As he and Harry, riding home, talked over the visit, Rob said, "There must be something more than sweet neutrality back of all that. How do we know that Ludlum isn't paying that fellow to stand out against the herd law?" "He can't bribe every one," Harry answered, "and there are enough of us to carry it through, once we all get together." The evidence that Rob was able to give of Ludlum's dishonesty, and of his outspoken animosity toward Harry and himself, was a strong argument with those farmers who had listened favorably to Ludlum's talk. Rob was able to convince them that unless they wished to be ruined they must protect themselves against such plunderers as Ludlum. The more progressive farmers added their arguments to Rob's with such effect that, when the petition for a herd law came up in the county court, very few among the hill ranchers' names were missing. "There she is," Rob said, throwing on the table the Camas _Prairie Courier_, containing the announcement that their district was to go under the herd law. "I'd like to see old Ludlum's mug when he reads that. I bet he'll try to start something even now." "Let him," Harry answered tranquilly. "This will see his finish up here." "It may see our finish, too, round December first," Rob said to himself, "that is, if hay goes any higher and cattle any lower." CHAPTER XX Now that the herd law was a fact, the next task Rob and Harry had to undertake was getting hay for the winter. Yet it was almost impossible for them to find time to look for it. Every day was crowded with work. The herd law would not take effect until the following spring, and the cattle at present in the hills would remain there until the fall round-up. Until then one or the other of the young people must always ride the fence to look for breaks, to push the range cattle back and to keep their own animals near home in an effort to stop the losses that continued with baffling persistence. With the patience of an old hand Harry performed that part of the work. Early and late she rode to all the water holes not already gone dry, to all the favorite midday haunts of the herds, constantly hoping to find one or all of the six creatures that had disappeared. She found none of them; and, while she searched, two more steers, a yearling, and a cow and a calf vanished one by one. Ludlum's "cow-punchers," with growing insolence, came repeatedly inside the fence to look through the milk cows and calves on pasture; and they never lost a chance to make threatening remarks to Harry about rustlers and what they were doing. Harry never repeated their remarks to Rob, for she was anxious to shield him from any additional annoyance.