aw said it was his, but the law did not mean to reward the freebooter;
yet that is exactly what it did. At first only a few outlaws took
advantage of it; but hard years came on, the cattle business became less
and less profitable, we were forced to lay off our men, and so at last the
range swarmed with idle cow-punchers; then came the breakdown in our
scheme! The cowboys took to 'mavericking' on their own account. Some of
them had the grace to go into partnership with some farmer, and so claim a
small bunch of cows, but others suddenly and miraculously acquired herds
of their own. From keeping within the law, they passed to violent methods.
They slit the tongues of calves for the purpose of separating them from
their mothers. Finding he could not suck, bossy would at last wander away
from his dam, and so become a 'maverick.' In short, anarchy reigned on the
range."

"But surely my father had nothing to do with this?"

"No; your father, up to this time, had been on good terms with everybody.
He had a small herd of cattle down the river, which he owned in common
with a man named Hart."

"I remember him."

"He was well thought of by all the big outfits; and when the situation
became intolerable, and we got together to weed out 'the rustlers,' as
these cattle-thieves were called, your father was approached and converted
to a belief in drastic measures. He had suffered less than the rest of us
because of his small herd and the fact that he was very popular among the
cowboys. So far as I was concerned, the use of violent methods revolted
me. My training in the East had made me a respecter of the law. 'Change
the law,' I said. 'The law is all right,' they replied; 'the trouble is
with these rustlers. We'll hang a few of 'em, and that will break up the
business.'"

Parts of this story came back to the girl's mind, producing momentary
flashes of perfect recollection. She heard again the voices of excited men
arguing over and over the question of "mavericking," and she saw her
father as he rode up to the house that last day before he went South.

Redfield went on. "The whole plan as developed was silly, and I wonder
still that Ed Wetherford, who knew 'the nester' and the cowboy so well,
should have lent his aid to it. The cattle-men--some from Cheyenne, some
from Denver, and a few from New York and Chicago--agreed to finance a sort
of Vigilante Corps composed of men from the outside, on the understanding
that this policing