“Maybe, if you’re an Eastern man, you don’t understand about range. The Western stock business depends on having acres and acres of open land for the stock to run in through spring, summer, and fall, feeding them just in winter. The land is either privately owned, public domain, school lands or government national forest: in this case it is—except for this big track we have been using—public domain. Of course the sheepmen had just as much right to it as the cattlemen, but because they wanted to keep all the range for themselves, they’ve driven off every man who tried to run sheep in Smoky Land. “Oh, it was easy to do. Sometimes they did it just by threatening, sometimes by poisoning the stock, and _sometimes_——” Hugh leaned forward. “By killing the herders?” “Yes.” The girl’s lips set tight. “I didn’t know they would go that far, but Fargo’s got a new right-hand man now—a Mexican named José. He’s used to killing—he learned it in the South—and I haven’t a bit of doubt but that he shot Dan last night. Perhaps they’ve killed before, but before it was always open warfare, at least. They’ve always won—and for all I see they’ll win now. “You see, as far as public domain is concerned, they’ve got a certain right to oppose the sheepmen. They were the first here, and cattle won’t feed after sheep. But in this case there’s a wide track—almost a whole township—through the center of Smoky Land that isn’t public domain but belongs to an old woman down at Boise. It is the best sheep range in the State, and father found out that the cattlemen weren’t renting it. The old woman had tried to rent it to them, but they wouldn’t take it. We found out why, later. They were using it without paying for it—and they thought that giving any money to this helpless old woman was just throwing it away. Incidentally it was all she had, and because there are no mills here, it is practically valueless except for range. “Father thought that by renting it, the cattlemen would leave him alone. They had all the public domain; and in this way, there couldn’t be any particle of doubt about his being in his rights, both lawfully and from the customs of the range. The rent for it—for a term of years—cost him what little money he had left. “We’ve been at war ever since. We’ve got to hang on—it’s ruin for father if he quits. If the cattlemen would take the lease off our hands—as is only fair—we might ship off the flock and get out without losing everything; but they won’t do it. They’d sooner shoot and kill our herders. If you hadn’t come along when you did last night—hundreds of sheep would be dead to-day from the coyotes and cougars. I’m two days early myself—the flock would be practically wiped out before the date I was expected to arrive. They have intimidated or bought up all the labor in the region so we can’t get help—that partly is the reason why I’m doing this work.