Only those who have been through a drought know what music there is hidden in rain. It puts a wild joy into the heart of every creature, the birds sing, the rabbits leap and caper, and all the cattle and wild horses take to roaming and wandering out of pure excess of spirits. It was early in March when the first showers came, and as soon as the new feed was up Creede began his preparations for the spring _rodeo_. The Winter had been a hard one, and not without its worries. In an interview, which tended on both sides to become heated and personal, Jim Swope had denounced Hardy for misrepresenting his orders to his _mayordomo_, and had stated in no uncertain terms his firm intention of breaking even in the Spring, if there was a blade of grass left on the upper range. The season had been a bad one for his sheep, windy and cold, with sand storms which buried the desert in a pall and drove many flocks to the hills; and as the feed became shorter and shorter vagrant bands began to drift in along the Salagua. In the battle for the range that followed herders and punchers greeted each other with angry snarls which grew more wolfish every day, and old Pablo Moreno, shaking his white head over their quarrels, uttered gloomy prophecies of greater evils to come. Sheep would die, he said, cattle would die--it was only a question now of how many, and of which. It was a coming _ano seco_; nay, the whole country was drying up. In Hermosillo, so they said, the women stood by the public well all night, waiting to fill their _ollas_; not for nine years had the rains fallen there, and now the drought was spreading north. Arizona, California, Nevada, all were doomed, yet _paciencia_, perhaps--and then came the rain. Yes, it was a good rain but--and then it rained again. _Que bueno_, who would not be made a liar for rain? But _cuidado_--behold, the ground was still dry; it drank up the water as it fell and was thirsty again; the river fell lower and lower and the water was clear; a bad sign, a very bad sign! But if the young should wait upon the advice of the old there would be no more miracles. Creede and Hardy passed up the weather, strapped on their six-shooters, and began to patrol the range, "talking reason" to the stray Mexicans who thought that, because their sheep were getting poor, they ought to move them to better feed. The time for friendship and diplomacy was past, as Hardy politely informed his employer by letter--after which he told Rafael to keep away from the post office and not bring him any more _correo_, if he valued his job. But though he had made his note to Judge Ware brief, it had said too much. He had suggested that if the judge did not like his change of policy he had better come down and see the actual conditions for himself--and the old judge came.