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But the fence was the sign of the property-owning man; and the property-owning man has always beaten the nomad and the restless man at last, and set metes and bounds for him to observe. The nesters and rustlers fought out the battle for the free range more fiercely than was ever generally known.
You're all right, as far as yuh go but this range is carrying just about all the stock it needs right at present. I don't reckon yuh realize that all the good bottoms and big coulées are getting filled up with nesters; one here and one there, and every year a few more. It ain't much, uh course, but every man that comes is cutting down the range just that much.
Remember, Gus Briskow wants them to have everything, and be everything they should be, regardless of expense. Why, both he and I would like nothing better than to have Allegheny look like you, if that were possible." Miss Good eyed the speaker curiously. "Who are you?" she inquired. "What are these nesters to you?" "I am nobody. They were kind to me and I'm interested in their future."
"No use jawing. I'm going to hang his skin up to dry," Weaver ground out between set teeth. "By his own way of it, he's only one of them dashed nesters," Irwin added. Keller was putting two and two together, in amazement. The would-be assassin had, during the past few minutes, been driven into this gulch, riding a roan horse.
On the whole, the Kid had a very fair conception of the state of affairs. Claimants and contestants those words went over his head. But he knew perfectly well that the nesters were the men that didn't like the Happy Family, and lived in shacks on the way to town, and plowed big patches of prairie and had children that went barefooted in the furrows and couldn't ride horses to save their lives.
The Kid was going to see Rosemary Allen and take a ride with her along the new fence; but he pulled up with the air of condescension which was his usual attitude toward "nesters," and in response to the twisted smile of H. J. Owens he grinned amiably. "Want to go on a bear-hunt with me, Buck?" began H. J. Owens with just the right tone of comradeship, to win the undivided attention of the Kid.
"All over this country, they say, the nesters'll squat now wherever they want to, and nobody won't dast to take a shot at 'em to drive 'em off of his grass. They put so much in the papers about this rustlers' war up here that folks has got it through 'em the nesters ain't been gittin' what was comin' to 'em. The big ranches 'll all be split up to flinders inside of five years."
Sheila's face was averted so that Duncan might not see the interest in her eyes, or the red which had suddenly come into her cheeks. "Ranchers?" There was a sneer in Duncan's laugh. "Well, you might call them that. But they're only nesters. They've got a few head of cattle and a brand. It's likely they've put their brands on quite a few of the Double R cattle."
"Then Saul went up there with some more of the men to burn that Macdonald's shack and drive him off of our land, and they run into a bunch of them rustlers that Macdonald he'd fetched over there, and two more of our men was killed. It looks like a body's got to fight night and day for his rights now, since them nesters begun to come in here.
On that occasion Banjo's wits had been mixed with liquor, but his sense of gratitude had been perfectly clear ever since. Macdonald's door was the only one in the nesters' colony that stress or friendship ever had constrained him to enter.
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