“That’s so,” replied Ned, the triumphant smile disappearing as quickly as it had come. “He’s got luck on his side, hasn’t he? I wish the raiders would jump down on him and take the last steer he’s got. I’d be glad to see some of them long enough to tell them where to find him. I’d tell them to catch George too and hold fast to him,” added Ned, under his breath, as his father turned and walked into the house. “I never can carry out my scheme while he owns those cattle; I can see that very plainly. If I could only make him lose them some way, I should have things just as I want them. But how can I do it? I must keep my mind on it until I hit upon something.” This conversation and Ned’s soliloquy will serve to show that certain plans calculated to work serious injury to the young herdsman had been laid by the new occupants of the ranche, and that one of them, at least, was ready to resort to desperate measures in order to carry those plans into execution. Ned had set himself deliberately to work to drive his cousin away from his home. One would suppose that if he had any affection for him, or had possessed the least spark of honor, he would have been above such a thing; but the truth was, Ned was not above doing anything that he thought would advance his own interests. He never forgot that clause in his uncle’s will, which provided that in a certain contingency all the immense property, of which his father now had control, was to fall to himself. It was the last thought he dwelt upon at night when he went to bed and the first that passed through his mind when he awoke in the morning. George was very much in the way there. Ned thought so, and he knew that his father thought so, too. They could not do as they pleased while he was about, for George knew everything that was going on in the ranche. He knew just what the expenses amounted to every month, could tell how many cattle had been sold, the price they brought, and how much money his uncle ought to have put into the bank.