The next morning a thin, misty rain began falling. A prayer of thanksgiving was in the hearts of the people. The rain gradually increased and continued a steady downpour all that day and night, and all of the following day. The earth was saturated with refreshing moisture. Then the sun came out, wreathed in smiling gladness. The browned landscape took on a new life. The buffalo-grass, within a few days, was a carpet of living green. The cacti put forth new shoots and spines, and their buds opened into beautiful flowers, as fragrant as the Cape jasmine. The sunflowers lifted their drooping leaves, and bulbs of promise swelled in triumph under the caressing rays of the wooing sun. No wonder hope sprang up anew in the hearts of the farmers. True their crops were gone,—the country devastated,—but here was nature smiling with promise. To them it was the rainbow of hope, and they began making ready for another seed-time. CHAPTER XXIX.—JACK REDFIELD ARRIVES CATTLE Thieving and Its Punishment,” was the headline of an editorial written by Maj. Buell Hampton for the Patriot. This editorial, perhaps, brought its writer more subscribers from the cattlemen than any other one editorial ever published in southwestern Kansas. Notwithstanding this article and the wide notice it received, cattle thieving continued. John Horton estimated that he had lost, during the year, fully one hundred thousand dollars worth of beeves, while other cattlemen of less pretensions had also lost heavily. With a view to popularizing the Barley Hullers, Major Hampton announced through the columns of his paper that he was preparing to issue a general order to all lodges of Barley Hullers bordering on No-Man’s-Land, to resolve themselves into committees, and, by a concert of action, annihilate, root and branch, the cattle-thieving cancer that had fastened itself upon the frontier of the Southwest. Since the country had been devastated by hot winds, cattle thieving had noticeably increased. Major Hampton’s duties as district organizer of the Farmers’ Alliance, also as a general lecturer of the Barley Hullers’ organization, called him away from his home much of the time.