tead, and Grant turned to the rest. "Jake,
you'll take the eastern round; Charley, you'll ride west. Give them the
handful of oats at every shanty to show it's urgent. They're to be at
Fremont in riding order at nine to-morrow night."

In another ten minutes the men were riding hard across the prairie, and
Grant, with a sigh, went on with his ploughing. It would be next year
before he could sow, and whether he would ever reap the crop was more than
any man in that region would have ventured to predict. He worked however,
until the stars were out that night and commenced again when the red sun
crept up above the prairie rim the next day; but soon after dusk mounted
men rode up one by one to Fremont ranch. They rode good horses, and each
carried a Winchester rifle slung behind him when they assembled, silent
and grim, in the big living-room.

"Boys," said Grant quietly, "we have borne a good deal, and tried to keep
the law, but it is plain that the cattle-men, who bought it up, have left
none for us. Now, the Sheriff, who has the two homesteaders safe, has let
the man we sent him go."

There was an ominous murmur and Grant went on. "The homesteaders, who only
wanted to buy food and raised no trouble until they were fired on, will be
tried by the cattle-men, and I needn't tell you what kind of chance
they'll get. We pledged ourselves to see they had fair play when they came
in, and there's only one means of getting it. We are going to take them
from the Sheriff, but there will be no fighting. We'll ride in strong
enough to leave no use for that. Now, before we start, are you all willing
to ride with me?"

Again a hoarse murmur answered him, and Grant, glancing down the row of
set faces under the big lamps, was satisfied.

"Then we'll have supper," he said quietly. "It may be a long while before
any of us gets a meal again."

It was a silent repast. As yet the homesteaders, at least in that
district, had met contumely with patience and resisted passively each
attempt to dislodge them, though it had cost their leader a strenuous
effort to restrain the more ardent from the excesses some of their
comrades farther east had already committed; but at last the most peaceful
of them felt that the time to strike in turn had come. They mounted when
supper was over and rode in silence past willow bluff and dusky rise
across the desolate waste. The badger heard the jingle of their bridles,
and now and then a lonely coyote, startl