er?"

"He's all right. He kin shoot like a circus feller, and I reckon he'll
stay right by."

Mose, with big heart, said, "You bet I will."

"That's the talk. Well, now, let's go to bed. I've sent word to
Jennison--he's our captain--and to-morrow we'll settle you on the mouth
o' the creek, just above here. It's a monstrous fine piece o' ground; I
know you'll like it."

Mose slept very little that night. He found himself holding his breath
in order to be sure that the clamor of a coyote was not a cowboy signal
of attack. There was something vastly convincing in Jake Pratt's quiet
drawl as he set forth the cause for war.

Early the next morning, Jennison, the leader of the settlers, came
riding into the yard. He was tall, grim lipped and curt spoken. He had
been a captain in the Union Army of Volunteers, and was plainly a man of
inflexible purpose and resolution.

"How d'e do, gentlemen?" he called pleasantly, as he reined in his
foaming broncho. "Nice day."

"Mighty purty. Light off, cap'n, an' shake hands with my brother Dan'l."

Jennison dismounted calmly and easily, dropping the rein over the head
of his wild broncho, and after shaking hands all around, said:

"Well, neighbor, I'm right glad to see ye. Jake, your brother, has been
savin' up a homestead for ye--and I reckon he's told you that a mighty
purty fight goes with it. You see it's this way: The man that has the
water has the grass and the circle, for by fencing in the river here
controls the grass for twenty miles. They can range the whole country;
nobody else can touch 'em. Williams, of the Circle Bar, controls the
river for twenty miles here, and has fenced it in. Of course he has no
legal right to more than a section or two of it--all the rest is a
steal--the V. T. outfit joins him on the West, and so on. They all
stand to keep out settlement--any kind--and they'll make a fight on
you--the thing for you to do is move right in on the flat Jake has
picked out for you, and meet all comers."

To this Pratt said: "'Pears to me, captain, that I'd better see if I
can't make some peaceabler arrangement."

"We've tried all peaceable means," replied Jennison impatiently. "The
fact is, the whole cattle business as now constituted is a steal. It
rests on a monopoly of Government land. It's got to go. Settlement is
creeping in and these big ranges which these 'cattle kings' have held,
must be free. There is a war due between the sheepmen and the cattlemen,