He dreamed of the future, as well as of the past, building cloud castles as unsubstantial as the changing clouds that floated above him. He knew that many of them were but dreams. Others it seemed to him might be made to come true, with Lucy Davison to help him. He did not intend to remain either cowboy or sheep-herder, he was sure of that; and he did not think he would care to become a doctor, like Clayton. He would like to accomplish great things; yet if he could not, he would like to accomplish the small things possible to him in a manner that should be great. Not for his own sake—he felt sure it was not for his own sake—but for Lucy and Clayton! He wanted to be worthy of them both. It must be confessed that his wandering thoughts were chiefly occupied with Lucy Davison. He delighted to recall those happy moments under the cottonwoods. Always in his dreams she was true to him, as he was to her; and she was longing for his letters, as he was for hers. Naturally, other things and people were often in Justin’s thoughts. He thought of Philip Davison, of Ben, with whom he had quarreled, and of Mary Jasper and her father. With a keen sense of sympathy he pictured Sloan Jasper plodding his slow rounds, trying to satisfy with his horses and his cows that desire for loving companionship which only the presence of his daughter could satisfy. He marveled that Mary could leave her father to that life of loneliness for even the gayeties of Denver. And thinking thus, he pitied Mary. Often Justin lay under the night sky, rolled in his blankets, when the coyotes were most annoying, ready to leap up at the first alarm given by the dog. He carried a revolver for use in defending the sheep against the coyotes. This was a case in which, as he knew, even Curtis Clayton would approve of slaying. He began to see clearly, too, in this warfare with the coyotes, that nature, instead of being uniformly kind, as Clayton liked to think, is often pitilessly cruel, and seems to be in a state of armed combat in which there is never the flutter of the white flag of truce. It was the visualizing to him of that age-old conflict in which only the fittest survive. As he looked out upon this warring world, all the animals, with few exceptions, seemed to be trying to devour all the others. The coyotes slew the sheep, the mountain lions pulled down the deer, the wild cats devoured the birds, and for all the fluttering, flying insect life the birds made of the glorious turquoise skies an endless hell of fear.