"She kep' standin' at my back like, oh, like--well, she kep' a-sayin' 'We'll win out yet, John, you see. Right'll win ev'ry time.' You see we are just ready to get th' patent on our land. She couldn't give that up, seems like. All this time gone an' nothin' gained. So we ben a-hangin' on when things went from bad to worse. Th' herd's been a-goin' down an' down. Calves with their tongues slit so's they'd lose their mothers--fed up in some coulee by hand an' branded. Knowed 'em by my own colour cattle, w'ich I drove in here five year ago--th' yellers. "Mothers killed outright an' th' calves branded. Oh, I know it all--but what could I do? Kep' gettin' poorer an' poorer. Couldn't afford enough riders t' protect 'em. Then couldn't afford any an' tried t' make it go as th' boys got older. Courtrey, damn him, wants me offen that piece o' land a-fore th' patent's granted. Him with his twenty thousan' acres of Lost Valley now! An' how'd he get it? False entry, that's what! How many men's come in here, took up land, 'sold out' to Courtrey an' went? Or didn't go. A lot of 'em _didn't go_. We all know that. An' who dares to speak in a whisper about it? Th' men that did wouldn't go--never--nowheres." There was the bitterness of utter defeat and hatred in the shaking voice. The tree-toads, beginning their nightly chorus from the wet places below the cottonwoods, emphasized the dreariness of the recital, the ancient hopelessness of the weak beneath the heel of the oppressor. Dement ceased speaking and stood in silhouette against the last yellow-and-black of the dead sunset. The protruding apple in his hawk-like throat worked up and down grotesquely. For a long moment there was utter silence. Then he began again. "I knowed I wasn't welcome in th' Valley when I hadn't ben here more'n six months. Th' first leetle string o' fence I put up fer corrals went down, mysterious, as fast as I could fix it. Th' woman's garden was broke open an' trampled to dust by cattle, drove in. Winter ketched us with mighty leetle t' eat in th' way o' truck. Next year she guarded it herself some nights, sleepin' by day, an' oncet she took a shot at some one that come prowlin' around. They let her fence alone after that, but what'd they do outside? Killed all th' hogs we had one night an' piled 'em in a heap in th' front door yard! That was hint enough, but I kep' a-thinkin' that ef we behaved decent like, an' minded our own business we sartainly must win out. We did," he added grimly after a little pause, "like hell. An' how many others of th' settlers has gone through th' like? We ain't no tin gods ourselves, I own, but we got t' fight fire with fire. Only I ain't got no more light-wood," he finished quaintly, "I got to quit." There was another silence while the tree-toads sang. Then the man held out his hand, hardened and warped with the unceasing toil of those tragic years.