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Updated: May 9, 2025
"Oh, I don't know," retorted Hardy. "It might relieve my mind some. I've only been in this country a few months, but if a sheepman is the only man that has any legal or moral rights I'd like to know about it. You talk about coming in on our upper range, having a right to the whole country, and all that. Now I'd like to ask you whether in your opinion a cowman has got a right to live?"
Of course the issue even in this ancient contest is foregone as the cowman has had to raise his cows under fence, so ultimately must the sheepman also buy his range in fee and raise his product under fence. The wandering bands of sheep belong nowhere. They ruin a country. It is a pathetic spectacle to see parts of the Old West in which sheep steadily have been ranged.
You're a coward, Swan Carlson, you're a sheepman with a sheep's heart. I turned your woman loose, and you're going to let her stay loose. Let that sink into your head." Carlson was standing a few feet in front of Mackenzie, leaning forward, his shoulders swelling and falling as if he flexed his muscles for a spring.
The casual give and take of the friendly talk went straight to the heart of the sheepman. This was living. It came to him poignantly that in his scramble for wealth he had missed that which was of far greater importance. The stage brought the two men to town shortly after sundown. Luck called up O'Connor, and made an appointment to meet him after supper.
Nora and the young man who belonged to her followed him from the room, leaving Bannister and his hostess alone. "Shall I ever see you again?" Helen murmured. "I think so," the sheepman answered. "The truth is that this opportunity falls pat. Jim and have been wanting to meet those men who are under my cousin's influence and have a talk with them.
He rose up, frowning, on his mighty horse and gazed at Hardy with eyes that burned deep with passion. "If every sheep and sheepman in Arizona should drop dead at this minute," he said, "it would simply give me a laughin' sensation. God damn 'em!" he added passionately, and it sounded like a prayer.
A second time, calling out all his men to help, the boss sheepman tried to cross the goats alone, intending to hold them on the shore for a lure; but just as they were well lined out the same careful marksman behind the malpai threw water in their faces and turned them back. But this time Jasper Swope did not lead the retreat.
Luck laughed significantly. "When we find him." For the sheepman had got out on bail the morning after his arrest. "We'll find him easily enough. And I rather think he'll have a good explanation, even if this fellow's story is true." "Oh, he'll be loaded with explanations. I don't doubt that for a minute. But it will take a hell of a lot of talk to get away from the facts.
And what would make the sheep go around? Nothing but a thirty-thirty. The price of mutton had gone up too, adding a third to the fortune of every sheepman; the ewes were lambing on the desert, bringing forth a hundred per cent or better, with twins and every lamb must eat! To the hundred thousand sheep that had invaded Bronco Mesa there was added fifty thousand more, and they must all eat.
Luck Cullison is a dangerous man when he is roused." The sheepman looked at the ranger with opaque stony eyes. "If Luck Cullison is looking for me he is liable to find me, and he won't have to go into the hills to hunt me either." Bucky understood perfectly.
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