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You have no more right to the hay in this valley than you have to the hide on Landson's steers, and you're not going to cut it any more, at all." Y.D. exploded in somewhat ineffective profanity. He had a wide vocabulary of invective, but most of it was of the stand-and-fight variety.
A mile down the line he found that Linder had already gathered his forces and laid out a plan of defence. The valley, from the South Y.D. to the hills, was about four miles wide, and up the full breadth of it was now coming the fire from Landson's fields. There was no natural fighting line; Linder had not so much as a buffalo path to work against.
But just now we have a fire on our hands." By this time they had reached the camp. Transley gave his instructions in a few words, and then turned to ride down to Landson's. They had gone only a few hundred yards when Y.D. pulled his horse to a stop. "Transley!" he exclaimed, and his voice was shaking. "What do you smell?" The contractor drew up and sniffed the air.
"I'm plumb equal to ridin' down to Landson's an' drivin' one of them stakes through under his short ribs." "But can you prove that Landson did it?" said Zen, who had an element of caution in her when her father was concerned. She had a vision of a fight, with Landson pleading entire ignorance of the whole cause of offence, and her father probably summoned by the police for unprovoked assault.
Transley and Y.D. rode about, carefully scrutinizing the short grass for iron stakes, and keeping a general eye on operations. Suddenly Transley sat bolt-still on his horse. Then, in a low voice, "Y.D!" he said. The rancher turned and followed the line of Transley's vision. The nearest of Landson's stacks was ablaze, and a great pillar of smoke was rolling skyward.
Then she swung down the stream, believing that by making a detour in this way she could pass the wedge of fire that had interrupted her and get back on to the trail leading to Landson's. She was coughing with the smoke, but rode on in the confidence that presently it would lift. It did. A whip of wind raised it like a strong arm throwing off a blanket. She sat up and breathed freely.
We will just move over a little and start on new fields. There's pretty good moonlight these nights and we'll leave a few men out on guard, and perhaps we can catch the enemy at his little game. Let us get one of Landson's men with the goods on him." Y.D. was somewhat pacified by this suggestion. "You're a practical devil, Transley," he said, with considerable admiration.
"Be careful, Zen!" her father shouted. "Fire is fire." But already her horse was stretching low and straight in a hard gallop down the valley. "I'll ride in to camp and tell Tompkins to make up a double supply of sandwiches and coffee," said Transley. "I guess there'll be no cooking in Landson's outfit this afternoon. After that we can both run down and lend a hand, if that suits you."
He elected the more difficult route down the stream itself. The South Y.D. ran mostly on a wide gravel bottom; it was possible to pick out a course which kept Pete in water seldom higher than his knees. An hour of this, and Drazk, peering through the trees, could see the nearest of Landson's stacks not half a mile away.
"If you come over the hills to cut the South Y.D. next summer I will personally escort you home again." Y.D. stood open-mouthed. It was preposterous that this young upstart foreman on a second-rate ranch like Landson's should deliberately defy him. "You see, Y.D.," continued Grant, with provoking calmness, "I've seen the papers. You've run a big bluff in this country.
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