"And I suppose you think you're going to keep it!" Ludlum sneered. "Why, my little lady, do you think your herd law is going to keep us stockmen, with thousands of critters to feed, out of these hills? Not much. We've grazed here long before you ever come in, and we'll be grazing long after you've dropped back where you come from. You think you can keep tabs on the stock that comes in here! Why, you couldn't begin to. How'll you know whether there's herders with 'em or not?" "We'll know whether your cattle bother us," Rob warned him; "and if they do break in and spoil our crops, it's you that pay the damages now, not us fellows who have to pay you for your bloated critters. You don't get hurt, you know, unless you break the law. You big fellows are trying to push us off the earth. Maybe this'll show you that you don't own it all yet." "And I guess," said Ludlum, "the only way to teach you smart Alecks that you can't run everything is to clean you out of this country right now." "Yes?" "Yes!" Ludlum shouted, pounding the table with a knotted fist "And according to that idea I've decided not to extend your time on them cattle. You've showed you're a tender-foot at the business, you and the girl there losin' stock right along. You're a joke, and there ain't room for jokes in the beef business. So you just take your little bunch of stuff and run on. The time on your mortgage expires next Monday, December first, and it'll be foreclosed to the minute. See?" He grinned with savage satisfaction. "Foreclosed?" Rob said calmly. "Of course you mean unless we can pay back your loan." "Oh, certainly," Ludlum replied with savage irony, "if you can pay me that thousand----" "One thousand one hundred and fifty-five dollars," Rob said. "I intended to send you a check for the amount as soon as we got to town, but I can give it to you right now. Saves me a stamp, too." Without glancing at Ludlum, who, smothering in his astonishment and fury, stared motionless, Rob pulled his check book from his hip pocket and wrote the check. He laid it on the table before the stockman. "Now if you will write a receipt, which Mr. Garnett will witness, everything will be straight between us. You can send me a discharge of the mortgage when you get back to town." Ludlum bent over the check, looked at it hard and muttered under his breath. When Harry silently handed him the pen he took it with a scowl and wrote a receipt. Then he pocketed the check, picked up his hat, glared venomously at the four who were watching him and without another word flung himself through the doorway and slammed the door after him. "It's mighty good to know, just the same, that _you_ can't make us suffer any longer," Rob said, with a deep bow toward the door. "I kind of thought a while back there he wasn't going to trouble nobody any more," Garnett said, with a sigh, of relief; "he acted like he'd swallered the torpedo he meant for us, and it wasn't agreein' so well."