it. The boys on hosses,
firin' salutes as they see it, a preacher sharp to give it dignity, en
the 'Cowboy's Lament,' as sung by ole Landy Spencer. That's a fitten
program, en you are engaged fer the job."

"En about when do ye plan to stage this splendid event?" drawled
Landy.

"Why, when I die, ye idiot, mebbe now, mebbe later, jist whenever I
bed down fer the last time. Here I am, over ninety years old. I can't
go on livin'! It's agin nature. I want to make ready when it comes.
I'm ready and I want everything else to be jist as ready as I am."

Landy Spencer drummed his knotty fingers on the armchair and looked
thoughtfully at the old Nestor seated at his fireside. Ninety years
old! Seventy years of activity in a territory where activity was
enforced, if one were to live. Strange stories, legends now, were told
of the doings of this gaunt, eagle-beaked, shaggy-browed old man who
now, chatted complacently of death. Very true, none living was able to
verify them. Those who had passed on told only fragments, and Jim
Lough, neither verified nor denied.

One legend persisted. Landy had heard it long before coming to the
district. It related to the beginning days of the great cattle game of
the grasslands--days before the coming of the vast herds and the
problems they brought. It concerned the destinies of those who
followed fast in the footsteps of the trailmakers and sought to
establish a business where there was neither law nor precedent. Sordid
days, these. The honest men were not yet organized; the dishonest and
criminal were unrestrained by laws. Cattle and kine were taken
furtively or openly to these very hills and vales where Jim Lough now
lived in quietude and peace. Here they were held until a sufficient
number was collected for the drive to the marches and markets that lay
east of the Virginia Dale.

Jim Lough was a youngster then, without ownership of herds or home,
but he was not content to see the weak and unorganized robbed, without
recourse. Alone, he made trips over the forbidden trails to the places
of the illicit exchange; then back to the grasslands again he
organized a posse of five and laid his trap. In a narrow pass this
robber band was successfully ambushed and by effective gunfire,
reduced from eight to three. The three surrendered. By every rule of
the game, in a new land where there was neither law, nor courts nor
sheriffs, the culprits must be hung, and hung on the spot where
apprehended