cattle company in that
country. Nearly twenty years ago, while still a boy of eighteen, he had
begun in a small way. The Malpais had been a wild and lawless place
then, but in all the turbid days that followed Buck Weaver had held his
own ruthlessly by adroit manipulation, shrewd sense, and implacable
daring. Some outfits he had bought out; others he had driven away. Those
that survived were at a respectable distance from him. Only the
settlers in the hills remained to trouble him. He had come to be the big
man of the district, dominating its social, business, and political
activities.

"What's this I hear about another settler up on Bear Creek?" he asked
curtly after he had gathered up his bridle and swung to the saddle.

"That's the way Jim Budd's telling it, Mr. Weaver. Another nester
homesteaded there," old Joe Yeager answered casually, chewing tobacco
with a noncommittal air.

"Fine! There'll soon be a right smart settlement up near the headwaters
of the creeks, I shouldn't wonder. The cow business is getting to be a
mighty profitable one when you don't own any," Buck said dryly.

The others laughed, but with small merriment. They were either small
cattle owners themselves or range riders whose living depended on the
business, and during the past two years a band of rustlers had operated
so boldly as to have wiped out the profits of some of the ranchers. Most
of them disliked Buck extremely for his overbearing ways. But they did
not usually tell him so. On this particular subject, too, they joined
hand with him.

"You're dead right, Mr. Weaver. It ce'tainly must be stopped."

The man who spoke rolled a cigarette and lit it. Like the rest he was in
the common garb of the plains. The broad-brimmed felt hat, the shiny
leather chaps, the loosely knotted bandanna, were as much a matter of
course as the hard-eyed, weather-beaten look that comes of life under an
untempered sun. But Brill Healy claimed a distinction above his fellows.
He was a black-haired, picturesque fellow, as supple as a panther,
reckless and yet wary.

"We'll have rustling as long as we have nesters, Brill," Buck told him.

"If that's the case we'll serve notice on the nesters to get out," Healy
replied.

Buck grinned. Indomitable fighter though he was, he had been unable to
roll back the advancing tide of settlement. Here and there homesteaders
had taken up land and had brought in small bunches of cattle. Most of
these were honest men, ot