now--here no-ow--" protested Swope, holding out his hand for
peace, "they ain't no call for no such talk. Mebbe you can lick me,
and mebbe you can't, but it won't do you any good to try. My sheep is
here, and here they'll stay, until I git good and ready to move 'em.
This is a free range and a free country, and the man ain't born that
can make me stop."

He paused, and fixed his keen eyes upon Creede, searching him to the
heart; and before that cold, remorseless gaze the fighting frenzy in
his brain died away. Meanwhile Hardy had come up from where he had
been turning back sheep, and as he rode in Jeff instinctively made way
for him.

"No," replied Hardy, fastening his stern eyes upon the iron visage of
the sheepman, "not if the lives of a thousand cattle and the last
possessions of a dozen men lay in your way. You and your legal rights!
It is men like you who make the law worse than nothing and turn honest
cowmen into criminals. If there is anything in it you will lie to the
assessor or rob a poor man's cabin with the best of them, but when it
comes to your legal right to sheep us out you are all for law and
order. Sure, you will uphold the statutes with your life! Look at
those renegade Mexicans, every man armed by you with a rifle and a
revolver! Is that the way to come onto another man's range? If you are
going to sheep us out, you can try it on; but for God's sake cut it
out about your sacred rights!"

He rose up in his saddle, haranguing the assembly as he spoke, and
once more Jim Swope felt his cause being weakened by the attacks of
this vehement little cowman.

"Well, what kin I do about it?" he cried, throwing out his hands in
virtuous appeal. "My sheep has got to eat, hain't they?"

"Sure," assented Hardy, "and so have our cattle. But I tell you what
you can do--you can go out through that pass yonder!"

He pointed at the canyon down which the sheep had come in the Fall, the
great middle fork which led up over the Four Peaks; but the sheepman's
only reply was a snarl of refusal.

"Not if I know myself," he muttered spitefully. "How'd do, Judge!" He
fixed his eyes eagerly upon Judge Ware, who was hastening to join in
the struggle. "You're just the man I want to see," he continued,
advancing briskly to meet him, "and I want to ask you, here and now
before these witnesses, do you claim any right to the exclusive use of
this land?"

"Why, certainly not, certainly not," answered the judge warmly, "but
at