It was not until the third day that Williams, riding the line in person, came upon the new settler. He sat upon his horse and swore. His face was dark with passion, but after a few minutes' pause he drew rein and rode away. "Another butter maker," he said to his men as he slipped from the saddle at his own door, "some ten miles up the river." "Where?" "Next to Pratt's. I reckon it's that brother o' his he's been talking about. They cut my wires and squatted on the Rosebud flat." "Give the word and we'll run 'em out," said one of his men. "Every son-of-a-gun of 'em." Williams shook his head. "No, that won't do. W've got to go slow in rippin' these squatters out o' their holes. They anchor right down to the roots of the tree of life. I reckon we've got to let 'em creep in; we'll scare 'em all we can before they settle, but when they settle we've got to go around 'em. If the man was a stranger we might do something, but Jake Pratt don't bluff--besides, boys, I've got worse news for you." "What's that?" "A couple of Mexicans with five thousand sheep crossed Lizard Creek yesterday." The boys leaped to their feet, variously crying out: "Oh, come off! It can't be true." "It is true--I saw 'em myself," insisted Williams. "Well, that means war. Does the V. T. outfit know it?" "I don't think so. We've got to stand together now, or we'll be overrun with sheep. The truck farmers are a small matter compared to these cursed greasers." "I guess we'd better send word up the river, hadn't we?" asked his partner. "Yes, we want to let the whole county know it." Cheyenne County was an enormous expanse of hilly plain, if the two words may be used together. Low heights of sharp ascent, pyramid-shaped buttes, and wide benches (cut here and there by small creek valleys) made up its surface, which, broadly considered, was only the vast, treeless, slowly-rising eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. At long distances, on the flat, sandy river, groups of squat and squalid ranch buildings huddled as if to escape the wind. For years it has been a superb range for cattle, and up till the coming of the first settlements on the Cannon Ball, it had been parceled out among a few big firms, who cut Government timber, dug Government stone, and pastured on Government grass. When the wolves took a few ponies, the ranchers seized the opportunity to make furious outcry and bring in the Government troops to keep the Indians in awe, and so possessed the land in serenity. Nothing could be more perfect, more commodious.