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These nesters drew courage from Macdonald's example, and cunning from his counsel, and stood against the warnings, persecutions, and attempts at forceful dislodgment. The law of might did not seem to apply to them, and there was no other source equal to the dignity of the Drovers' Association at least none to which it cared to carry its grievances and air them.
"They need horses," he groaned to Blake, "and they need help. If you knowed the country and the work as well as I do you'd know they've got to have horses and help. And there's their claims fellers squatting down on every eighty four different nesters fer every doggoned one of the bunch to handle! And you tell me I got to set here and not lift a hand.
He told Rusty this, and he accused him of standing in with the nesters and turning down the men who had helped him make money' all these years. "Why, darn your soul, I've spent money enough over this bar to buy out the whole damn joint, and you know it!" he cried indignantly. "If you think you've got to collect damages, take it outa these blinkety-blink pilgrims you think so much of.
"I'm going to ride into town, boys," he announced curtly. "I'll be back in the morning and go on day-herd." "Maybe you will and maybe you won't," Weary amended somewhat impatiently. "This is certainly a poor time for Irish to break out," he added, watching his double go galloping toward the town road. "I betche he comes back full and tries to clean out all them nesters," Happy Jack predicted.
Nesters or small farmers were not usually popular in the early days of the Western ranges, as they had a way of fencing in the springs, or water-holes, to provide irrigation for their crops. But there was plenty of water in that country, so Chet was welcome to all of it he wanted.
Its riders had been kings of the range. That was before the tide of settlement had spilled into the valley, before nesters had driven in their prairie schooners, homesteaded the water-holes, and strung barb-wire fences across the range. Line-riders and dry farmers and irrigators had pushed the cowpuncher to one side. Sheep had come bleating across the desert to wage war upon the cattle.
These men, owners of small bunches of cows, claimed that Webb and the other big drovers rounded up their cattle in the drive, ran the road brand of the traveling outfit on these strays, and sold them as their own. The story of the drovers was different. They charged that these "nesters" were practically rustlers preying upon larger interests passing through the country to the Indian reservations.
Honest to gran'ma, I've got to go and help the bunch lick the stuffen' outa them nesters, Doctor Dell." The Little Doctor looked at him strangely, hugged him tight and let him go. Chip would be with them, and he would bring the Kid home safely, and the limitations of dooryard play no longer sufficed; her fledgling had found what his wings were for, and the nest was too little, now.
But they would have found water and it would have taken say three years for them to discover that their claims could not support them, Nesters are a dogged breed of human. It takes a nester a long time to wake up to the fact that he's licked, and until they woke up, the nesters would be liable to block the water wheels of a private reclamation scheme.
Jim S and I were working on the 101 Ranch in Colorado. The nesters had the cowman on the go. They had taken up the land and elected officers who were hard to get along with. Jim and I rode into La Junta one day, going south from a round-up. We were having a little fun without malice toward anybody when a farmer administration cut in and tried to harvest us.
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