"We'll weather it," he asserted cheerfully. "Shall I tell you how?" "Yes. Tell me," she said. "I'd like to know. The Three Bar is going to show another loss this year." "And likely the next," he assented. "Maybe still another. But that will be about all." "That will surely be all," she said. "Two more years of decrease and there won't be enough left of the Three Bar to divide." "Listen," he said, tapping his knee with a forefinger to emphasize his point. "Cal Warren always wanted to put the Three Bar flats under cultivation. He's probably told you that a hundred times." "A thousand," she amplified. "But the sentiment of the country was against it the same as it is to-day." "But it's not," he contradicted. "Then why all those signs?" she asked. "They run every squatter out now just as they always did." "Who?" he asked. "Do you have a hand in it?" "No," she said. "The others do." "Probably they think the same of you," he pointed out. "There's just one man in this country that profits by keeping that no-squatter sentiment alive." "You must hate Slade," she observed. "I haven't any feeling toward him one way or the other," he asserted. "He's an obstacle, that's all. That's the way he would feel about me if I stood in his way. There's at least one Slade in every locality and in every line of business throughout the world. Ambition for power. He wants the whole countryside. If he'd win out on that he'd want the next--and finally he'd want the world." "He has this particular part of the world under his thumb," she said. "But he won't have for long," he insisted. "He's topheavy and ripe for a fall. Those signs are all that saves him from going to pieces like an over-inflated balloon. He's the only man we'll have to fight." "What convinces you of that?" she asked. "See here," he urged, the emphasizing forefinger tapping again. "This will always be range country. It will only support a certain number of cows. If the Three Bar had a section in hay to winter-feed your stuff you could run double what you do now on the same range. It's the same with every other small concern. There's only a few spots suitable for home-ranch sites and every one of those has a brand running out of it now--excepting those sites down in Slade's range. If all those outfits put in hay it wouldn't cut up the range any more than it is now--except down Slade's way. Every outfit in the country could run twice as many head as they do now--except Slade. He couldn't." "Why?" she asked. "Why wouldn't that apply to him as well?" "Because he's strung out over a hundred miles. The minute farming starts there'll be squatters filing on every quarter where they can get water to put it in crop. There's twenty places Slade would have to cover by filings to hold his range where the others would only have to file on one to control the amount of range they're using now." She nodded as she caught this point.