“It appears as if it’s going to be real difficult to provide you with all the company I’d counted on,” he said. “Time is skipping right along and here you are--occupying my pocket all by yourself without even one mate to jingle up against. Only last week I had it all mapped out to gather in several thousand of your sort to keep you company. But that plan’s flown out the window and here I am without one idea to work on.” He turned along the south line fence of the Half Diamond H leases. “Little lonely dollar, you must mount up to a million,” he asserted. “But we’ve got to insert our wedge somewheres right soon and start to mounting.” His eye traveled along the fence line to where it disappeared in the distance, and suddenly he turned and rode back to where the outfit was camped and sought out the boss. “About those fences being ordered down,” he said. “What arrangements have you made?” “Not any,” Nate admitted. “What with gathering eight thousand head of steers and shipping ’em I haven’t taken time off to worry over fences. We’ll have the last steer headed north in a few days now. Then I’ll see about scrapping fences--or let the squatters tear ’em down when they come in to roost.” “It won’t leave you short-handed now if Bart Lassiter and I lay off,” Carver suggested. “You lend me a team and wagon from the home place and we’ll snatch out those fences for what material there is in them.” “The fence is yours,” Younger agreed. “Provided the other half-owners of any stretches are agreeable. Go get it.” Lassiter assented instantly when Carver stated the proposition. “I always did feel suffocated in a fence country,” he announced. “I was always so much opposed to seeing every fence go up that I figure it will be a real entertaining pastime to help tear ’em down.” This spirit of optimism lasted during the two days required to hunt up other part owners of certain stretches and get their endorsement of the plan, his enthusiasm lasting through the first few days of actual work. They were out before sunrise and knocked off after dark, pulling posts, coiling wire and freighting the materials to the Half Diamond H home ranch. His interest lagged but he did not openly rebel until after two thirds of the fence had been salvaged. Carver roused him one morning for breakfast and Bart blinked sleepily at the smoky lantern that lighted the sod hut in which they had stayed overnight. “We’ve got enough wire piled up to enclose the State of Texas,” he stated. “There’s thirty miles of three-wire fence we’ve collected if there’s a foot. That’s twenty-nine miles more than both of us will ever need. Let’s leave the rest of her set.” “But we contracted to scrap the whole of it,” Carver dissented. “Another week will see us through.” “A week!” Lassiter moaned. “I just can’t face it, honest. I’ve reformed. I hope I hang if I ever extract another staple.” “A week’s not such a long stretch,” Carver urged.