would have ensued had not a troop of United States cavalry intervened. This blow by the homesteaders had broken the power of the cattle men for all time.
The setting of this stirring drama of the cattle business was certainly picturesque; the broad prairies with their thousands of acres of bunch grass, the low-lying land with its bluejoint, and even the timber land where the juicy pine grass grew so plentifully, were all a veritable wonderland. It was no wonder that the cow-punchers should spin such yarns with such a background.
So, while Larry knew all the history and the tradition of the cattle business and all of its theories, yet he often found that in practice there were many exceptions to these theories and often difficulties and problems arose which he had never dreamed of.
For instance, he had never imagined that he would live to see a flock of sheep on the Crooked Creek ranch, or that they would be subjected to the menace of floaters or nesters, or even more unthinkable than either of these possibilities was the probability that they would ever suffer from rustlers, yet all three of these unforeseen possibilities came to pass under his very eyes.
One morning about the first of June, Larry had been sent by his uncle into the unfenced land of the Crooked Creek ranch which lay to the southeast. There were thousands of acres there which were used by the cow-
