The size of the enclosed range amazed him, for it was fully thirteen miles long, eight miles across at its widest, the northern end, and three miles wide at the middle, where massive cliffs jutted far out from each side. The more he saw of it the better he liked it. The grass was better and thicker than even that in the prized and fought-for valley of the old Bar-20. He judged it to contain about eighty square miles and believed that it could feed two hundred cows to the mile. The main stream, which he named Rustler Creek, flowed through a deep ravine and was fed, in the valley alone, by six smaller creeks. There was a sizable swamp and six lakes, one of them nearly a mile long. It was singularly free from bowlders and rocks except at a place near the upper wall, where a great collection of them extended out from a broken cliff. Except at three places the canyons which cut into the cliffs were blind alleys and he could see that two of them had narrow waterfalls at their upper ends. The three open canyons were the only places where cattle could leave the great "sink," as Johnny called it; and they were strongly fenced. The first was the entrance canyon, near the houses; the second was a deep, steep walled defile at the northwest corner of the range, and it led into another, but smaller valley, also heavily grassed. Through it ran a small stream which joined Rustler Creek at the swamp. The third canyon, at the northeast corner of the valley, was wide enough to let Rustler Creek flow through it and leave room for the passing of cattle; and judging by the gates in the heavy fence which crossed it, Johnny knew this to be the exit through which the drive herds went. Where that drive trail led to he did not know, but he believed it to pass well to the west of Hope. Taking it all in all, it was the most perfect range he ever had seen. Rich in grass so heavy and thick as to make him wonder at it, naturally irrigated, blessed with natural reservoirs, surrounded by a perpendicular wall of rock which at some places attained a height of three hundred feet, the water courses lined with timber, its arroyos and draws heavily wooded, and with but three places, easily closed and guarded, where cattle could get out, it made the Tin Cup and the Bar-20, large as they were, look like jokes. Its outfit could laugh at rustlers, droughts, and blizzards, grow fat and lazy and have neither boundary disputes nor range wars to bother them. There were no brands of neighboring ranches to complicate the roundups and not a cow would be lost through straying or theft.