ompleted, though strictly
speaking he has not. He has completed the great field south of the
creek and east of us. But Mr. Walland was saying that Brown intends
to fence a tract to the north of us, either this fall or early in the
spring. I know to a certainty that he has a good many sections leased
there. I tried to obtain some of it last spring and could not." Into
the voice of Dill had crept a note of discouragement.

"Well, don't yuh worry none, Dilly. I'm here to see yuh pull out on
top, and you'll do it, too. You're a crackerjack when it comes to the
fine points uh business, and I sure savvy the range end uh the game,
so between us we ought to make good, don't yuh think? You just
keep your eye on Brown, and if yuh can slap him in the face with an
injunction or anything, don't yuh get a sudden attack uh politeness
and let him slide. I'll look after the cow brutes myself--and if I
ain't good for it, after all these years, I ought to be kicked plumb
off the earth. The time has gone by when we could ride over there and
haze his bunch clear out uh the country on a high lope, with our six
guns backing our argument. I kinda wish," he added pensively, "we
_hadn't_ got so damn' decent and law-abiding. We could get action a
heap more speedy and thorough with a dozen or fifteen buckaroos that
liked to fight and had lots uh shells and good hosses. Why, I could
have the old man's bunch shoveling dirt into that ditch to beat four
aces, in about fifteen minutes, if--"

"But, as you say," Dill cut in anxiously, "we are decent and
law-abiding, and such a procedure is quite out of the question."

"Aw, I ain't meditating no moonlight attack, Dilly--but the boys would
sure love to do it if I told 'em to get busy, and I reckon we could
make a better job of it than forty-nine injunctions and all kinds uh
law sharps."

"Careful, William. I used to be a 'law sharp' myself," protested Dill,
pulling his face into a smile. "And I must own I feel anxious over
this irrigation project of Brown's. He is going to work upon a large
scale--a _very_ large scale--for a private ranch. You have made it
plain to me, William, how vitally important a wide, unsettled country
is to successful cattle raising; and since then I have thought deeply
upon the subject. I feel sure that Mr. Brown is _not_ going to start a
cattle ranch."

"If he ain't, then what--"

"I am not prepared at present to make a statement, even to you,
William. I never enjoyed rec