ticed it. But here--sit down and eat."

The sheepman accepted the dish of beef, dipped out a spoonful of
beans, broke off a slab of bread, and began his meal forthwith,
meanwhile looking at Hardy curiously.

"What's that you say you've noticed?" he inquired, and a quizzical
smile lurked beneath his dripping mustache as he reached over and
hefted the coffeepot.

"I've noticed," replied Hardy, "that you sheepmen get in a hurry once
in a while. You can't stop to knock on a door so you kick it open;
can't stop to go around a ranch, so you go through it, and so on."

"Ah," observed Swope slyly, "so that's what's bitin' you, eh? I reckon
you must be that new superintendent that Jim was tellin' about."

"That's right," admitted Hardy, "and you're Mr. Swope, of course.
Well, I'll say this for you, Mr. Swope, you certainly know how to get
sheep across a river. But when it comes to getting along with cowmen,"
he added, as the sheepman grinned his self-approval, "you don't seem
to stack up very high."

"Oh, I don't, hey?" demanded Swope defiantly. "Well, how about the
cowmen? Your friend Creede gets along with sheepmen like a house
afire, don't he? Him and a bunch of his punchers jumped on one of my
herders last Fall and dam' nigh beat him to death. Did you ever hear
of a sheepman jumpin' on a cowboy? No, by Gad, and you never will! We
carry arms to protect ourselves, but we never make no trouble."

He paused and combed the coffee grounds out of his heavy red mustache
with fingers that were hooked like an eagle's talons from clutching at
sheep in the cold water.

"I don't doubt, Mr. Superintendent," he said, with sinister
directness, "that these cowmen have filled you up about what bad
_hombres_ we are--and of course it ain't no use to say nothin'
now--but I jest want to tell you one thing, and I want you to remember
it if any trouble should come up; we sheepmen have never gone beyond
our legal rights, and we've got the law behind us. The laws of the
United States and the statutes of this Territory guarantee us the
right to graze our sheep on public lands and to go where we dam'
please--and we'll go, too, you can bank on that."

He added this last with an assurance which left no doubt as to his
intentions, and Hardy made no reply. His whole mind seemed centred on
a handful of beans from which he was picking out the rocks and little
lumps of clay which help to make up full weight.

"Well!" challenged Swope, after waitin