The head and front of the opposition was Jake Prowers, who had brought down from early days an unsavory reputation that rumor said he more than deserved. Strange stories were whispered about this mild-mannered little man with the falsetto voice and the skim-milk eyes. One of them was that he had murdered from ambush the successful wooer of the girl he wanted, that the whole countryside accepted the circumstantial evidence as true, and in spite of this he had married the young widow within a year and buried her inside of two. Nesters in the hills near his ranch had disappeared and never been seen again. Word passed as on the breath of the winds that Prowers had dry-gulched them. Old-timers still lived who had seen him fight a duel with two desperadoes on the main street of Wild Horse. He had been carried to the nearest house on a shutter with three bullets in him, but the two bad men had been buried next day. The two most important ranchmen in the valley were Clint Reed and Jake Prowers. They never had been friendly. Usually they were opposed to each other on any public question that arose. Each was the leader of his faction. On politics they differed. Clint was a Republican, Jake a Democrat. There had been times when they had come close to open hostilities. The rivalry between them had deepened to hatred on the part of Prowers. When Reed announced through the local paper the inception of the Sweetwater Dam project, his enemy had sworn that it should never go through while he was alive. Hitherto Prowers had made no move, but everybody in the district knew that he was biding his time. Competent engineers of the Government had passed adversely on this irrigation project. They had decided water could not be brought down from the hills to the Flat Tops. Jake had seen the surveys and believed them to be correct. He was willing that Reed and the capitalists he had interested should waste their money on a fool’s dream. If Justin Merrick was right--if he could bring water through Elk Creek Cañon to the Flat Tops--it would be time enough for Prowers to strike. Knowing the man as he did, Clint Reed had no doubt that, if it became necessary in order to defeat the project, his enemy would move ruthlessly and without scruple. It was by his advice that Justin Merrick kept the dam guarded at night and carried a revolver with him when he drove over or tramped across the hills. CHAPTER IX UNDER FIRE All day the faint far whir of the reaper could have been heard from the house of the Diamond Bar K ranch. The last of the fields had been cut. Much of the grain had been gathered and was ready for the thresher.