razed his cows north and west across the Kansas line
into the edge of the great unknown that was styled Nebraska and
Northwest District. At first his range was limitless, but in a few
short years he could stand on the roof of his sod hut and see the white
points of light which were squatters' wagons dotting the range to the
far horizon in any direction he chose to look. The first of these to
invade his range had been Cal Warren, moving on before the swarm of
settlers flocking into the locality of his first choice in such
alarming numbers that he feared an unhealthy congestion of humanity in
the near future. The debate of farming versus cows was resumed between
the two, but each held doggedly to his own particular views and the
longed-for partnership was again postponed.

Harris moved once more--and then again--and it was something over two
decades after his departure from Dodge with the Three Bar cows that he
made one final shift, faring on in search of that land where nesters
were unknown. He made a dry march that cost him a fourth of his cows,
skirted the Colorado Desert and made his stand under the first rim of
the hills. Those others who came to share this range were men whose
views were identical with his own, whose watchword was: "Our cows shall
run free on a thousand hills." They sought for a spot where the range
was untouched by the plow and the water holes unfenced. They had
moved, then moved again, driven on before the invasion of the settlers.
These men banded together and swore that here conditions should be
reversed, that it was the squatter who should move, and on this
principle they grimly rested.

Cal Warren had been the vanguard of each new rush of settlers that had
pushed Bill Harris on to another range, and the cowman had come to see
the hand of fate in this persistence. The nesters streamed westward on
all the trails, filing their rights on the fertile valleys and pushing
those who would be cattle barons undisputed back into the more arid
regions. When the Warren family found him out again and halted their
white-topped wagon before his door, Bill Harris gave it up.

"I've come up to see about getting that partnership fixed up, Bill,"
Warren greeted. "You know--the one we talked over in Dodge a while
ago, about our going in together when either of us changed his mind.
Well, I've changed mine. I've come to see that running cows is a good
game, Bill, so let's fix it up. I've changed my min