g at Pat in a peculiar manner. He
attached no significance to this at the time, but later he recalled the
fact that there had been trouble between Pat and the Brewster boys some
years ago. The Brewsters had then openly threatened to "get Pat if he
ever rode north again."

Chapter XVII

_Down the Wind_

Waring, several miles out from the home shack, on the new range, sat his
horse Dexter, watching his men string fence. They ran the barbed wire
with a tackle, stringing it taut down the long line of bare posts that
twinkled away to dots in the west. Occasionally Waring rode up and
tested the wire with his hand. The men worked fast. Waring and Pat had
picked their men; three husky boys of the high country who considered
stringing fence rather pleasant exercise. There was no recognized
foreman. Each knew his work, and Waring had added a foreman's pay to
their salaries, dividing it equally among them. Later they would look
after the ranch and the cattle.

Twenty thousand acres under fence, with plenty of water, would take care
of eight hundred or a thousand head of cattle. And as a provision
against a lean winter, Waring had put a mowing-machine in at the eastern
end of the range, where the bunch-grass was heavy enough to cut. It
would be necessary to winter-feed. Four hundred white-faced Herefords
grazed in the autumn sunshine. Riding round and among them leisurely was
the Mexican youth, Ramon.

Backed against a butte near the middle of the range was the broad,
low-roofed ranch-house. A windmill purred in the light breeze, its lean,
flickering shadow aslant the corrals. The buildings looked new and raw
in contrast to the huge pile of grayish-green greasewood and scrub cedar
gathered from the clearing round them.

In front of the house was a fenced acre, ploughed and harrowed to a dead
level. This was to be Pat's garden, wherein he had planned to grow all
sorts of green things, including cucumbers. At the moment Pat was
standing under the veranda roof, gazing out across the ranch. The old
days of petty warfare, long night rides, and untold hardships were past.
Next spring his garden would bloom; tiny green tendrils would swell to
sturdy vines. Corn-leaves would broaden to waving green blades shot with
the rich brown of the ripening ears. Although he had never spoken of it,
Pat had dreamed of blue flowers nodding along the garden fence;
old-fashioned bachelor's-buttons that would spring up as though by
accident