price in years. All over Arizona,
and in California, New Mexico, and Texas, the great drought had
depleted the ranges; the world's supply of beef had been cut down;
feeders were scarce in the alfalfa fields of Moroni; fat cattle were
called for from Kansas City to Los Angeles; and suddenly the despised
cowmen of the Four Peaks saw before them the great vision which always
hangs at the end of the rainbow in Arizona--a pot of gold, _if the
sheep went around_. And what would make the sheep go around? Nothing
but a thirty-thirty.

The price of mutton had gone up too, adding a third to the fortune of
every sheepman; the ewes were lambing on the desert, bringing forth a
hundred per cent or better, with twins--and every lamb must eat! To
the hundred thousand sheep that had invaded Bronco Mesa there was
added fifty thousand more, and they must all eat. It was this that the
sheepmen had foreseen when they sent Juan Alvarez around to raid the
upper range--not that they needed the feed then, but they would need
it in the Spring, and need it bad. So they had tried to break the way
and, failing, had sworn to come in arms. It was a fight for the grass,
nothing less, and there was no law to stop it.

As the news of the trouble filtered out and crept into obscure corners
of the daily press, Hardy received a long hortatory letter from Judge
Ware; and, before he could answer it, another. To these he answered
briefly that the situation could only be relieved by some form of
Federal control; that, personally, his sympathies were with the
cattlemen, but, in case the judge was dissatisfied with his
services--But Judge Ware had learned wisdom from a past experience and
at this point he turned the correspondence over to Lucy. Then in a
sudden fit of exasperation he packed his grip and hastened across the
continent to Washington, to ascertain for himself why the Salagua
Forest Reserve was not proclaimed. As for Lucy, her letters were as
carefully considered as ever--she wrote of everything except the sheep
and Kitty Bonnair. Not since she went away had she mentioned Kitty,
nor had Hardy ever inquired about her. In idle moments he sometimes
wondered what had been in that unread letter which he had burned with
Creede's, but he never wrote in answer, and his heart seemed still and
dead. For years the thought of Kitty Bonnair had haunted him, rising
up in the long silence of the desert; in the rush and hurry of the
round-up the vision of her sup