The foreman opened the door and strode through the kitchen and into the living room, his eyes squinting momentarily because of the light. His daughter was sitting in a rocking chair, sewing industriously, and she looked up, welcoming him. He replied to her and, dexterously tossing his sombrero on a peg in the wall where it caught and hung swinging, walked heavily to the southern window and stood before it, hands clasped behind his back, staring moodily into the star-stabbed darkness. Down the wind came the faint, wailing howl of a wolf, quavering and distant, and the hounds again shattered the peaceful quiet. But he heard neither, so absorbed was he by his thoughts. Mary looked at him for a moment and then took up her work again and resumed sewing, for he had done this before when things had gone wrong, and frequently of late. He turned suddenly and in response to the movement she looked up, again laying her sewing aside. "What it is?" she asked. "Trouble, Mary. I want to talk to you." "I'm always ready to listen, Daddy," she replied. "I wish you wouldn't worry so. That's all you've done since we left Montana." "I know; but I can't help it," he responded, smiling faintly. "But I don't care much as long as I've got you to talk it over with. Yo're like yore mother that way, Mary; she allus made things easy, somehow. An' she knew more'n most women do about things." "Yo're my own Daddy," she replied affectionately. "Now tell me all about it." "Well," he began, sitting on the table, "I'm being cheated out of my rights. I find lines where none exist. I'm hemmed in from water, th' best grazing is held from me, my cows are driven helter-skelter, my pride hurt, an' my men mocked. When I say I must have water I'm told to go to th' river for it, twenty miles from my main range, an' lined with quicksands; an' yet there is water close to me, water enough for double th' number of cows of both ranches! It is good, clean water, unfailing an' over a firm bottom, flowing through thirty miles of th' best grass valley in this whole sun-cursed section. Two hundred miles in any direction won't show another as good. An' yet, I dassn't set my foot in it--I can't drive a cow across that line!" He paused and then continued: "I'm good an' sick of it all. I ain't going to swaller it no longer, not a day. Peace is all right, but not at th' price I'm paying! I'd ruther die fighting for what's mine than put up with what I have since I came down here." "What are you going to do?" she asked quietly. "I'm going to have a force on that line by to-morrow night!" he cried, gradually working himself into a temper. "_I'm_ going to hold them hills, an' th' springs at th' bottom of 'em. _I'm_ going to use that valley an' I'll fight until th' last man goes under!"