returned to Bill.

“Look here, Bill,” he said mildly. “You're a good old plug until you smell a cattleman. Then you ain't got a lick of sense. Simply boil over on the stove till the kettle goes dry. So you need somebody to speak a few plain words to you. I ain't got a thing to say about you and old Jarvis throwing notes and mortgages at each other if you feel that way; but when you try to drag Effie into this mess it's just —— too contemptible for words.”

Matthews' mouth dropped open, and his tongue floundered in a vain attempt to formulate words. He reached inside his coat pocket with his right hand.

“Now listen, Bill, before you drag out your check book,” Mart went on coolly. “There'll be plenty of time to fire me if you feel so disposed, but first I want you to consider what I'm saying. If you start anything like that you'll be sorry. If Effie wants to marry young Jarvis, and he's all right—you've no reason to think he isn't—you'll always regret it if you cause trouble just because you got into a huff.”

“But a —— cattleman! I don't want my girl even associatin' with the breed. —— ragne-robbers, bullies, murderers—the whole lot of 'em,” Matthews roared.

“That's all right, Bill. If you don't want Effie to marry Burt because he's the son of a cattleman speak out and tell her so. Then let her decide for herself.”

“I've fought cattlemen tooth an' nail for forty years, an' never been licked yet. I'm not goin' to begin now. Neither am I goin' to take water by askin' Mr. Jarvis will he please take his cattle away an' let me be,” Matthews ended sarcastically.

“Then, if that's the way you feel about it, don't go home until I have a chance to see what I can do,” Mart suggested.

“Are you workin' for me, or am I workin' for you?” Bill inquired sardonically.

“I'm not forgetting; but I don't think, Bill, that you'll fire me because I'm trying to save you trouble.”

“Well, go ahead an' see what you can do,” Matthews grumbled. “But no —— cattleman is goin' to put over anythin' on me.”

III

MART changed horses with the first herder and at once got busy picking the three men he wanted to send with the wether band. He had suggested to Matthews that he hold up the leading herd as soon as it got through the lane, so that the wether herd could get ahead. Mart himself stopped the other herds.

It was ticklish business, this picking out men to face possible assassination. But the danger had to be faced. Mart was some what surprized to find that he, himself, who had always prided himself upon being a peaceable, reasonable man, was looking forward to the inevitable conflict with a feeling of exhilaration. He soon found others who felt the same way.

He had already made up his mind which herder he wanted. This was Jack Owens, a red-headed, quiet, experienced herder who had been through range wars in Colorado.

“I'll go,” Jack said quietly, laying his hand upon his dog's head. “I reckon me an' Dick can git that herd up there as quick as anybody.”

Mart looked at the dog, a tall, short-haired, hungry-looking mongrel who seemed like a simp but knew everything there was to be known about herding sheep.

“I'll get a man to help you with the herd beside the camp-mover,” Mart promised.

Mart hesitated long before deciding who this helper was to be, but finally picked out a strange waif from nowhere who had come to the outfit half frozen and penniless the Winter before and had remained as an extra man ever since. He answered to the name of “Chick” Judge. While he knew next to nothing about herding sheep, there was a peculiar quality about him which convinced Mart that he could be depended upon in an emergency.

“Don't you know, I've always doped it out that these here cowpunchers ain't a bit bad outside o' books. My idea is that any plain-town crook who can handle a revolver is a match for a dozen of 'em,” Chick remarked when Mart outlined the situation.

Mart glanced at him shrewdly. He had known for a long time that Chick was city bred. Now it occured to him that Chick might have unexpected propensities which might turn out useful. It was settled that Chick was to go.

For camp-mover Mart intended to keep Lem Davis who was the regular wether-band camp-mover. Lem was a laughing-eyed boy of twenty—game for anything. His parents were Mormon converts who had emigrated from Wales years before, and Lem had inherited the usual Welsh disposition of instant readiness for fun or fight.

MART gathered the three men in Lem's camp and outlined the situation more fully.

“We're going to be up against it, boys—hard! Dead-eye Bender won't fight fair, and the cowboys, though they may be good fellows in their own way look upon sheepherders as fair game—to be shot down with no more compunction than they would show a coyote.

“If Bill don't lose his head and goes to Jarvis man to man there won't be any trouble; but if he causes a row we can expect to be shot at from ambush, or to be raided at night. And I want it understood that whoever goes must stay with the sheep. I won't hold it against any of you if you decide not to come.”

“It listens like the life, bo. Count me in up to the neck,” Chick Judge said promptly.

“I've never quit an outfit in a pinch yet,” Jack Owens said.

Lem, whom Mart had figured would be first to volunteer, hesitated.

“Dawg-gone it, Mart, I don't know,” he said frankly. “My mother's a widow, an' I've got a kid sister I want to put through high school. Now if I go up there an' git killed what chance will they have?”

“That's enough, Lem. You're dead right. I'll try to get somebody else,” Mart said. No time could be wasted, so he at once mounted his horse to canvass for an other volunteer. He was a little disappointed, for Lem was far and away the nerviest, and most efficient camp-tender in the outfit. He had not got fifty feet from the camp when Lem called him back.

“Oh, Mart—I'm goin',” he shouted.

Mart came back.

“Why the sudden change of mind?” he asked.

“Well, dawg-gone it, I can't miss all that excitement. I'd just naturally go crazy if I stayed behind an' let somebody else go,” Lem said eagerly.

The boy was standing in the doorway of the camp, and Mart could see his eyes shining wistfully.

“I don't know, Lem. I think your first decision was right,” Mart said doubtfully.

The boy began to plead and, partly because of this, partly because Lem was such a valuable man, Mart allowed him to reverse his first decision; thereby putting an added worry upon his own shoulders every time he thought of Lem's mother and sister.

Immediately after dinner the rangy, muscular wethers were stepping out briskly up the trail. Mart stopped at Matthews' camp. He hoped that a few hours reflection would have changed his employer's ideas. Bill, however, was not present.

They were only a couple of miles from the railroad, and Mart wondered if Bill could have hurried home to raise the row with the Jarvis people. Then he reflected that there was no passenger train until just before dark. The herder, however, quickly informed him that Bill had gone to the tracks to take a freight. Such haste showed conclusively that the sheepman had not changed his mind. This destroyed Mart's last hope that a range war could be avoided.

Bill's defection left Mart under the necessity of finding another man to move the lead camp, and a man to act as straw boss. To make matters worse other outfits were crowding up behind, there was no place to get out of Portneuf Cañon, and feed along the trail was practically gone.

Mart hitched up Matthews' camp team and moved the camp himself. That evening he rode to the nearest town to look for men. To his disappointment there were no experienced men to be had, though a pair of transients who had never seen a sheep camp professed an eagerness to work. Reluctantly Mart took them back to the outfit and set them to work—one to take Matthews' place moving camp; the other to herd a band which had been herded by a veteran shep' named Mortensen. Then he commissioned Mortensen to act as straw boss.

Having put the outfit in as good a shape as possible Mart hesitated as to his next step. He wanted to be back on the lambing grounds as soon as the wether band arrived there, but he knew that he had a day or two to spare as he could easily pass the herd on horseback. A scheme had been fermenting in his brain for several hours which, if carried out, necessitated taking a roundabout route which would make it problematical whether he could reach Sunday Creek ahead of the wether herd.

This plan was the audacious one of filing a homestead on the land where headquarters was situated. This would give him a legal right to dispossess the trespassing cattlemen, though it would not necessarily enable him actually to effect it, or hold the adjoining range if he did. It was simply a weapon which might, possibly, turn out to be useful.

On the other hand it meant the forfeiture of something which was a very tangible right in those days—his homestead right which he might later regret. The place itself had no intrinsic value except as it was useful to hold range.

There was another inevitable consequence which Mart did not overlook. If he once took this step he must live up to the legal requirements which, among other things, required seven months continuous residence each year for five years. This meant that he must give up his hard-won position as foreman. If he did not meet these requirements he could be contested, and vindictive enemies might easily make out a damaging case of fraud. More than one man had served time, even then, for fooling with the public domain.

He was tempted to dismiss it as a wild notion, not worthy of a second thought; but he could not dismiss from his mind the thought of grim, vindictive, cattle-hating Bill Matthews dragging Effie into the affair, nor the thought of Dead-eye Bender killing from ambush.

Naturally, in the end, he took the unselfish viewpoint, and made a long detour by the U.S. land office in Blackford. He arrived in that town in the evening, and the land office did not open until nine o'clock the following morning. Then it required some time to convince the register that he really wanted to file on land which was marked on the maps as worthless.

Thus it was near noon when he finally emerged from the land office with the receipt for his filing fee in his pocket. The first thing his eyes rested upon was a thousand head of long-legged, long-horned steers being trailed through town. On the right ribs of every steer was the J W iron. Scrutinizing the riders Mart recognized one of them as a man who had been with Dead-eye Bender at headquarters.

The significance of the thing was not lost upon him. Bender, also, had realized the necessity of getting stock on the range first and had sent a man back to meet the outfit and hurry the fastest cattle to the range.

Mart realized that the steers were certain to beat his wethers in the race. If they did so it would be a powerful advantage to the cattle outfit, for it would give them a semblence of right in the eyes of other range outfits, and that was the only outside opinion that could matter in the least, as the government remained proudly neutral in range disputes.

The attitude of the Government was, briefly: “Here is the free range; now fight it out among yourselves to see who takes it.”

Mart saw several of the cowboys dismount and enter a saloon, so he sauntered in that direction. Before going inside he ascertained that they were all strangers to him. Then he advanced and mingled with the crowd. With his lean, sun-baked complexion, chaps, boots, spurs, and the .44 swinging negligently at his side Mart looked like a cow-puncher and was mistaken for such.

A veteran cowman was the center of attention in the saloon. By listening quietly for a few minutes Mart discovered that this was Huck Steadman, the foreman of the J W outfit. The man was quiet and affable as he joined in the saloon banter, and Mart instantly had hopes of being able to effect a settlement with him without trouble. This hope was dispelled when some one happened casually to mention sheep.

The cattle foreman's face became distorted with hate, exactly the way Bill Matthews' had done at the mention of cattlemen. Their expressions of settled fanaticism were identical.

“Sheep!” Steadman snarled. “This country will never be worth a tinker's —— till every sheep an' sheepherder is run out. They're killin' the country. They tramp out the grass wherever they go. They kill the timber, an' make it so it ain't a fit country for a white man to live in. It's gittin' so that ev'ry place you go you're rubbin' shoulders with a —— sheepherder. I've got so I can smell one for miles.”

“Isn't it true,” Mart asked, “that much of this trouble could be avoided if both sides were willing to give and take a little? You know sheep don't kill the grass by grazing on it—it's this everlasting trailing about that does the damage. And the trailing could be avoided if the range scraps were stopped.”

The entire crowd stopped whatever they were doing and gazed at Matt wonderingly. He went on with his ideas.

“If everybody could get together, agree on the range that's best fitted for sheep, and best fitted for cattle; then lay out regular trails there wouldn't be any great difficulty. There would be plenty of range for everybody if both sheep and cattlemen would raise better stuff and cut down the total number of stock. Doesn't that sound reasonable?”

Steadman favored Mart with a cold stare.

“Nothin' looks reasonable to me that sounds like a compromise with sheep. One or the other has got to go.”

“It's that view-point which will make both go if it's persisted in,” Mart argued calmly.

“By ——, you talk like a sheepman,” Steadman thundered. “If you are, this saloon ain't big enough for both of us.”

“Well, I'm a sheepman all right,” Mart admitted. “I don't like the idea of being ordered out of a place where I've got a right to be; but you were here first, and you're an old man. I don't want to quarrel with you, so I'll go.”

Mart started slowly toward the door, but paused as he heard Steadman sneer:

“I never seen a sheepherder yet that wouldn't quit cold the minute you talk up to 'em. They do somethin' to deserve killin', an' then run so's you have to shoot 'em in the back if you dispense justice.”

Mart whirled and faced the grizzled cowman with narrowed eyelids, and hands on hips.

“I was going because I wanted to avoid trouble—not because I was scared,” he shot out. “I'm going to stand right here for five minutes by the clock; then I'll walk out. That's because I still don't want trouble. But if you or your bunch start anything before the five minutes is up you'll get all you want—and more.”

Amazement crept into the faces of the cowboys. It was a thing without precedent in range history for a sheepman to face a cowman with a threat of his own medicine—gun-play.

Mart had them at a disadvantage, morally as well as strategically, and they knew it. His pacific attitude before, and the clever way he had shifted the burden of aggression on to them would make it look very bad if they started anything. And Blackford was not altogether a cow town; there were many disinterested spectators present.

However, the necessity of standing there under the domination of a hated sheepman while the slow hands of the clock crawled around five minutes was gall and wormwood to the cowboys. Yet they waited—storing up hate.

At the end of five minutes Mart backed slowly toward the door. He had almost reached it when a cowboy from the outside, unaware of the tenseness within, hurried in for a drink. From the corner of his eye Mart recognized the man who had been on Sunday creek. The recognition was mutual.

“By ——,” this individual exploded, “this is the huckleberry who give us three days to git off the public range, an' who lifted his feet like there was hot cinders under 'em when Dead-eye give him ten minutes to git off.”

Huck Steadman came bounding across the room.

“Now I know what's back of that rotten talk of yours, an' it seems you ain't so brave as you pertend to be,” he roared. “Let me tell you, shep', don't yoh let me or my men ever ketch any sheep or sheepmen on the Sunday Creek Range. I've 'stablished my camp there an' she sticks. I ain't bluffin' this time.”

“Our camp was established there first, and we're going to hold that range,” Mart said with a hard note in his voice. “So if you're going to do any killing start in now.”

Half a dozen hands went for guns, but each stopped just before the draw as the sheep foreman covered the crowd from the door by a draw that was faster than the best of them. With a derisive, challenging grin Mart backed outside.

IV

MART headed for the livery stable with the intention of getting his horse and going on at once to meet the wether band, but the sight of the bunch of steers, now fast disappearing in a cloud of dust, suggested something which caused him to change his mind. He killed time rubbing down his horse until he saw the J W cowboys mount their horses and ride on after their herd. Then he returned to the saloon and loafed there until sundown.

Mart had supper and started up the road the way the steers had gone. Night came on before he overtook the cattle, exactly as he had figured. Finally he saw a camp-fire ahead, and in the flare of it a dozen men sitting around indulging in their bedtime smoke. He tied his horse in the brush and crept in toward the fire until he was within hearing distance.

“That sheep outfit will bluff us if they can, but they'll crawl when they find we mean business—they always do,” a cowboy was saying.

“But the varmints are sneakin', an' Jarvis tells me old Bill Matthews is a fighter. There's nothin' too dirty for him to do. He'll scatter poisoned grain on the range, poison the water holes, or anything else to win,” Huck Steadman said.

“There's only one remedy for 'em, an' Dead-eye an' Pot-hook can supply that,” the cowboy who had been at Sunday Creek chimed in.

“That's right, Dormack,” Steadman agreed. “It was a stroke of genius on my part gittin' 'em when Jarvis told me to hunt a new range. But just the same I hope we git these steers up there before they git their cussed sheep on the range.”

“Don't worry about the steers,” Dormack advised. “One more day an' we can bed 'em on our own lawn.”

Steadman tamped a final load of tobacco into his pipe.

“I reckon a couple of you had better git out there night-herdin'. We don't want any stampede on our hands.”

“All right—but they'll be all right for another hour,” Dormack drawled. “They can't git out of that blind pocket except back this way.”

“Just the same you git ready to git out there,” Steadman directed.

Mart began backing away, and when he reached his horse he wore a grin. He swung into the saddle, and as he rode he untied the slicker from behind his saddle. He knew the country well, and knew that there was only one pocket cañon in that vicinity. Also, he knew how to get into the head of it by means of a meandering cow-trail.

At the head of the draw he found himself only a short distance ahead of the leaders of the steers. He could not distinguish individual forms, but it was light enough. The whole bulk of the herd loomed up before him. He listened for a moment but could hear no sound of the night-herders; then he drew his gun and fired a single shot that whined through the air just above the leaders.

There was a chorus of startled snorts, and the sound of a short rush as the leaders turned back. They stopped almost instantly and there was an ominous hush as the entire herd seemed to hold its breath in uneasy alarm.

It was the psychological moment to start a stampede, and Mart seized the opportunity. He struck a match and applied it to the frayed bottom of his slicker. The oiled cloth blazed up instantly, and waving and rattling it Mart charged down upon the wondering cattle.

A BIG steer on lead let out a terrified bawl which announced to the world his opinion that the devil was after him. He charged back through the herd, and in ten seconds the whole herd was in motion.

The sheepman knew that no power on earth could check the cattle in the draw, and when they scattered at the end of the run, as they would surely do, Steadman and his men would be in for an all day's ride, at least, before the cattle could be again rounded up.

Mart flipped away the charred remnant of his slicker; reined his horse back up the pocket, and headed for the Sunday Creek Range. The range war was on and he had drawn first blood.

“I reckon that'll hold 'em for a while,” he commented grimly.

Daylight found Mart on his own familiar range. He had no desire to precipitate a conflict with Bender at that time so he made a detour around headquarters. Yet he rode close enough to see that the horse-pasture fence had been fixed up in good shape to hold the cavy of the cow outfit. They undoubtedly intended to stay.

The sheep foreman rode on until he reached the small town of Weaver. Here he had breakfast and fed his horse. When the horse was rested he rode on until he met the wether band. Tersely he related what had happened. To his satisfaction none of his men appeared greatly worried.

“Glory be, we're in for excitement. Gosh, I hope this'll be one time when cattlemen git it in the neck,” Lem Davis exclaimed with gleaming eyes. Having burned his bridges behind him the boy was on fire with the spirit of adventure.

“We never can tell what will happen,” Mart said seriously. “One thing is sure, however, they mean business. Unless Bill Matthews persuades Jarvis to drop it we're in for a fight, and there's little hope that he will the way Bill went away from here.”

“We've all got good guns, and I'll serve notice that I intend to use mine,” Jack Owens said quietly. “I know what cowboys are in a thing of this kind, and I don't propose to take from 'em what I've seen poor chaps endure when they fell into their hands.”

“Put 'em up against real men, an' them dime-novel hombres wouldn't last as long as a Chinese lantern in a hurricane,” Chick contributed.

“You'll find they're bad men all right,” Mart replied soberly. “Stay away from them if you can, but there may be a call for gun action that can't be avoided. But if there is I want you to leave this Dead-eye Bender to me.”

“Are you a gun-fighter too, boss?” Chick inquired.

“I never had a gun fight yet,” Mart deprecated, “and I hope I never will. But you know how it is, sometimes a kid has a lot of foolish day-dreams. When I was a kid I used to imagine that the only life worth while was being a cowboy, of the rip, rarin' style—gun stuff and all that. Well, I had an old six-shooter and I practised constantly for the coming glory. I never got to be a cowboy, but I did get fairly proficient with a gun.”

That was as near as he had ever come to boasting of any accomplishment, and he did it now only to give encouragement to his men. And it had that effect. They were courageous enough, but they were relieved to know that they had a leader who could be relied upon.

Mart stepped to the door with his hand negligently resting on the side of the camp.

“See that tin can?” he asked.

“Yes,” they chorused.

Almost as if by magic the black handle of the gun was in his hand, and the empty can danced to and fro as six bullets were delivered into it in a continuous stream.

“You'll do,” Chick Judge commented admiringly.

“I think so,” Mart agreed without conceit. “Now if any of them insist on trouble your cue is that you are herding sheep and taking orders—not fighting for range. Send 'em to me.”

They agreed; but without any great amount of enthusiasm.

Ten o'clock the next day found Mart on a high ridge overlooking headquarters. A mile behind was the wether band in charge of Jack Owens, and a quarter of a mile closer to headquarters than Mart himself was the camp wagon with Lem Davis driving, and Chick Judge, rifle across saddle, riding along as escort.

WITH his field glasses Mart saw the tall, one-armed negro come out and begin chopping wood. Apparently there were no other men about, nor was there a steer visible. Mart figured that Dead-eye and his men had been sent for to help gather the stampeded cattle. The sheep had won the race. He replaced the glasses in their case and rode on until he overtook the wagon.

“You boys wait here until I have a closer look around down there,” he ordered.

He had scarcely turned a bend out of sight of the wagon than he heard it rumbling along after him. He cursed softly, but knew it was no use going back to repeat the command, for the boys would not let him ride in alone unless they were somewhere at hand.

Mart was within twenty feet of the cook-shack before Pot-hook looked up and saw him.

“Still here, are you?” Mart demanded curtly. “Don't you know that the three days I gave you to get off are up?”

“What's dat?” Pot-hook exclaimed in vast amazement. “You means to say dat you am orderin' us off! Dat you am serious?”

“Never more so in my life,” Mart replied coolly. “Throw your traps together and move, or we'll throw you out.”

“Well, ah'll be —— jiggered,” Pot-hook said weakly, collapsing upon a log.

“Anyway you'll move,” Mart snapped. He moved toward the open door of the cook-shack to investigate, but had not moved three steps before he heard Lem's excited yell—

“Look out!”

Mart whirled and saw the negro towering over him. He was just in time to catch the glint of a double-bitted ax swinging toward his head. Mart twisted sidewise, and made a spasmodic grasp at the ax-handle with one hand. Luckily he struck it and twisted the blade to one side though he was powerless to do more than slightly weaken the force of the blow. The flat side of the ax landed squarely upon his head, and he went down like a stricken ox.

Pot-hook swung the ax again over the unconscious sheepman. As with most one-handed men, the good arm possessed nearly the strength of two and one blow would have split the white man's skull from top to chin. But Pot-hook also possessed the dramatic instinct. He stopped for an instant to apostrophize the unknown who had shouted the warning, with the ax poised in the air.

Scarcely had he started his statement of what disposition he intended to make of their “innards,” as soon as he finished his first victim to his complete satisfaction, when Chick and Lem broke from the brush. Almost the same moment there was the roar of a rifle and a bullet struck squarely upon the blade of the ax, tearing it from his hands. That bullet had come from an unexpected direction. Then Chick stopped for a revolver shot, and Pot-hook's hat went spinning.

The negro did not lack courage, but he believed that he was surrounded. He bounded around the corner of the cook-shack; from there he gained the shelter of a corral fence, and loped through the maze of corrals and chutes like a jack-rabbit until he reached the timber on the north side of the meadow.

Lem and Chick hurried to the fallen foreman, but Jack Owens was there before them. It was the red-headed herder who had fired the first shot. The three men grouped over Phillips.

“Is he dead?” Lem asked in an awe-struck voice.

“It ain't you fellows' fault if he ain't,” Jack Owens said gruffly. “A lot of you shep's, including Phillips, have got to learn that you can't fool with cattleman in a gentlemanly way. You've got to fight 'em like they do us—underhanded and anyhow. All I could see of that nigger was his ax.”

The herder raised Mart's head and sent Chick for water.

“I thought you stayed back with the herd,” Lem faltered.

“I left old Dick with the herd an' come on ahead as soon as you fellows left. I had a hunch Mart would pull some fool stuff like this. He'll have to learn that clean fightin' don't go,” Jack said quietly.

“I don't know,” Lem remarked. “This don't promise to turn out as much fun as I thought it would.”

Half an hour later Mart began to come to himself.

“Why—what—where—” he stammered.

“We've met the enemy, an' the fort's ours,” Chick said.

V

THE injured man heaved himself upright and gazed around bewilderedly.

“That nigger,” he said wonderingly, “what became of him?”

“Took to the brush,” Chick informed glibly. “What do we do next?”

With an effort of will the foreman got a grip on his wandering thoughts and reasoned connectedly. So far the battle was going favorably. Not only did Matthews own the improvements but Mart now had a possessory right to the land itself. He had prevented the cattle from getting on the adjoining range; now all that remained, apparently, was to establish firmly the fact that the sheep were on the range before the cattle.

“Jack, you and Chick get the herd here on the meadow as soon as you can. We'll bed them in the corrals here tonight, and get them back up in the timber tomorrow.”

Leaving Lem to dump the cattlemen's belongings outside and to cook, Mart mounted his horse and rode to the highest pinnacle where he spent the remainder of the day searching the range with his field glasses for signs of the cowboys.

Nothing whatever came within the range of his vision that could possibly be construed as an enemy. At dark Mart returned to headquarters. Nothing had happened there, and the wethers were, quietly chewing their cuds in one of the corrals.

They ate supper in the camp, and Chick and Lem were loudly confident that the trouble was over. Jack Owens said nothing during the discussion, but at bedtime he quietly advised taking their beds into the brush. Though Chick and Lem pooh-poohed the idea Mart directed that Jack's suggestion be carried out.

Morning came, and it seemed that the younger men were right. Nothing had happened. Jack released the wethers to graze upon the meadow and the four men gathered in the cook-shack to discuss the situation.

SUDDENLY they heard old Dick bark, and all four tumbled outside. Two men were riding well in advance of a posse which numbered an even dozen. One of the men ahead was Dead-eye Bender. Mart recognized a number of the other men as J W punchers; among them Pot-hook, and the man named Dormack.

Several of the men swerved toward the herd, evidently with the intention of cutting it off from the corrals. But Jack Owens stepped out in full view and waved to the eagerly watching dog.

“Go git 'em, Dick—whoop 'em,” Jack shouted.

Like a flash the sheep dog was away, cutting in between the herd and the advancing riders. As he reached the edge of the herd the dog let out a stentorian bark and the herd bunched like the closing of a bellows. Dick was immediately at their heels with his urgent, clamorous whoops, racing from side to side, and the wethers were shot into a corral on the run.

“Get inside, men,” Mart directed quietly. The three men went inside and each took a position beside a window facing the advancing riders. Mart remained outside, in full view, until the riders were within easy calling distance.

“Hold up, there,” he called out crisply.

The riders advanced as though they had not heard. Mart raised his hand.

“If you come a step further some of you will get hurt.”

Still they came on.

“We'll shoot if you don't stop,” he called firmly. “First time over your heads for a warning—second time to kill.”

The riders came silently on.

Altogether, boys—just over their heads!” Mart called softly to his men.

The three rifles inside spoke as one, and, to Mart's horror, two men rolled from their saddles. The line of riders swung around in their tracks and galloped madly back to the timber.

Mart leaped inside the cook-shack.

“Who did that?” he demanded furiously.

“I didn't,” Chick said promptly.

“Nor me,” Lem spoke up.

“One of you is lying—I think both,” Mart snapped. As Jack Owens was older and of a quieter nature Mart figured that he was the one who had obeyed orders.

“Only one of 'em lied,” Jack said calmly “I aimed at the nigger, but the other fellow got in the road.”

“I might have shot one of 'em by mistake for I was purty dam nervous; but I aimed high,” Lem said.

“Now you've put us in the wrong,” Mart said bitterly.

“This is range war, son,” Jack Owens retorted unemotionally.

Just then there was a volley of bullets from the brush, but the range was too far for the cowboys' revolver shots to do much damage. The three sheepherders replied lustily with their rifles.

Very soon the firing ceased from the timber, and Mart ordered his men to hold their fire while they waited for developments. Mart could not take his eyes from the two cowboys who had been shot. There was movement enough from each to show that they were still alive, and it was agonizing to watch their suffering.

Finally Mart seized a bucket of water and started out for the cowboys. Half-way to them, however, he stopped as a man rode out of the brush with a white rag on a stick. He had been one of the attackers, but prior to that time Mart had never seen him. The fellow stopped and waved his flag.

“Come on in,” Mart called; “but this time I want you to obey orders.”

Mart strode back to the cook-shack letting the man follow him. He had noticed that the fellow wore a badge of some sort on his vest, apparently that of a deputy sheriff.

“You fellows stay out of sight,” Mart instructed his men. “Somebody is liable to have to stand trial for murder, and if that fellow sees all of you, all will be accused—and one of you is innocent. I'm going to find out who that innocent one is and see that they don't know he is in here.”

The sheep foreman turned to confront the deputy sheriff.

“Wha'd'ye mean, resistin' a officer?” the fellow demanded gruffly. Mart saw that the man was trying to put up a bold front, but was in reality scared half to death.

“Why didn't you say you were an officer?” Mart retorted.

“I didn't have to—my badge was in plain sight.”

“I don't believe it,” Mart said bluntly. “Anyway, we had a right to resist trespassers. Coming here with our enemies and refusing to give an account of yourself excuses us.”

“No it don't. We wasn't trespassers—couldn't be on free range,” the man grinned.

Mart was tempted to flash the receipt for his filing fee on him, but thought better of it. It was best not to show his ace in the hole prematurely.

“I come out here to arrest one Martin Phillips,” the officer declared. “You him?”

“What's the charge?” Mart countered.

“'Tempted manslaughter.”

“So? On whom?”

“On one o' Huck Steadman's punchers, Dave Ecker.”

“Out there?” Mart questioned, indicating the two wounded cowboys, one of whom was now lying ominously quiet.

“That's another charge. I ain't got a warrant for that yet. Dave Ecker was most nigh trampled to death in that stampede you started the other night—prob'ly will die yet. Then it'll be first degree murder.”

Mart turned pale. This was something he had not figured upon. It had been far from his intention to injure any one when he started the stampede. But if the man spoke truth he no doubt had a warrant, and to resist him was to nullify all his pains taking efforts to be legally right. On the other hand, to surrender certainly meant a lynching the moment he gave up his weapons.

“What evidence have you that Martin Phillips started that stampede?” he asked.

The officer grinned. He now felt himself in control of the situation.

“That's fer you to find out,” he said.

Mart racked his brain to think what had betrayed him, and he remembered. As he was always on the move and received a great many business letters he had taken to carrying the letters in a packet rolled up in his slicker. When he had unrolled the slicker he had failed to think of the letters and they must surely have rolled to the ground where they had been picked up by one of Steadman's cowboys. He was aghast at his own carelessness. Noting it, the deputy sheriff was jubilant.

“I want the whole bunch of you now fer shootin' these two inoffensive punchers,” gloated the officer.

“Let's see your warrants,” Mart said.

“Now listen, shep',” the man wheedled, “it'll be lots better fer you fellers if you go in peaceable with me now. I'll see that nothing hurts you, but if you insist on warrants it'll look bad.”

“We're not going with you to-day,” Mart replied coolly. “I'll give you my word to come in and stand trial after this range fight is over, but I'm too busy right now.”

“If you resist arrest I'll git my posse an' come in after you,” the deputy threatened.

“Come ahead,” Mart invited. Their eyes clashed a moment, and the sheepman won the duel of wills.

“You're makin' a big mistake by not goin' with me peaceable,” the fellow admonished. “Will you let me call three of the boys in to get Ike an' Jim?”

“Certainly,” Mart agreed. He eyed the man curiously, trying to get a straight look at his badge, but the fellow kept turned sidewise in his saddle so that only the edge of it showed. “You're not exactly a stranger to the J W outfit are you?” he asked.

“What's it to you?” the man flushed angrily,

“Nothing. Only, I'd like to see that warrant you said you had for me.”

“I got it all right; but what's the use of showin' it if you're goin' to resist arrest.”

Mart broke into a laugh.

“It was a quite smooth little scheme if we had happened to bite,” he jeered. “But it won't work. You are no more deputy sheriff than I am. Now get your wounded men, and get out of here.”

With an angry snarl the fellow rode away. He soon returned with three cowboys, and the two wounded men were carried away.

Yet the ruse of the fake deputy sheriff had almost worked. Because a respect for law was ingrained in his very nature, and because he abhorred the custom of settling range disputes by violence, Mart had been almost persuaded to risk the protection of the pseudo officer, and submit to arrest.

Now he knew that had he done so he would not have lived a half-hour. The episode taught him two things; that the J W was capable of using craft and guile as well as blind force, and that it was unwilling to have the issue dragged before the courts in any form. Had this not been so they would have taken the lost packet of letters to the prosecuting attorney, and got a warrant for his arrest and a real deputy sheriff to serve it, instead of having one of their own number impersonate an officer.

“Well, what do we do next?” Chick Judge demanded eagerly. The range waif was in fine feather.

“We can't stay here,” Mart said quickly. “They'll come back with rifles as soon as they have time to think it over. Maybe they won't come till night—but they'll come. We've established the fact that we were here first with stock, so there's no use of keeping the herd here just to have it slaughtered.

“Remove the bells and take the herd back the way you brought it in until you strike Rocky Ridge. Then trail along that as far as you can, for it'll be difficult for 'em to see any tracks there if they try to follow you. Then double back into Swift Canyon and up that to the fifth sub-cañon. That's a rough country and covered with big timber, so the chances are they won't find the herd.”

“Goin' to run, now we've got 'em licked?” Chick demanded disgustedly.

“Certainly. We're fighting to hold the the range—not for the sake of a fight. If you fellows hadn't shot those men we'd have Jarvis on our hip,” Mart stated curtly.

It was evident that his sentiments were not cordially approved.

“This place belongs to me now, and I'm going out to post notices of my homestead on the corners. When I come back I want you fellows to be gone,” Mart said.

He wrote out his notices, and after considerable difficulty succeeded in finding the corner stones left by the government survey. At each stone he left a notice. Thereafter any person who came on without leave was a trespasser.

THE Jarvis and Wentworth cowpunchers seemed to have withdrawn from the vicinity, for Mart saw nothing of them. Yet he was not deceived in the least. He returned to the corrals just before dark. The men and sheep had long since gone. All was quiet except for the hoarse croaking of frogs which made the meadow fairly ring, and lent a peaceful tone to the surroundings.

The foreman made a hasty supper from food which Lem had left for him, then saddled his horse and rode into the timber. A mile from headquarters he hobbled his horse, and then crept back until he was within a quarter of a mile of the place. He wrapped a blanket about him to shut out the cold, mountain air; but he slept none at all.

About two o'clock the night stillness was shattered by a fusillade of rifle shots at headquarters. Mart knew that the cowboys had returned. The firing continued for a few minutes; then stopped for a short time; broke out again punctuated by eager yells, which changed to disappointed ones as they found the place deserted.

At the first peep of daylight Mart crawled close enough to see headquarters. Horses were turned into the pasture, and presently the negro cook, Pot-hook, came out of the cook-shack with a water bucket. These things were enough to convince Mart that the cowmen intended to stay. He returned to his horse, mounted, and was soon cutting through the hills toward Blackford.

The J W outfit was now legally a trespasser on his private property, so he was in a position to call in the law to eject them. Once the law could be compelled to take a hand at all Phillips was sure the cattle outfit would abandon the struggle. Ousted from headquarters and with range sentiment arrayed against them, their chances for ultimate success would be small.

The only things which threatened defeat of his plans, Mart reflected, were his own foolishness in losing the letters from his slicker, and the headstrong action of two of his men in shooting at the cowboys against orders. If complaint had been made to the authorities he knew he would find his hands tied at the very start. But he believed that the cow outfit would prefer to suffer its casualties in silence, and get revenge in its own grim way.

The town lay in midday silence when Mart entered. He rode at once to the office of an attorney—a land specialist.

Thirty minutes later he had completed arrangements with the attorney to sue out a writ of ejectment against the J W outfit. As he was leaving the office the attorney advised:

“If I were you I'd see those people and let them know you got the cinch on them. The law is a slow mover, and you may not be able to get them off for a long time if you wait for it. But they may move off quietly if they know you'll eventually win.”

Mart walked down the street toward a restaurant, thinking deeply. At the door of the place he almost had a collision with two men who were coming out. He knew them both. One was Huck Steadman, the other Samuel Jarvis. Jarvis was a big man, dressed in a neat-fitting business suit of good quality; his square-cut features close-shaven except for a neatly trimmed iron-gray mustache. City life was indelibly stamped upon him; yet there was something, the slightly rolling walk, perhaps, or maybe the squint of his eyes, which told of a youth spent in the saddle.

“Just a moment,” Mart said.

Steadman had no mind to talk. He recognized the enemy, and his hand flew to his gun. Before the weapon was half drawn, however, he was staring down the black muzzle of a 44.

“Don't go any further,” Mart warned.

“What's all this?” Jarvis snapped.

Mart had seen the cattlemen several times in Salt Lake, but he was aware that Jarvis did not know him.

“I'm peaceable,” Mart said quickly. “I only want a quiet, reasonable talk with Mr. Jarvis.”

“It's the foreman of that —— sheep outfit,” Steadman barked furiously.

The hard, arrogant, implacable look which Mart had come to look for on cattlemen when sheep were mentioned, and on sheepmen when cattle were mentioned, settled over Jarvis' features. Even before the cattleman spoke Mart felt the futility of trying to reason with him.

“We are not discussing things with sheepmen,” Jarvis said curtly.

This bitter, uncompromising hatred for the other side which both sheep and cattlemen manifested was decidedly getting on Mart's nerves, but he forced himself to speak pleasantly.

“A free discussion of the case is the only thing that will avoid serious trouble,” he said. “We're not trying to hog any range, so why can't we go some place and talk it over?”

“Sheep ain't entitled to any range,” Huck Steadman said hoarsely. “There ain't a foot of range in this country that wasn't cattle range before the sheep come. They'd all oughter be run out.”

“Surely you don't hold a fanatical viewpoint like that?” Mark asked Jarvis.

“Steadman is right. Cattle were here first. But this fight is with Bill Matthews personally. The greasy old skunk actually tried to force me into bankruptcy without me knowing who was doing it. He'd have done it, too, if I hadn't been able to make connections with another bank. There is other reasons, too, why I won't compromise with him. This fight goes the limit.”

Jarvis' voice had been getting higher, and his face redder as his temper rose.

“Then listen right well, both of you,” Mart exclaimed. “We not only have every moral right to that range, but we now have a legal right. The center of that range is my private land, and I have taken legal steps to expel your men. It'll be better for all concerned if you withdraw peaceably; for we'll use force if we have to to defend our rights.”

“Your private land?” Jarvis exclaimed incredulously.

“By homestead,” Mart informed.

“Of all the —— sheepherder tricks,” Huck howled.

“It's a trick all right, old man; but we're full of 'em,” Mart retorted.

“Come on,” Jarvis snapped at his foreman. “We'll see about this.” They strode straight toward the land office.

Mart mounted his horse and rode back to the range. He circled warily until he reached the top of the ridge which over looked headquarters. He had already noted that the J W steers were on the range. He adjusted his field glasses and surveyed the huddle of corrals and buildings on Sunday Creek meadow. He was not at all surprized to see a number of cowboys moving about, making themselves perfectly at home.

In fact everything was exactly as he expected to find it, except that two new, white tents had been erected behind the cook-shack.

Mart speculated upon the reason for them. Then the flap of one of them was raised and the mystery was explained.

Effie Matthews walked out.

Bill Matthews, evidently, had foolishly rushed to the scene of the coming encounter and brought his daughter with him.

VI

THE sheep foreman leaped to his feet with a cry apprehension. Why, in —— name, he wondered, had Bill Matthews permitted Effie to come?

The girl was no stranger to the range. It had long been a custom with her to accompany her father there. She had always been able to twist Bill around her little finger, so to speak, but Mart's resentment flared high that Bill had not asserted his authority and made her stay at home.

It was not hard to figure out how they had got there. Evidently they had come by rail to Huttville, the closest station, then by stage to Weaver, and by buckboard from that point to headquarters—dropping, innocently into the clutches of Veritable wolves of the range.

Their presence at headquarters provided a complication that threatened disaster in more ways than one, Effie's danger was obvious. So was that of her father. The moment the iron-willed old sheepman found himself in the hands of his enemies he was sure to run amuck, with better than even chances of being killed. Or, if he were spared, it would be for strategical reasons. Mart squatted on his heels for a long time, but he saw no signs of his employer.

With either Matthews or Effie as a prisoner the cattle outfit would be immune from attack. They were wise enough to know, also, that the sheep must get on the range at once if at all; for once the lambing operations started there would be no moving herds. Mart knew that he must find a lambing ground within a week. He knew, too, that the law would not even have begun to move by that time.

To attempt to oust the cattlemen while the girl was in there was unthinkable. Turn the problem over in his mind as he would Mart could see no solution except to acknowledge defeat, unless he could contrive to get Bill and Effie secretly away from there, and then resort to usual range warfare methods.

It seemed to the sheep foreman that although—it almost seemed because—he abhorred violence so much the freaks of fate were conspiring to force it upon him. Violence or no he was going to make an attempt to get Effie and her father out of there, and whether it meant fighting or not; whether it was successful or not, he knew that he was going to demand an accounting of men so warped in their minds that they would use a woman as a buffer in their foolish, brutal range wars.

Mart gazed at the girl longingly as she walked slowly about on the meadow; then the big negro, Pot-hook, came out and said something to her, and she retreated hastily within the tent.

Mart swung on to his horse and headed toward the place where he had told his men to hold the wether herd. Before he reached the fifth sub-cañon, the one where he had ordered the camp to be placed, he began to feel a new uneasiness. A groan escaped him as he caught sight of the camp wagon—or what was left of it, which was nothing but the wheels of the wagon, the irons of the wagon-box, and a heat-twisted, sheet-iron camp-range.

Everything was filled with a funereal silence. Not a twig rustled, not a bird sang, not a tree-squirrel chirped. Not a thing to signify that in that cañon men had ever drunk in God's pure, free mountain air, except the pitiful remains of what had once been the shelter of strong, contented men.

Mart's first startled gaze swept through the bushes for the bodies of men, but none were to be seen. He dismounted and with a pole poked gingerly through the smoking ruins of the camp, but to his infinite relief no charred bones appeared.

He climbed back on his horse and set out to look for the herd. Half a mile up the cañon he came to the place where the cattlemen had found it. A dozen sheep carcasses marked the spot. Riding on he found dead wethers in many places; proof that the herd had been scattered and sheep shot down for idle pastime. Still there was no sign of any men.

Finally Mart found tracks of what seemed the largest bunch of the wethers, and he followed them carefully. They went to the head of the cañon, over a divide, and down through thick, heavy patches of chaparral on the other side. With considerable difficulty Mart succeeded in getting through this brush and out upon a small flat on the other side of a gulch.

The sheep appeared to have scattered all through the chaparral, except one bunch of approximately three hundred head which were huddled together on the flat in abject fear. Night had come by this time and the blurred farms of the milling sheep were like uneasy ghosts.

Mart shouted, but the hills gave back only the echo of his voice. Again and again he called with the same fruitless results. Twenty minutes passed while he waited, hoping that one of his men might come that way hunting the sheep. Then he heard the crackling of chaparral back the way he had come, and a little later a small bunch of sheep came out and headed for the larger band on the flat. Behind them the dog, Dick, jogged back and forth, urging them steadily onward.

Mart looked eagerly for the herder but none came in sight. The dog shoved the little bunch into the larger one, hesitated a moment; then trotted around them forcing them into a more compact body. His movements seemed to lack the confidence inspired by a master. He stood still a moment, then dropped to his haunches, pointed his nose to the moon as though to indulge in a howl, but no sound escaped him.

Suddenly Mart realized what was the matter, and an ejaculation of sympathy escaped him.

“Here, Dick. Come, boy,” he called.

At the sound of a human voice that he knew the dog came bounding. He reared up with his front feet on Mart's stirrup and whined softly. Mart reached down and patted the rugged head. Then he reached for his knife and slashed the leather thongs which bound the dog's jaws tightly together.

Dick gave a “whoof” of relief. It had not been at all pleasant even though he had been muzzled by his beloved master, Jack Owens. This torture of sheep dogs, however, was one of the necessary incidents of range war. Otherwise they might betray the whereabouts of their masters by their barking.

Mart was now convinced that something serious had happened to Owens. The dog would never have left him if he had been anywhere around the herd. True enough, the dog could always be depended upon to stay with the herd when Jack ordered him to do so, and the fact that Dick was doing his best to gather it together argued that Jack had told him to stay with it. Owens might have left the dog with the herd while he hid from the sheep killers, though that was unlikely; and at any rate he should have found the herd before this.

“Where's Jack, Dick?” Mart asked of the dog.

He repeated the question several times, and finally the dog started back through the chaparral, following a devious sheep trail which a man could not have found. At last they came to a small opening where was huddled another small bunch of wethers. The dog went around them and started them down the trail toward the sheep on the flat.

“No, no! Come back, Dick. Where's Jack? Find Jack!”

The dog hesitated, greatly puzzled. Once more he started toward the sheep, but as Mart called him back and reiterated “Jack” it seemed to dawn upon him what was wanted, and he set out briskly toward the top of the divide.

THE dog took the trail back to where the first sheep had been killed. There, for a time, he seemed to be at a loss as he smelled around while a low growl rumbled from his throat. At last he seemed to find what he was looking for. He set off down the side of a spur ridge with his nose to the ground, while the growl grew louder and more threatening.

After perhaps a quarter of a mile the dog stopped at a clump of fifteen or twenty majestic fir trees. Mart was not greatly surprized at what he saw there. Suspended from a huge limb on the largest tree was the lifeless body of Jack Owens.

“Oh, my God, Jack!” Mart cried bitterly. In spite of the fact that Owens had deliberately fired upon a man in defiance of his orders Mart liked him. Mart was broadminded enough to see that the herder's hatred for cattlemen was the logical fruit of the struggle for free range.

Mart cut the rope and let the body gently to the ground. At once Dick fell to licking the cold face, while a crooning growl came from his throat.

On the herder's breast was a sheet of dirty, yellow paper. Scrawled on it m lead pencil were the words—

 

This is a sample of what all sheepherders will get who try to stay on the Sunday Creek Range.

 

Mart searched the body, and as he suspected, found a bullet wound in the man's back. Thereupon it was easy for him to visualize the tragedy. Some one, probably Dead-eye Bender, had shot Owens in the back, though not killing him instantly. Then they had taken him to the trees to finish the job. Owens had probably left Dick with the herd, and was on his way to camp for dinner when he had been shot. The dog always obeying orders when he could understand them, had stayed with what sheep he could during the raid, and had faithfully tried to gather the rest.

“To treat a man like that!” Mart reiterated over and over in a sort of wonder. He covered the herder's face with his coat, and mounted his horse.

“Stay with Jack, Dick!” he ordered the dog, and the faithful animal lay down beside his dead master.

NATURALLY Mart wondered what had become of the other two boys. The murder of Owens showed that no mercy was to be expected from the J W outfit; either for any herders who might fall into their hands, or for Bill Matthews or his daughter. Mart formed a cold resolution that he would get Effie out of their hands if he did nothing else.

His fear and indignation did not blind his judgment. He knew that he could not ride in and get the girl out in any cavalier fashion. In fact, there was very little he could do alone. The cow outfit would be only too glad to serve him as they had Owens, and he knew very well they would be on their guard for a while at least.

He knew that the remainder of his outfit could not be far back on the trail, and the best thing that offered was to ride back and meet them, explain the situation, and get help.

He found the outfit at daybreak the following morning, having hunted for them all night. To his great amazement the first man he laid eyes upon was his employer, Bill Matthews. Mart found his head whirling.

Effie in the camp of the cow outfit entirely alone was unthinkable. Yet he could not conceive of any way for her to be there without her father, and he knew well enough that if Bill had been there he would not have been permitted to escape. Was it possible that his eyes had deceived him?

“Where's Effie?” he demanded hoarsely.

“Effie? She's gone. Gone off with that young Jarvis pup,” Matthews replied. The old sheepman's face, so jolly and kindly only a few days before, was tight-drawn, and blue with bitterness.

“Are—are they married?” Mart queried, mostly because he could think of nothing else to say.

“I s'pose so,” Matthews said. “She said she was goin' to marry him when I ordered her not to speak to any of the breed again.”

It followed, then, that Effie had gone to headquarters with her husband, and so should be safe. But why had she and young Burt Jarvis gone there at all, and why did they not leave when they saw there would be trouble? These questions raced through Mart's mind. He felt a sort of numbing sickness creeping over him, and shook it off with difficulty.

It was rather painful to hear the girl had just been married, even though he had entertained no serious hopes of ever winning her himself. One thing was certain; her presence at headquarters made the place immune from attack by Matthews—or did it? Mart wondered if the grim old sheep man would let his hatred influence him to such an extent that he would endanger the life of his daughter. He determined to find out.

“Do you know that Effie is at headquarters?” he asked.

“What?” Matthews fairly shouted. “You mean to say that she's had the nerve to go onto my range along with them —— murderers?”

“She is there,” Mart replied.

“Well, it won't be long till the whole bunch of 'em won't be there,” Matthews raged. “I've got fifteen men all ready to start for there this mornin'.”

“My God, man, you can't start anything with Effie in there!”

“It's her own look-out. If she's mixed herself up with that kind of scum she'll have to stand the consequences. Do you know that they raided the wether band yesterday, an' prob'ly murdered two of our men?”

“Then you've heard about that?” Mart queried.

“Yes; Lem's here.”

“What about Chick?” Mart asked quickly.

“Lem don't know what become of him, but the —— murderers was chasin' him, so he's probably dead,” Matthews said gloomily.

Mart knew it was of no use to plead or argue with his employer. Already several men had arrived, armed with rifles, and Matthews was busily engaged giving them instructions. Mart quickly learned that the outfit had been side-tracked from the trail, and that all the camp-movers, and even some of the herders had been summoned to join the posse. He turned his horse loose to graze, and went into the camp to get breakfast.

While he was eating Lem Davis arrived. The haggard look on the boy's face told plainly that he had gone through a harrowing experience.

“Tell me what happened yesterday?” Mart demanded eagerly.

“I and Chick were watching the back trail, an' we saw 'em comin',” Lem explained. “We saw they was trackin' the herd along Rocky Ridge so we figured we might be able to throw 'em off, an' we shot a couple of times apiece at long range; then took to the brush in the opposite direction, makin' all the noises we could to git 'em to foller us.”

“Were you afoot?” Mart asked.

“Yep. On that account we took to the thickest timber we could find, which took us toward headquarters. They split up, an' one bunch with Dead-eye Bender kept in the trail of the herd, an' the other follered us. When they got too close Chick suggested that we split up, an' we did, an' they follered Chick. I don't know what happened to him. I couldn't find him again, an' he ain't showed up here.

“I went back to camp after a while, but it was on fire. Then I tried to find Jack, but I couldn't. I found some dead sheep, though, so I figured the best thing to do was to find the outfit an' git help.”

“They hung Jack,” Mart observed crisply.

There was a sharp intake to breath that ran through the circle of men who had gathered to hear the story—a keener realization of the kind of job they were about to undertake. But though it sobered them, it steadied them and added to their resolution. Mart knew that he was practically powerless to prevent a raid upon the cattlemen.

“I want a fresh horse,” he said.

“All right. Change with one of the men that ain't goin',” Matthews said absently.

THE change was effected and the group, sixteen in all, started for Sunday Creek. The minds of fifteen of them were busy with the problem of how to win the expected fight; that of the other sought desperately for a scheme to avoid what he was certain would spell disaster in some form if the raid were carried out.

The little band stopped on the edge of the Sunday Creek Range to eat the cold lunch which each man had brought in a flour sack tied on behind his saddle. Matthews ate apart, eyes hard, and features set and grim.

When the lunch was eaten Mart walked over to his employer.

“Look here, Bill,” he said softly. “I've quit trying to persuade you to abandon this raid. Go ahead if you must, but use judgment. Let me ride down there and scout around a little first and, besides, Jack Owens is dead and unburied up there in the timber. While I scout send part of the boys to bury Jack, and let the rest of them round up the wethers.”

Matthews remained silent for several minutes. Mart began to think his employer's grudge would not permit him to make even this compromise, but presently he grunted—

“All right.”

Mart immediately mounted his horse and rode straight toward headquarters. There was but one thing left to do. He would make one final appeal against range intolerance—this time to young Jarvis. If this had no effect, and the cowboys still refused to move, he would warn young Jarvis of the impending raid so that he could get Effie out of the way.

The sheep foreman knew that he could expect no mercy, unless young Jarvis should intercede for him; and it was, furthermore, very doubtful if he would be listened to if he did. But the thing which really hurt was that he would be, in a way, a traitor to his own outfit, and the sheepmen's attack would be foredoomed to failure if the raid was expected.

He tried hard to look at the matter dispassionately. Good blood had already been spilled for the sake of a few acres of grass. More bloodshed seemed now inevitable. Yet the victims were interested and had all accepted the risk. It was better, he reflected, for them to face a slightly increased danger than for Effie, innocent and unwarned, to be left in a place where men's worst passions were quickly to be unloosed.

He rode out on the meadow not far below the corrals. The white tents were still there, saddle horses grazed contentedly in the pasture, and a poker game was in progress on a saddle blanket. A quiet, pastoral scene; everything peaceful under the sun—except the vicious spleen in men's hearts.

At Mart's approach the men around the blankets sprang up, guns in hand. Mart came steadily on, eyes fixed to the front, hands conspicuously upon the horn of his saddle.

Dead-eye Bender murmured a few words to the men, and an angry buzz of conversation greeted Mart as he stopped his horse ten feet from them.

“Well, de man what said sheepherders am crazy sho' did announciate a mouf-ful,” Pot-hook ejaculated. “White man, am yo' neck itchin' foh de feel of a rope?”

“I want to speak to young Jarvis,” Mart said, unheedful of the negro.

“Young Ja'vis,” Pot-hook said with a palpable sneer, “ain't receivin' no comp'ny right now.”

A cowboy placed his hand on Mart's bridle reins.

“No familiarity, please,” Mart said coolly. “Take your hand off of my bridle.”

The cowboy's hand dropped from the bridle as though it had been burned, but the men closed around the horse in a grim circle. Mart's career would have been quickly terminated had not Huck Steadman appeared at that moment.

“What's that man doin' here?” Huck demanded angrily.

“I came here to have a talk with Burt Jarvis and Effie—his—his wife,” Mart stammered. His confusion was caused by the pain of having to acknowledge the girl as the wife of another man, but the cowboys interpreted it as a sign of fear.

“Don't let this fellow get away, boys, until I see the boss. Mebbe he'll want to talk to him,” Huck said as he moved away toward a small building which the sheep outfit had used as an office.

“Did you find your sheepherder?” Dead-eye Bender asked in so gloating a voice that Mart saw red. At the same time he noted the assassin's use of the singular, which held out the hope that Chick had in some manner managed to escape.

'I did, you —— murderer, and I'm going to see that you pay for that,” Mart hurled back.

Dead-eye laughed a mirthless, triumphant, animal chuckle.

“You'll look just as sweet as he did dancin' from the end of a rope,” he retorted.

Suddenly the flap of one of the tents, fifty feet away, was thrown open and Effie came out. Mart's heart bounced into his mouth and then back into the pit of his stomach, as he saw the strained, anxious look on the girl's face. It was about the first time he had ever seen her when she was not mocking something or somebody.

“Mart!” she called eagerly as she recognized him.

Mart touched his horse with his spurs to ride closer to her, but Bender seized the bridle reins and hurled the horse back on his haunches. The next second the sheepman was jerked out of the saddle, and his gun wrested from his hand. With a mighty heave Mart shook himself loose, just in time to see the negro grab Effie and throw her back inside the tent.

Mart became a madman. His fist crashed into Dead-eye Bender's jaw, and the killer went down like a stricken ox. Half a dozen more cowboys received terrific smashes, and Mart had gained twenty feet toward the tent before he was finally dragged down with three husky cowboys on top of him. He made a tremendous effort to get up, but the odds were too great.

“Let that man up,” suddenly snapped an incisive voice, and Mart was permitted to stagger to his feet. His face was covered with blood and dirt, and he had to wipe hard before he could see the men who faced him. Confronting him was Samuel Jarvis, with Huck Steadman just to one side, while cowering behind them was young Burt Jarvis.

The elder Jarvis looked the disheveled sheep foreman over with studied contempt.

“Rather foolish of you to come here, wasn't it?” he asked dryly.

“Possibly,” Mart conceded, studying young Jarvis intently.

“Thought you had us dead to rights when you filed that homestead, didn't you?” Samuel Jarvis sneered.

“It means we're sure to win in the long run,” Mart said quietly. “It puts the law on our side.”

“I'll admit that,” Jarvis acknowledged with a harsh laugh. “But you see, young fellow, it is entirely wrong for you to try to introduce private property on the public range. So you're going to relinquish this so-called homestead back to the government right away. I'll write it out, and all you'll have to do is sign on the right line.”

“I think not,” Mart replied steadily.

“I'm not fooling,” Jarvis barked. “These boys of mine hate sheepherders worse than they do skunks, and with twice as much reason. They're plumb anxious to string you up to a tree. You deserve hanging anyway because you killed one of my men right here on this meadow before we'd fired a shot; but I'll let you go if you'll sign that relinquishment.”

“You go straight to ——!” Mart said firmly.

“Then you'll hang!”

“All right!”

“Just one more chance before I turn you over to Dead-eye,” Jarvis said, his face distorted with rage.

“Sheepherders have got self-respect,” Mart said.

“Then you'll have to hang to prove it,” Jarvis cried furiously.

“Burt, are you going to stand for this?” Mart demanded of young Jarvis.

“I can't help it,” Burt wailed piteously. “We thought we could stop this foolishness if we came out here, but we can't.”

“Marry a sheepherder's girl, and then think you can tell me how to run my business!” Jarvis senior snorted.

“We'd never have got married if you and Matthews hadn't got your backs up and ordered us not to have anything to do with each other. I wasn't the marrying kind,” Burt said weakly.

Mart saw Effie standing in the door of her tent, listening. At her husband's confession a crimson wave swept over her face.

“Burt Jarvis, if there's any manhood at all about you, you'll get Effie out of here before night. I'm giving you straight talk. —— will be popping around here.”

“The girl come here of her own accord, and now that she is here she stays here. If old Bill Matthews thinks anything of his daughter he'll keep his —— sheepherders away from here,” Samuel Jarvis said with an unpleasant grin.

“You see?” Burt apologized helplessly.

“I see,” Mart replied, white-faxed, repressing his contempt for the sake of the girl. After all, Burt was her husband.

“He's your meat,” Samuel Jarvis said to Bender.

Instantly Mart was seized again and pinioned helplessly. As he was hustled away he saw Effie start forward, only to be thrust violently back into the tent by the grinning negro.

Mart was taken over the low ridge which bounded the south side of the meadow. He was thankful that at least Effie would not be compelled to witness the gruesome tragedy.

A FIR tree, sufficiently high and strong to answer the grim purpose was quickly found. A rope was adjusted over Mart's neck while Dead-eye Bender walked around the tree to find the right limb.

Suddenly the killer chuckled, bent over and laughed outright while the men eyed him wonderingly.

“This is the best tree we could have found,” he exclaimed. “I know now how to pay that —— for hittin' me in the jaw. Toss that rope over the limb right there.”

The rope was tossed over in the place indicated, Mart's hands were tied behind his back, and a cowboy brought up an unsaddled horse to be led out from under the victim.

“We don't need that horse,” Dead-eye said heavily.

The cowboys gazed at him wonderingly.

“String him up—an' be careful you don't hurt him,” the killer ordered sarcastically.

Three men swung on to the rope and Mart was lifted clear of the ground. He reached spasmodically for the earth with his toes and they struck something, which, though not solid earth, yet held most of his weight.

“Right there. Leave him be,” Dead-eye ordered. “We'll tie the rope an' let him rest on that ant hill. Purty soon the ants'll begin to bite, an' his neck'll git to hurtin'. Then he'll begin to scratch dirt, an' every time his toes hit that ant hill he'll lack a little of it down. Afterwhile he'll kick it till he can't reach it no more, an' he'll have the honor o' hangin' himself.”

“Aw say, now,” remonstrated a cowboy who was appalled at the brutality of the thing, “let's put him out of his misery quick.”

“I say no!” Dead-eye shouted. “Any of you want to argue the point with me?”

The murderous look in the killer's red little eye was too much for the cowboys to face. Unable to watch the torture they hurried away until only Dead-eye was left.

Mart's toes began to ache, and the rope was half-strangling him; yet he remained immovable for minutes. Finally he moved one foot to ease his position and very nearly swung into space. As he felt for the top of the ant hill again his toe scratched a track through the loose gravel which composed it.

For a moment he became panic-stricken, but he fought it down with a supreme effort of will. By exerting the utmost caution he got both feet placed again. Dead-eye laughed.

“I'm goin' to git me a drink of water. When I come back you'll be ready to scratch gravel,” the degenerate taunted.

Mart heard the man moving away. Though it seemed better to let go and end the agony he remained in the position he was in with grim tenacity for what seemed hours. As long as he lived there was hope that some friend might find him.

Then a new horror seized him as he realized that the gravel was gradually squashing out from beneath his feet. He could feel it going, going, going! Soon everything seemed to be turning black—and he ceased to care.

VII

THE next Mart knew he was pumping the sweet, pure air into his famished lungs. As the peculiar sensation of unbearable pressure lessened, he became aware that he was lying on the ground, and that some one was pulling him by the hand and talking earnestly. With an effort he rolled over on his back and saw Chick Judge bending over him with an open knife in his hand.

“Mart, for the love o' sin, git goin'!” Chick implored. “That quarter-human will be back any minute, an' we ain't got a gun. Hurry!”

With Chick's, assistance Mart staggered to his feet, and a thousand needles seemed to pierce each foot. They had “gone to sleep” during his recent ordeal and were just coming out of the numbed condition. Chick jerked him onward fiercely.

“Dead-eye said he'd come back—we gotta hide,” Chick urged.

As Mart had suffered no real injury except the frightful choking, his recovery was rapid. In a few minutes he was able to discard Chick's assistance and run breast to breast with him. Chick seemed to know where he was going, so Mart was content to let him lead the way.

Presently they dived into a thick clump of brush. Clawing their way through this they floundered into a swamp. Though it sucked hungrily at their heels they were able to get through it to a patch of tag-alder-covered soil.

“Swamp on all sides of here—they'll never find us,” Chick gasped.

“You're an angel, Chick,” Mart gasped back.

“I reckon we both come near bein' angels,” Chick said dryly. “Me yesterday, an' you today.”

“How did you get away from them, Chick?” Mart asked.

“They chased me into the brush below here where they couldn't follow me on horseback, and I lost 'em in the swamp. Come near losin' myself—did lose my rifle.”

“And since then?”

“I've been watchin' their camp. Thought maybe you fellows might come, or maybe I'd get a chance to swipe some grub, or a gun. I saw 'em hang you, and if I'd had a gun I'd have showed that one-lamped gink what a real bad-man was. If he hadn't got thirsty when he did I was just goin' to mix it with him with my knife,” Chick explained in the half-serious, half-flippant manner he habitually assumed.

Mart glanced at him and knew that he was not indulging in mere vaporous language when he said he would have tried Dead-eye with his knife. Chick did not lack courage. But Mart had little time for admiration of anybody.

“They'll soon miss me, Chick, and they'll probably turn out about all hands to hunt for me. While they're doing it there may be a chance to slip in and get Effie Matt——Jarvis out the other way. I'm going to try it. You hustle up to the cañon where the sheep were, and there you'll find Matthews and a bunch of men. Tell Bill not to attack before tomorrow because they are looking for it tonight, and I may stand a chance of getting Effie out of there if he stays back.”

“All right,” Chick agreed readily. Under his breath he added, “But I'll see that he don't pay a —— bit of attention to you.”

Fortunately for Mart he knew the range as a housewife knows her own door-yard. The swamp was caused by the rising of several springs in a depression in the hill side where there was not adequate drainage. He knew that he was not far from Sunday Creek, and was about a mile below headquarters. His problem, therefore, was to get out of the swamp, cross the creek, and work back up through the timber on the north side of the creek until he was opposite headquarters.

As soon as he had floundered clear of the swamp he had no difficulty in getting the rest of the way he had mapped out. When he finally reached a point from where he could spy upon the camp it was obvious that his escape had been discovered. Shouts were echoing through the timber on the other side of the meadow as the cowboys searched. Mart knew that he was, for the time, perfectly safe; but Chick was in danger of being picked up.

Only one man was in evidence around headquarters. That was the negro cook, Pot-hook, on guard before the tent where Effie was held. Yet Mart knew that young Jarvis, and probably his father and Huck Steadman were in some of the buildings. Much as he would have liked to rush in and make an attempt to rescue the girl he knew it would be folly in broad daylight. Even if he could get her away from the negro there was no safe place to which he could take her without a horse.

Mart felt that his first problem now was to filch a couple of saddle horses from the cavy in the pasture. Then, after dark, he would try to get at least one saddle; then make one supreme effort to get the girl, and, if it were possible, her husband.

He had no clearly defined plan except that he would try to attract her attention, and if he could get her out without attracting the attention of her guard, by slitting the back of the tent, well and good. If this could not be done he had an idea that he could quietly efface the guard.

The horse pasture reached into the timber in one place, and most of the horses had gone there in search of shade. Mart slipped quietly among them and noted that his own horse was there. The cow ponies, which always had to be lassoed, broke away in a wild run; but Mart's horse waited for him.

The cowboys had not troubled to take the saddle off before turning him into the pasture—in fact the horse appeared to have joined the other horses of his own accord, though he had scraped off his bridle. There was, however, a long rope coiled on the saddle which Mart sometimes used as a stake rope. With this he fashioned a hackamore, and led the horse but of the pasture to a place where he would be handy when needed. It was out of the question to try to capture one of the cow ponies in daylight

Things appeared much the same when Mart returned to his spying station. Pot-hook still hovered close to the tents, and the cowboys had not returned, although Mart saw Huck Steadman and Burt Jarvis enter the building used as an office, where it was a safe surmise the elder Jarvis awaited them.

Mart squatted upon his heels, with his gaze glued upon the cluster of buildings, corrals, and tents. His watching was almost automatic, for he saw everything, though his mind was engaged in trying to reason a way out of the dilemma. Heretofore he had tried hard to keep an open mind—to think fairly—but it was growing more and more difficult. Not the least among the things which influenced him to yield to bitter, partisan views was a stiff, burned neck.

“Free Range!” The words sickened him. With an increasing number of stock, and a constantly diminishing range supply it was a difficult problem at best; but with every rangeman swayed solely by bitter, unreasoning prejudice what was the use of one man trying to keep an open mind? Almost insensibly the peculiar state of mind of the killer crept over him, as reason slowly gave way to impulse.

Suddenly there was a chorus of wild yells from the timber on the other side of the meadow. A volley of rifle shots shattered the evening air, and sixteen men rushed out of the timber in a wild run for the buildings. Leading them, hatless and coatless, his grizzled hair and beard tossing in the wind was old Bill Matthews.

Mart leaped to his feet. The sight of his best friends removed the last of his non-partisan state of mind. The lust for battle flowed over him. Unarmed as he was he started forward to join in the fight. Immediately there came two shots from the office, and a sheepherder went down on all fours, to crawl a few steps and collapse. Bill Matthews reeled, clutched a shoulder with one hand, but recovered himself and came on.

Then something happened which caused Mart to lose his blood lust. Mere frenzy gave place to cold, fighting resolution. The new element that had been injected into the situation required resourcefulness and cool-headness—something that was not compatible with blind hate.

The moment the sheepherders broke from cover Pot-hook had leaped into the tent he was guarding. In a moment he came out with Effie in his arms. In a moment he had put the buildings between himself and the advancing sheepherders, and bounded toward the timber in an ungainly but rapid lope, straight to where Mart stood—unarmed.

Mart could see the ugly grin on the negro's face as he ran. For the sheep foreman to show himself would be suicide. A big .45 swung at the negro's hip, and there was no doubt that he was willing and able to use it.

Mart slipped behind a bush, knowing that his only chance was to take the negro unaware. His eyes flitted for a moment toward the meadow where the battle was going on, and he saw young Burt Jarvis break from the office. The latter rushed wildly toward the tent where his wife had been, but just before reaching it he saw the negro running away with her. With a distressed cry he started to follow, but he was not shrewd enough to put the buildings between himself and the sheepherders as Pot-hook had done. Chick Judge dropped to one knee, took careful aim and fired.

Young Jarvis leaped high in the air and came down in a pitiful huddle. Fate had been against him. Chick had been the only sheepherder to see him, and he only because being unarmed at the start he had stopped to get the rifle of the first sheepherder who had fallen.

Two men in a flimsy frame building were powerless to stop the rush of more than a dozen wild, revenge-seeking men. But Mart knew that in a few minutes the besiegers would be the besieged. The cowboys would hear the shooting and come back. As the timber was not far from the buildings on that side they would have all the advantage.

Pot-hook gained the shelter of the timber with a triumphant grin. He held the girl so tightly that her only movement was the frantic kicking of her feet. The negro changed his course slightly and the new direction took him straight toward the place Mart had left his horse. The negro was now covering the ground at a swift trot, and as Mart swung in behind he found it difficult to keep up without making noise.

Finally Mart had succeeded in getting within two rods of the negro without being suspected; but he knew that he could not get any closer without making sounds that the negro would hear. He threw discretion to the winds and took those two rods at top speed.

Pot-hook heard him. He dropped the girl to the ground and whirled, his only hand clawing for his gun. He was not a clever gunman and fumbled the draw. Then, when Mart was almost upon him, he quit the gun, and a long bladed knife appeared in his hand as if by magic.

Swift as Pot-hook had been in getting the knife out of his shirt, he was not fast enough to use it before Mart struck him with the full force of his body in a terrific lunge. They went down together; Mart on top. Mart locked arms with the negro's right arm, but the hand that grasped the knife was slippery as a snake.

Although Pot-hook was considerably heavier than his opponent, it seemed that his missing hand, which was cut off just below the elbow, would be a hopeless handicap. But Mart did not find it so to the extent he had anticipated. He quickly found that the negro's game was to stay on the ground.

Suddenly Mart felt an agonizing twinge in the muscles of his back, and he was drawn down breast to breast with his opponent.

“Ah fastens mah hook into you, shep', den Ah jus' nachually whittles you up into small chunks foh de ki-utes to chaw on,” Pot-hook grunted triumphantly.

Try as he would Mart could not pinion the hand that held the knife. And the pain from the terrible hook in his back was getting unbearable.

With a final frantic effort he heaved himself up, suffering excruciating torture from the increased drag of the hook, but he managed to jerk up a knee and plant it in the negro's stomach. The same moment the knife made a red trail through the flesh of his forearm. With another heave he jerked loose, this time tearing away from the fearful hook.

They sprang to their feet simultaneously, and Pot-hook charged, waving the knife, and bellowing like a bull. Mart now realized that so far the negro had had the better of the contest, and that despite his missing hand was a formidable opponent even without the advantage of the knife. If the negro was to be defeated it would have to be by superior head-work.

Mart gave ground steadily in his efforts to avoid the wild slashes of the razor-edged knife. Again and again Pot-hook rushed, but each time the white man avoided the knife—sometimes by mere hair's-breadth. Twice Mart leaped in and drove a hard fist into the black, sweating face; but that only served to make the negro more cautious.

Mart attempted a hard jolt to the stomach for a change. He ducked below the swinging knife and landed, but as he started back he felt the hook on the negro's left hand grab into his belt. He was jerked violently forward.

DESPERATELY Mart twisted sidewise and seized the wrist of the negro's right arm with both hands. For a moment they were poised in a sheer contest of strength, Mart's two arms against the black man's one. The white man was amazed that one arm could contain so much strength. The three upraised arms vibrated slowly back and forth, and it was more of a victory for will power than for muscle when the black arm suddenly relaxed.

Mart was swift to take advantage of it. He swung half-around and brought his shoulder under Pot-hook's elbow with the intention of throwing him over his shoulder and dislocating the arm. But he did not give the heave. The knife dropped to the ground, and the negro gave a wild yell and went limp.

“Lemme loose, lemme loose!” he howled. “Yo' twistin' mah a'm off. Oh, ——!”

At first Mart suspected a trick; then it dawned upon him that the hook had fastened in the heavy, silver belt buckle. The hook, of course, was securely fastened to the stump of the arm. In turning Mart had twisted the hook so that the fastenings on the stump were inflicting torture, and Pot-hook could not get loose.

Mart let go of the negro's wrist with one hand and appropriated the revolver which still hung in the holster at Pot-hook's hip.

“Don't make a move, Pot-hook, or off goes your head,” he warned. Then he slowly turned back until the hook could be unfastened. With a gasp of relief the negro dropped to the ground where he lay regarding his conqueror with wild eyes and ashen face.

“Get up!” the white man ordered, and Pot-hook slowly got to his feet. “Face that tree!”

The negro obediently faced the tree.

Mart saw Effie standing by the side of his horse in a half-dazed condition. Keeping one eye on the negro he picked up the knife, and went over to her. He cut the gag which had kept her silent and then whacked off about fifteen feet of the horse's picket rope. Then he slipped the gun into his holster and proceeded to lash the negro firmly to the tree. The wretched colored man, convinced that he was going to be burned to death began to make the woods ring with his incoherent pleadings for mercy.

Effie touched Mart on the shoulder. He turned and saw that she had recovered her faculties, but her eyes were filled with horror.

“Mart, you are not—not going to do that?” she implored.

“I don't know what I'll do till the time comes,” he said bruskly. “I'll let him roost there till I go back and finish the rest of that rumpus. But first you get on that horse and ride to where you can see the main traveled road. If your father don't come in an hour you'd better hit the trail for Blackford. You know the road.”

“But father—and—and you?” she faltered.

Mart noted that she did not mention her husband but he let it pass without comment.

“I'm going back to see what's become of him,” Mart responded more gently. “If you don't want to stay here with Pot-hook you had better get on that horse.”

Effie swung into the saddle without a word. She looked at the sheep foreman as if to speak, but her gaze fell upon the repulsive-looking negro. She shuddered and rode away.

VIII

RELIEVING the negro of his cartridge belt, Mart strapped it on and hurried toward the scene of the fighting. As he had anticipated, the cowboys had come back and from the shelter of the timber on the south side of the meadow were pouring a withering fire into the flimsy cook-shack where the sheepherders had taken refuge.

The building was being literally torn to pieces by bullets, and as all the buildings had been constructed of native lumber from a small movable saw-mill there was nothing more substantial to get into.

While he was pondering just what to do, he saw a form emerge from one of the corrals west of the buildings and begin to slink furtively from post to post toward the cook-shack. Only a short distance from the shack was a huge boiler used to heat the dipping vat. Obviously the man was heading for that. Here he would be safe from the cross-fire of the cowboys, and would be able to snipe at the men in the cook-shack with deadly effect.

The man was Dead-eye Bender.

For the moment Mart forgot everything else in his desire to have it out with the scourge of the range. Running low he cut straight across the meadow toward the boiler. Bender was too busy watching the cook-shack to see him, though some of the cowboys in the timber did, for several bullets sang unpleasantly close. In a moment the cook-shack was between him and the men in the timber, and a bit later he reached the east side of the boiler just as Dead-eye Bender slid up to the west side. Not until that moment did Bender know that he had been observed.

Now began a grim game of hide-and-seek. Bender could not retreat, nor could he take a chance on getting between the boiler and the cook-shack. Several times he stuck his gun around a corner and fired, but his shots went wild. Once he endeavored to climb to the top of the boiler, but Mart was on the alert, and the gunman's hat went spinning.

It being physically impossible to watch both ends of the boiler at once, Dead-eye determined to take a chance on being seen from the cook-shack. He slipped around the south end of the boiler, poked his head swiftly around the corner, and saw Mart just disappearing around the north end. Leaping to his feet and crouching low he raced along the east side of the boiler for a chance to shoot Mart in the back.

At that moment Lem Davis in the cook-shack looked back over his shoulder and took in the situation at a glance. He leaped to a back window and fired hastily. The bullet missed Dead-eye's head by an inch and ricocheted off the iron boiler with an angry whine.

Dead-eye gained the north end of the boiler with unseemly haste. Peering around the west side he perceived that Mart had gained the opposite end. He felt himself cornered and the slaver ran from the corners of his mouth. He could not watch both ways at once, and he had no doubt that his enemies would attack from both ways.

Such, indeed, was Lem's plan, but Mart waved the boy back in the shack. Then Mart continued his circle of the boiler. Bender, meanwhile, had made up his mind to go on around the boiler on the chance of surprizing at least one of his foes. As Mart turned the northwest corner he saw the broad back of the gunman half-way down the west side. He could have driven a bullet—or two of them—into the man's back had he wished. Instead, he coughed.

Bender leaped erect and whirled in the same movement. His gun leaped out horizontally like a released spring. But the itching finger on the trigger closed too late. The bullet went wild. By an infinitesimal period of time Mart had beaten him on the draw from an even start. Dead-eye pitched forward on his face, a small, blue hole in the center of his forehead.

Mart left the gunman where he lay, and rushed inside the cook-shack. Several sheepherders lay groaning on the floor, and the pine sheeting on the side of the shack was splintered in many places by the bullets of the cowboys.

KNEELING by one of the holes was Bill Matthews, his face distorted with fury and his shirt dripping blood from a flesh wound in the shoulder. He was pumping bullets toward the timber as fast as he could load and fire.

Lashed firmly to the base of the big kitchen range were Samuel Jarvis and his foreman.

Mart touched his employer on the shoulder. Matthews whirled angrily.

“We've got to stop this,” Mart said.

“Not as long as we've got a bullet left,” Matthews snarled.

“I'm going to run up a white flag,” Mart said firmly. “We've got the leaders and we can make 'em come to time; but if we keep this up they'll pick us off one by one.”

“If you hang out a white rag I'll shoot you,” Matthews raged.

“Lem, run up a white cloth of some kind,” Mart ordered.

The next moment he grappled with his employer. The wild-eyed old sheepman was not difficult for Mart to handle though he struggled fiercely until he was flat on his back. Then he collapsed utterly.

The cowboys had ceased firing at sight of the white flag, and the sheepherders who were still able to fight were ready to quit. The cowboys gave one exultant whoop of victory, but none of them came out in sight—possibly because they lacked a leader.

“Well, Jarvis,” Mart addressed the owner of the cattle outfit, “you and your foreman are prisoners. Dead-eye Bender is dead. So, incidentally, is your son. I still own this land. Are you ready to be reasonable?”

At the mention of his son's death Jarvis flinched. Then his eyes traveled toward Matthews and filled with venom.

“He caused my boy to get killed!” he said.

“He did not!” Mart said sharply. “You are your boy's murderer with your hoggishness for range! Matthews has to answer for putting his girl in a worse fix than you did your boy.”

“Effie! My God, Mart, where's Effie?” Matthews quavered.

“Pot-hook ran into the brush with her as soon as you started this fight,” Mart replied unfeelingly, purposely withholding the sequel.

Bill Matthews leaped bolt upright, and a look of horror overspread his face.

“Say—say that again,” he quavered.

“I saw the nigger, Pot-hook, running into the brush with Effie. She was gagged,” Mart repeated unfeelingly.

The color left Matthews' face until it was as pale as slacked lime. With a look of dumb misery he staggered toward the door. Mart headed him off.

“What can you do now?” he demanded. “That happened an hour ago. The best you two noble fathers can do now is to settle this question of free range, which is of so much more importance than your children.”

The sheep baron and the cattle baron faced each other with blanched faces and horror-stricken eyes.

“My God, Bill, what have we done?” Jarvis faltered in a husky, half-whisper.

“We're murderers, Sam—the lowest, blackest kind of murderers—both of us,” Matthews whispered back. They looked into each other other's eyes and each saw in the guilty, remorseful look of the other the sort of man he was himself. “We've murdered your boy—an'—an'—worse than murdered my girl.”

“Bill—I'd—I'd—gladly die this minute—by torture if need be—to bring your girl back here—safe,” Jarvis moaned.

Mart felt a pang of pity for the two abject, grief-stricken men; but he still refrained from telling them the truth.

“Not only has our hoggishness destroyed our own flesh and blood, but we've made murderers out of other men,” Jarvis went on brokenly. “There is no real harm in these other boys—cowboys or sheepherders—if it wasn't for us to set the example. Even degenerates like Dead-eye and Pot-hook would be powerless to harm if it wasn't for these range wars giving them a chance to exercise their depravity.”

“That's the truth,” Matthews agreed remorsefully.

“Well, we must get Effie—or—or that nigger,” Jarvis cried, getting his feelings under control.

Both men started for the door, but again Mart interfered.

“You see what you've accomplished—now fix it so that it can't happen again—before you leave this building,” he ordered curtly.

“—— the range; he can have it,” Matthews cried disgustedly.

“No; you take it,” Jarvis cried hastily. “You need it all to lamb on, and besides the land belongs to your foreman. I'll have Huck crowd our cattle in somewhere else—where we won't have to fight.”

“Like —— you will,” Huck Steadman spoke up out of the bitterness of years of unreasoning prejudice. “If you're goin' to be licked by a rotten sheep outfit I quit right here. You run cattle right here before the sheep come, an' we run from 'em to avoid trouble. Then they run us off our last range. Now when we come back to our old range that rightly belongs to us you say to run again. If you're always goin' to be a coward I'm done with ye.”

“If you'd lost your only son—” Jarvis began. “I know,” he went on, “you ain't had anything to jar you out of the rut. You can have your time.”

“I reckon we can make room for your cattle here till you can get a new foreman, and find a new range,” Mart said. He cut old Huck Steadman loose, and with a contemptuous grunt the old cattleman strode away—hating sheepherders to the last.

Jarvis went outside and called his men in. They listened to him wonderingly. Carefree and indifferent as they were, most of them accepted peace as tranquilly as they had accepted war. One of them summed up the attitudes of the mere privates on both sides when he said—

“If we're all goin' to be friends what the —— did we waste all them bullets for?”

Young Burt Jarvis was dead. So was a sheepherder, and another, Chick Judge, was dying.

“It don't matter much,” Chick said indifferently. “I'm wanted for a lot of things out in civilization that'ud send me up for most of my life anyway. I just want to say, though, that it was me that shot that cowboy the other day against Mart's orders, so don't blame it on Lem.”

Mart had suspected this before, but Chick's dying words brought him face to face with another problem. Peace had been established between the outfits concerned—but what about the law! Legally there was not a man on either side who was not guilty of manslaughter at the very least.

If the case had to be fought over again in the courts he knew that renewed bitterness would result. Not only that but all over the country cattle and sheep men would takes sides. It seemed better from every standpoint to let the matter drop where it stood. County officials in those days were inclined to wink at range scraps unless one side or the other made complaint, accompanied by political influence, so Mart knew that by the exercise of a little tact and discretion by all concerned the whole incident would be officially ignored.

The foreman winced a little at the thought that he, who had been the first one and only one concerned to appeal to the law, should now be the one to propose cheating it of its just dues. He consoled himself a little by the reflection that it was the foolishness of the law that was primarily responsible for the trouble. Sheep and cattle would no more mix than oil and water, yet the grab-it-all range policy threw them indiscriminately upon the same range.

Mart cautioned the men to keep silent on the matter, and dispatched a cowboy on a fast horse to Blackford to get a doctor. Then he surprized Bill Matthews by telling him he could meet Effie,

“Where's that —— nigger?” Bill screamed.

“Never mind,” Mart retorted. “We're going in for romance and glory on this range, and we'll do a clean job of it.”

Pot-hook was still praying when Mart sought him.

“Pot-hook,” he said, “if I cut you loose where will you go?”

“Away f'om heah, shep',” Pot-hook said earnestly.

Mart slashed the rope.

"The Mad Commanders," copyright 1923, by. Frank C. Robertson

Copyright, 1923, by The Ridgway Company, in the United States and Great Britain. All rights reserved.