iled-off space in the San Mateo Cattle
Company's office constituted the cattle company. Moreover, they
comprised the financial, political and general power of this remote
section of New Mexico. In face, manner, garb, they were dissimilar.
Vorse, clothed in gray, was hawk-nosed and impassive; and though now,
like his companions, wealthy beyond simple needs he nevertheless
continued the operation of his saloon that had been a landmark in San
Mateo for forty years. Burkhardt was rough-featured, rough-tongued,
choleric, and coatless: typically the burly, uncurried, uncouth
stock man, whose commonest words were oaths or curses and whose way
with obstinate cattle or men was the way of the club or the fist.
Gordon was the wily, cautious, unscrupulous politician; he had
represented San Mateo in the legislature for years, both during
the Territorial period and since New Mexico had become a state, and
was not unknown in other parts of the southwest; but he was "Judge"
only by courtesy, the title most frequently given him, never having
been admitted to the bar or having practiced, and engaged himself
ostensibly in the insurance and real estate business. Like the
others, his share of the large cattle, sheep and land holdings of
the group made him independent. Sorenson, the last of the four and
in reality the leader because of a greater breadth of vision and a
natural capacity for business, was dressed in a tailored suit of
greenish plaid--a man with bushy eyebrows, a long fleshy nose,
predatory eyes, a heavy cat-fish mouth and a great, barrel-like body
that reared two or three inches over six feet when he stood on his
feet. But one thing they had in common, in addition to the gray hair
of age, and that was a joint liability for the past. For years they
had believed that liability extinguished through the operation of
time. They had considered as closed and sealed the account of early
secret, lawless acts by which they had acquired wealth and a grip on
the community. They were now law-observing members of society; they
controlled even if they sometimes failed to possess the goodwill
of the county--and they were not men to measure position by
friendships; their councils determined how much or how little other
men should own and in local politics their fingers moved the puppets
that served their will.

With the entrance here of the powerful group of financiers who were
constructing the irrigation project they recognized the threat to