Early the next morning, Jennison, the leader of the settlers, came riding into the yard. He was tall, grim lipped and curt spoken. He had been a captain in the Union Army of Volunteers, and was plainly a man of inflexible purpose and resolution. "How d'e do, gentlemen?" he called pleasantly, as he reined in his foaming broncho. "Nice day." "Mighty purty. Light off, cap'n, an' shake hands with my brother Dan'l." Jennison dismounted calmly and easily, dropping the rein over the head of his wild broncho, and after shaking hands all around, said: "Well, neighbor, I'm right glad to see ye. Jake, your brother, has been savin' up a homestead for ye--and I reckon he's told you that a mighty purty fight goes with it. You see it's this way: The man that has the water has the grass and the circle, for by fencing in the river here controls the grass for twenty miles. They can range the whole country; nobody else can touch 'em. Williams, of the Circle Bar, controls the river for twenty miles here, and has fenced it in. Of course he has no legal right to more than a section or two of it--all the rest is a steal--the V. T. outfit joins him on the West, and so on. They all stand to keep out settlement--any kind--and they'll make a fight on you--the thing for you to do is move right in on the flat Jake has picked out for you, and meet all comers." To this Pratt said: "'Pears to me, captain, that I'd better see if I can't make some peaceabler arrangement." "We've tried all peaceable means," replied Jennison impatiently. "The fact is, the whole cattle business as now constituted is a steal. It rests on a monopoly of Government land. It's got to go. Settlement is creeping in and these big ranges which these 'cattle kings' have held, must be free. There is a war due between the sheepmen and the cattlemen, too, and our lay is to side in with the sheepmen. They are mainly Mexicans, but their fight is our feast." As day advanced men came riding in from the Cannon Ball and from far below on the Big Sandy, and under Jennison's leadership the wires of the Williams fence were cut and Daniel Pratt moved to the creek flat just above his brother's ranch. Axes rang in the cottonwoods, and when darkness came, the building of a rude, farmlike cabin went on by the light of big fires. Mose, in the thick of it, was a-quiver with excitement. The secrecy, the haste, the glory of flaring fires, the almost silent swarming of black figures filled his heart to the brim with exultation. He was satisfied, rapt with it as one in the presence of heroic music. But the stars paled before the dawn. The coyotes changed their barking to a solemn wail as though day came to rob them of some irredeemable joy. A belated prairie cock began to boom, and then tired, sleepy, and grimy, the men sat down to breakfast at Jacob Pratt's house. The deed had been done. Daniel had entered the lion's den.