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But she had arrived to find that prosperity temporarily checked. A gang of cattle-thieves were making serious depredations among his stock. The police were hot on the trail, and it was believed that the gang had been split up, but so far no notable captures had been made. Buckskin Bill, the leader, was still at large, and while this remained the case there could be no security for any one.
But, Martin, what can I do?" "Do? God knows. What can any of us do? Times have changed, August. Dene is here in White Sage, free, welcome in many homes. Some of our neighbors, perhaps men we trust, are secret members of this rustler's band." "You're right, Cole. There are Mormons who are cattle-thieves. To my eternal shame I confess it.
Giving no sign of his discovery, he continued his exhortation to Trotting Wolf, to that worthy's mingled rage and embarrassment. The suggestion of jail for cattle-thieves the Chief knew well was no empty threat, for two of his band even at that moment were in prison for this very crime. This knowledge rendered him uneasy.
Calves bearing the "H L" brand—that claimed by a company known to be made up of cattle-thieves—followed mothers bearing almost every brand that grazed herds in that part of the State. The Wetmore outfit, that used a "W" enclosed in a square, were apparently the heaviest losers.
The deer thus were supposed to be the cause of making cattle-thieves out of honest men! The result was that a law was passed that no domestic reindeer might be shot north of the line of the neck for which we had applied, and which we intended to fence. This only made matters ten times worse, for if the deer either strayed or else were driven across the line, the killing of them was thus legalized.
A fence high enough to keep out cattle-thieves, he told them, must be high enough to keep out the Devil. Sometimes his grievance would have a personal basis, as when he told them: "I have gone to work and made roads to the cañon for wood; and I have cut wood down and piled it up, and then I have not got it. I wonder if any of you can say as much about the wood I have left there.
"It seems to me," added Hawkridge, thoughtfully, "that there have been some woeful mistakes made. The Cattle Association have organized an expedition to rid Johnson, Natroma and Converse Counties of cattle-thieves, as they call them. They have imported twenty-five picked men from Texas, every one of whom is a fighter and dead shot, with Capt. Smith, an ex-U.S. marshal, as their leader.
"The leading citizens of Crowheart, the outcasts and riff-raff of civilization, the tinhorn gamblers, the embezzlers, ex-bankrupts and libertines, the sheep-herders and reformed cattle-thieves, the blackmailers and dance-hall touts swollen by prosperity, disguised by a veneer of respectability, want justice, do they? By God!"
"Oh, child! if he is so good to you, I ought not to say; but he was a powerful, grim-looking man, with fierce eyes and a thick mustache, and hair almost pepper-and-salt; and bless your soul, honey! his shoulders were as broad as a barn-door. While he talked I didn't like his countenance, it was dark like a pirate's, or one of those prowling cattle-thieves over in the coves.
"He never would have touched him, Fletcher wouldn't, if he had kept in the house an' left us alone; but he plumped one of us over when we fust came up; an' this here is the consequence," added Springer, nodding his head toward the cabin again. George knew why it was that the cattle-thieves had stopped to destroy the squatter's house.
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