meeting with Cullison had
annoyed him exceedingly. The men had never been friends, and of late years
they had been leaders of hostile camps. Both of them could be overbearing,
and there was scarcely a week but their interests overlapped. Luck was
capable of great generosity, but he could be obstinate as the rock of
Gibraltar when he chose. There had been differences about the ownership of
calves, about straying cattle, about political matters. Finally had come
open hostility. Cass leased from the forestry department the land upon
which Cullison's cattle had always run free of expense. Upon this he had
put sheep, a thing in itself of great injury to the cattle interests. The
stockmen had all been banded together in opposition to the forestry
administration of the new regime, and Luck regarded Fendrick's action as
treachery to the common cause.

He struck back hard. In Arizona the open range is valuable only so long as
the water holes also are common property or a private supply available.
The Circle C cattle and those of Fendrick came down from the range to the
Del Oro to water at a point where the canyon walls opened to a spreading
valley. This bit of meadow Luck homesteaded and fenced on the north side,
thus cutting the cattle of his enemy from the river.

Cass was furious. He promptly tore down the fence to let his cattle and
sheep through. Cullison rebuilt it, put up a shack at a point which
commanded the approach, and set a guard upon it day and night. Open
warfare had ensued, and one of the sheepherders had been beaten because he
persisted in crossing the dead line.

Now Cullison was going to put the legal seal on the matter by making final
proof on his homestead. Cass knew that if he did so it would practically
put him out of business. He would be at the mercy of his foe, who could
ruin him if he pleased. Luck would be in a position to dictate terms
absolutely.

Nor did it make his defeat any more palatable to Cass that he had brought
it on himself by his bad-tempered unneighborliness and by his overreaching
disposition. A hundred times he had blacknamed himself for an arrant fool
because he had not anticipated the move of his enemy and homesteaded on
his own account.

He felt that there must be some way out of the trap if he could only find
it. Whenever the thought of eating humble pie to Luck came into his mind,
the rage boiled in him. He swore he would not do it. Better a hundred
times to see the thing ou