ndling wood.

"He's camped dead beat on the State line, all right, Wayland," said the
irate old frontiersman as they mounted their ponies. "He'll have at
least some scars to prove his story, but A'm no thinkin' he'll boast
round showin' them marks o' glory! 'Tis some satisfaction for my
thirst back in the Desert."

"I thought it was about here, on our way out, that a law-loving Briton,
I know, gave me a sermon about exceeding law, taking the law in our own
hands?"

"Hoh!" said the old man.

And the Sheriff's tent was not the only one seen on the way back to the
Ridge. Where the Pass widened to the Valley above the Sheriff's
homestead, they came on a huge miner's tent boarded half way up as for
winter residence, with eight tow-headed half-clad urchins thumb in
mouth staring out from the open mosquito wire door. There was a smell
of onions and frying pork.

"What! a homestead, here, Wayland? D' y'r homesteaders farm on th'
perpendicular, or the level; an' what will they grow on these rocks?"

The Ranger had reined in his pony and was running his glance up the
precipice face for the posts marking the bounds.

"What do they grow? Water-power, I guess! I'm looking for the lines.
The fellow has his posts in for a wire fence; he couldn't get a hundred
and sixty acres on the level; and the posts run up the face, by George
he's blanketed a cool square mile, mostly on the up and down."

"Your territory, Wayland?"

The Ranger had turned looking back up the Pass.

"The trail marks the lower bounds of the N. F., but this fellow's line
runs clear up above the trail. If you bunch this fellow's claim with
the Sheriff's, they've got forty miles of the Pass corked up: no way to
bring the timber above down but by the River; and they've got the
River; and if possession is nine points in the law, they've got our
Forest road besides. We'll have to give that fellow warning and if he
doesn't move, break his fence down."

"Gutt dae." A big burly Swede came forward from the miner's tent.

"Are you one of the new settlers?" asked Wayland.

"Yaw! A gott pig--varm! Tra--vor--years mak' pig money liffin' y'ere!
Mae voman, Ae send her vork citie; Ae build mae house y're!"

"All these children yours?"

"Yaw!" The man smiled bigly, incredulous that any one could doubt.

"Have you filed for a homestead for each of them?"

"Yaw!" The man smiled more pleased than ever, indicating the numerous
olive branches by a wave o