val interests. In
others the stockmen ignored the homestead laws which proclaimed that
settlers could file their rights on land. As always before, wherever
men resorted to lawlessness to protect their fancied rights, the
established order of things had broken down, all laws disregarded
instead of the single one originally involved.

In many communities these clashes between rival interests had furnished
opportunity for rustlers to build up in power and practically take the
range. Each clan was outside the law in some one particular and so
could not have recourse to it against those who violated it in some
other respect; could not appear against neighbors in one matter lest
their friends do likewise against themselves in another.

This attitude had enabled the wild bunch to saddle themselves on
certain communities and ply their trade without restraint. Rustling
had come to be a recognized occupation to be reckoned with; the
identity of the thieves was often known, and they visited from ranch to
ranch, whose owners possibly were honest themselves but had friends
among the outlaws for whom the latch-string was always out. The
rustlers' toll was in the nature of a tribute levied against every
brand and the various outfits expected certain losses from this source.
It was good business to recoup these losses at another's expense and
thus neighbor preyed on neighbor. Big outfits fought to crush others
who would start up in a small way, and between periods of defending
their own interests against the rustlers they hired them to harry their
smaller competitors from the range; clover for outlaws where all
factions, by mutual assent, played their own hands without recourse to
the law. It was a case of dog eat dog and the slogan ran: "Catch your
calves in a basket or some other thief will put his iron on them first."

It was to this pass that the Three Bar home range had come in the last
five years. As Billie Warren watched the new hand moving slowly toward
the bunk house she pondered over what manner of man this could be who
had played a single-handed game in the hills for almost a year. Was he
leagued with the wild bunch, with the law, or was he merely an
eccentric who might have some special knowledge that would help her
save the Three Bar from extinction?

The stranger picked up his bed roll and disappeared through the
bunk-house door as she watched him.

The lean man who had first greeted him jerked a thumb towar