"Satisfied!" ripped out Swope, with an oath. "Satisfied! Why, man alive, you're jest hanging on by your eyebrows up there at Hidden Water! _You_ haven't got nothin'; you don't even own the house you live in. I could go up there to-morrow and file on that land and you couldn't do a dam' thing. Judge Ware thought he was pretty smooth when he euchred me out of that place, but I want to tell you, boy--and you can tell him, if you want to--that Old Man Winship never held no title to that place, and it's public land to-day. That's all public land up there; there ain't a foot of land in the Four Peaks country that I can't run my sheep over if I want to, and keep within my legal rights. So that's where you're at, Mr. Hardy, if you want to know!" He stopped and rammed a cut of tobacco into his pipe, while Hardy tapped his boot meditatively. "Well," he said at last, "if that's the way things are, I'm much obliged to you for not sheeping us out this Spring. Of course, I haven't been in the country long, and I don't know much about these matters, but I tried to accommodate you all I could, thinking--" "That ain't the point," broke in Swope, smoking fiercely, "I ain't threatening ye, and I appreciate your hospitality--but here's the point. What's the use of your monkeying along up there on a job that is sure to play out, when you can go into a better business? Answer me that, now!" But Hardy only meditated in silence. It was beyond contemplation that he should hire himself out as a sheep-herder, but if he said so frankly it might call down the wrath of Jim Swope upon both him and the Dos S. So he stood pat and began to fish for information. "Maybe you just think my job is going to play out," he suggested, diplomatically. "If I'd go to a cowman, now, or ask Judge Ware, they might tell me I had it cinched for life." Swope puffed smoke for a minute in a fulminating, dangerous silence. "Huh!" he said. "I can dead easy answer for that. Your job, Mr. Hardy, lasts jest as long as I want it to--and no longer. Now, you can figure that out for yourself. But I'd jest like to ask you a question, since you're so smart; how come all us sheepmen kept off your upper range this year?" "Why," said Hardy innocently, "I tried to be friendly and treated you as white as I could, and I suppose--" "Yes, you suppose," sneered Swope grimly, "but I'll jest tell you; we wanted you to hold your job." "That's very kind of you, I'm sure," murmured Hardy. "Yes," replied the sheepman sardonically, "it is--dam' kind of us. But now the question is: What ye goin' to do about it?" "Why, in what way?" "Well, now," began Swope, patiently feeling his way, "suppose, jest for instance, that some fool Mexican herder should accidentally get in on your upper range--would you feel it your duty to put him off?" "Well," said Hardy, hedging, "I really hadn't considered the matter seriously. Of course, if Judge Ware--"