e thought he
would "winter." To which Wallie always replied that he intended to,
though there were moments of depression when he doubted it.

It was upon Wallie's inability to "winter" that Canby was counting. He
had hung on longer than Canby had thought he would, but the cattleman
felt fairly sure that the first big snowstorm would see the last of
Wallie. The hardships and loneliness would "get" him as it did most
tenderfeet, Canby reasoned, and some morning he would saddle up in
disgust, leaving another homestead open to entry.

If, perchance, this did not happen, Canby had a system of his own for
eliminating settlers. It was quite as efficacious as open warfare,
though it took longer and was open to the objection that sometimes it
enabled them to stay long enough to plow up eighty acres or so which
went to weeds when they abandoned it.

Canby had no personal feeling against Wallie and, after meeting him,
decided he would use the more lawful and humane method of ridding
himself of him. Instead of running him off by threats and violence he
would merely starve him out, and Wallie's bank balance indicated that
Canby was in a fair way to accomplish his purpose.

Several happenings had made Wallie suspect something of Canby's purpose,
and the same latent quality which had made Wallie trudge doggedly after
his cow and horse until he had worn out their perversity always made him
tell himself grimly that he was going to stick until he had his crop in
and harvested if he laid down, a skeleton, and died beside one of his
own haystacks.

Mostly, however, he was so busy with his cooking, feeding his livestock,
getting wood and water, to say nothing of piling rocks and grubbing
sagebrush that he had no time to brood over Canby and the wrongs he had
done him. He had learned from McGonnigle that his locoed horses would
grow worse instead of better and eventually would have to be shot, and
that person had imparted the discouraging information also that not only
could he expect no milk from his cow until her calf arrived in January
but Jerseys were a breed not commonly selected for beef cattle.

Wallie had thought that his aunt would surely relent to the extent of
writing him a Christmas letter but, yesterday, after riding eight miles
to look in the bluing box nailed to a post by the roadside, he had found
that it had contained only a circular urging him to raise mushrooms in
his cellar.

Helene Spenceley, too, might have sent