tock will bring more money too. In five years we'll have a
straight red brand and the Three Bar will be rated at thirty dollars a
head, come as they run on the range, instead of round ten or twelve as
they'd figure us now. We'll have good hay land that will be worth more
by itself than the whole brand is to-day. Say the word, girl, and
we'll build up the old outfit that both of our folks helped to found."

The girl had closed her eyes as he painted this picture of
possibilities and except for the difference of voice it might well have
been old Cal Warren speaking; the views and sentiments were the same
she had so often heard her father express. Next to the longed-for
partnership with old Bill Harris the dream of his life had been to see
the Three Bar flats a smooth meadow of alfalfa.

"I'll put a bunch of terriers in there that will be hard for Slade to
uproot," Harris said. "What do you say, Billie? Let's give it a try."

"I'd like to see it done," she said. "But so much depends on the
outcome. I'll have to write Judge Colton first. He has all my affairs
in charge."

Harris smiled across at her.

"That's right peculiar," he observed. "The Judge is holding the reins
over my little prospects too. They've tangled your interests and mine
up all along the line it seems. You drop a line to Judge Colton and
sort of outline the plan. Maybe he'll see it our way."

They mounted and rode back to the wagon and the girl went straight to
Waddles with the proposition Harris had urged. The big man had fallen
asleep with the paper he had been perusing still clutched in his hand.

"Tell him to go his best," Waddles advised, when she had outlined
Harris's scheme. "He'll put a bunch of terriers on the Three Bar that
will cut Slade's claws. If they burn out the boys Cal Harris puts on
the place then there'll be one real war staged at the old Three Bar."

"He's been telling you," she accused.

"He did sort of mention it," Waddles confessed.

"Then his idea is to import a bunch of gun-fighters," she said. "I
won't have a bunch of hired killers living at the Three Bar."

"These boys will just be the sort that's handy at knowing how to avoid
getting killed themselves," Waddles evaded. "You can't rightly blame
any man for that. And besides, Slade has to be met on his own ground."

"Do you think Slade is at the bottom of the Three Bar losses every
year?" she asked.

"Every hoof," Waddles stated. "Every last head