Hollis knew that he might readily become melodramatic in the few words that he purposed to say to the men, and so when he began talking he adopted a low, even tone, confidential, serious. He told them that the things he had written in his salutatory in the _Kicker_, months before, had been an honest declaration of the principles in which he believed. This was America, he repeated; they were all Americans; they were all entitled to that freedom of thought, speech, and movement for which their forefathers had fought. For one, he purposed to fight, if necessary, to retain his rights. He told them that he held no ill-feeling against them on account of their refusal to assist his father. That was past history. But now they were to look into the future; they were all facing ruin if they did not combine in a common cause. So far as he was concerned their cattle might remain at the Rabbit-Ear until the drought ended, or until the stream went dry. And if Dunlavey fought them--well, he would be with them to the finish. When he had concluded Lemuel Train stepped forward and shook his hand. The others followed. There was no word spoken. The men filed down from the gallery, sought their horses, mounted, and rode slowly away into the darkness. When they had gone Hollis turned to resume his chair, but found Norton standing near him, looking at him with a curious smile. "Shake!" said the latter. "I knowed you'd do it that way!" CHAPTER XV TO SUPPORT THE LAW Hollis alone, of all the men whose cattle grazed on the Circle Bar side of the Rabbit-Ear, really doubted that Dunlavey would have the courage to inaugurate a war against the small owners. Lemuel Train was particularly strong in his belief that Dunlavey would not hesitate to shoot whatever cattle infringed on what he considered were his rights. "I know the skunk!" he declared heatedly to Hollis a day or two after the conversation on the porch at the Circle Bar. "He'll do it. I'm only scared that he won't wait till the tenth day before beginnin'. Why in hell don't it rain?" This remained the great, universal interrogation. But at the end of a week it was unanswered. The sun swam in its endless circles, a great ball of molten silver at which no man could look with the naked eye, traveling its slow way through a blurred, white sky, sinking to the horizon in the evening and leaving a scorched, blasted, gasping country behind. The nights brought no relief. Clark, of the Circle Y, sarcastically declared it to be his belief that some meddler in things firmamental was paying the owner of the sun to work it overtime.