The Settling of the Sage

by Hal G. Evarts

  VII

  The calf round-up was nearing the end. Two weeks would see the finishand supply the final tally. The figures had already progressed to thepoint where they gave evidence of another shrinkage from the count ofthe previous year; and during one of the weekly half-day periods ofrest three members of the Three Bar personnel found their mindsoccupied with a problem which excluded all thoughts of sleep. Theproblem in each case was the same but each one viewed it from theindividual standpoint of his own particular knowledge of the subject.

  Harris sat on a rock and reviewed the plans he had formulated for thesalvation of the Three Bar brand, realizing the weak spots and mappingout some special line of defense that might serve to strengthen them.In the seclusion of the wagon Waddles was carefully rereading amuch-thumbed document for perhaps the hundredth time. A man had comein at daylight with the mail from Brill's and Billie Warren was withinher teepee poring over her share of it. The men had finished theirsand were sleeping.

  The girl read first the four letters in the same handwriting, one tomark each week she had been on the round-up. The fifth was from JudgeColton, her father's old friend, to whose hands all his affairs hadbeen entrusted. After scanning this she read again the other four.Ever since her last visit to the Coltons, just prior to her father'sdeath, the arrival of these letters had been as regular as therecurrence of Sunday, one for each week, and in moments of despondencyover the affairs of the Three Bar she drew strength from them. Verysoon now, in the course of a few months at the outside, she and thewriter would meet away from his native environment and in the midst ofher own. Always before this had been reversed and her association withCarlos Deane had held a background of his own setting,--a setting instartling contrast to her log house, nestling in a desert of sage. TheDeane house was a wonderful old-fashioned mansion set in a grove ofcentury-old elms and oaks. She knew his life and now he would see herin her natural surroundings.

  Perhaps it was her very difference from other girls that had firstinterested Carlos Deane, and the fact that he stood out from others,even among his own intimates, that had drawn her interest to him.Deane had been an athlete of renown and a popular idol at school andhis energy had been brought to bear in business as successfully as inplay. In a hazy sort of way she felt that some day she would listen tothe plea that, in some fashion or other, was woven into every letter;but not till the Three Bar was booming and no longer required hersupervision. Everything else in the world was secondary to her lovefor her father's brand and the anxiety of the past two years of itsdecline eclipsed all other issues.

  Her reflections were interrupted by Harris's voice just outside herteepee.

  "Asleep, Billie?" he asked softly.

  "No," she said. "What is it?"

  "I've thrown your saddle on Papoose," he said. "Let's have a lookaround."

  She assented and they rode off up the left-hand slope of the valley. Amile or so from the wagon Harris dismounted on a high point.

  "Let's have a medicine chat," he offered. "I've got considerable on mymind."

  She leaned against a rock and he sat cross-legged on the ground, facingher and twisting a cigarette as an aid to thought. Her head was tiltedback against the rock, her eyes half-closed.

  "They say folks get disappointed in love and go right on living," heobserved. "I wonder now. I've met quite a scattering of girls andmaybe there were a dozen or so out of the lot that sized up a shadebetter than the rest. Looking back from where I sit it occurs to methat it was a right colorless assortment, after all. I've heard thatmen run mostly to form and at one time or another let it out to somelittle lady that there's no other in the world. That's my own stateright about now. Are you always going to keep on disliking me?"

  "I don't dislike you," she said. She was still convinced of hisfather's trickery toward her own; but Cal Harris's quiet efficiency andhis devotion to Three Bar interests had convinced her, against herwill, that he had taken no part in it. "But if you brought me out hereto go into that I'm going back."

  "I didn't," he denied. "But I drifted into it sort of by accident. Nomatter what topic I happen to be conversing on I'm always thinking howmuch I'd rather be telling you about that. Whenever I make some simplelittle assertion about things in general, what I'm really thinking issomething like this, 'Billie, right this minute I'm loving you morethan I did two minutes back.' You might keep that in mind."

  The girl did not answer but sat looking off across the jumbledfoothills, rock-studded and gray with sage. Some distance from them abare shale-slide extended for half a mile along a sidehill, barren anddevoid of all vegetation. Here and there, far off across the country,vivid patches on the slopes indicated thickets of willows and birchgrowing below spring seeps. A few scattered cedars sprouted from therocky ledges of the more broken country and a clump of gnarled,wind-twisted cottonwoods marked a distant water hole. A whitish glarewas reflected from an alkali flat in the bottom of a shallow basin.Twenty miles to the north the first rims of the hills rose out of thelow country and through the breaks in them she could see long slopingvalleys of lodgepole, the dark green relieved by the pale silvery sheenof aspen clumps; dense spruce jungles of the more precipitous slopestopped by rugged peaks covered with perpetual snow; certainly no softor homelike scene. One must be filled with a vast love of it--or dieof it--for without that love of the open life would be a deadly thingto bear in a desert of sage.

  "I've always loved it," she said. "Whenever I've been away therealways came a time when I was restless to get back. I've always feltthat it would kill me to leave with the idea that I'd never see theThree Bar range again. But now the country has changed. At times itseems as if it would be a vast relief to me to leave it all behind."

  "It's the people that have changed," he said. "It's only the historyof all frontiers. The first settlers win it for themselves. Thenclashing elements creep in; sheep and cattle wars; stockmen andsquatter quarrels; later the weeding out of the wild bunch--parasiteslike Harper's crew: still later there'll be squabbles between thenesters themselves; jumping claims and rowing over water rights. Thenit will all iron out, the country will settle up according to itstopography and give its best to the human race. You may grow to thinkyou hate the hills for what happens to you individually during thechange--but it's in your blood to love them and that love will alwaysreturn."

  "It may return if the Three Bar weathers the change," she said.

  "We'll weather it," he asserted cheerfully. "Shall I tell you how?"

  "Yes. Tell me," she said. "I'd like to know. The Three Bar is goingto show another loss this year."

  "And likely the next," he assented. "Maybe still another. But thatwill be about all."

  "That will surely be all," she said. "Two more years of decrease andthere won't be enough left of the Three Bar to divide."

  "Listen," he said, tapping his knee with a forefinger to emphasize hispoint. "Cal Warren always wanted to put the Three Bar flats undercultivation. He's probably told you that a hundred times."

  "A thousand," she amplified. "But the sentiment of the country wasagainst it the same as it is to-day."

  "But it's not," he contradicted.

  "Then why all those signs?" she asked. "They run every squatter outnow just as they always did."

  "Who?" he asked. "Do you have a hand in it?"

  "No," she said. "The others do."

  "Probably they think the same of you," he pointed out. "There's justone man in this country that profits by keeping that no-squattersentiment alive."

  "You must hate Slade," she observed.

  "I haven't any feeling toward him one way or the other," he asserted."He's an obstacle, that's all. That's the way he would feel about meif I stood in his way. There's at least one Slade in every localityand in every line of business throughout the world. Ambition forpower. He wants the whole countryside. If he'd win out on that he'dwant the next--and finally he'd want the world."

  "He has this particul
ar part of the world under his thumb," she said.

  "But he won't have for long," he insisted. "He's topheavy and ripe fora fall. Those signs are all that saves him from going to pieces likean over-inflated balloon. He's the only man we'll have to fight."

  "What convinces you of that?" she asked.

  "See here," he urged, the emphasizing forefinger tapping again. "Thiswill always be range country. It will only support a certain number ofcows. If the Three Bar had a section in hay to winter-feed your stuffyou could run double what you do now on the same range. It's the samewith every other small concern. There's only a few spots suitable forhome-ranch sites and every one of those has a brand running out of itnow--excepting those sites down in Slade's range. If all those outfitsput in hay it wouldn't cut up the range any more than it is now--exceptdown Slade's way. Every outfit in the country could run twice as manyhead as they do now--except Slade. He couldn't."

  "Why?" she asked. "Why wouldn't that apply to him as well?"

  "Because he's strung out over a hundred miles. The minute farmingstarts there'll be squatters filing on every quarter where they can getwater to put it in crop. There's twenty places Slade would have tocover by filings to hold his range where the others would only have tofile on one to control the amount of range they're using now."

  She nodded as she caught this point.

  "Folks have fallen into a set habit of mind," he explained. "You thinkbecause every squatter is burned out that every outfit but the ThreeBar is against sticking a plow in the ground. The rest probably feelthe same way--know they haven't a hand in it but figure that you have.As a matter of fact, it's Slade alone. That's how I got a line onMorrow the first night I landed. I said something about putting in hayand he came right to the front and made a red-hot anti-squatter talk.I knew right off he was Slade's man."

  "How could you be sure of that?" she asked. "I've heard men with everyoutfit express the same views."

  "Morrow hasn't a brand of his own," Harris said. "He wouldn't lose adollar if the whole range was under fence. He's drawing down money tokeep that feeling alive. You'll find one with every outfit in thiscountry. And the chances are you'll find every one of them overlookinga few calves on his circle--same as Morrow did. There's a persistentrumor to the effect that any man who burns out a squatter can drop inat Slade's and get five hundred dollars in cash. The wild bunch willhandle every case that turns up if that rumor is true."

  "The sheriff has never been able to pick up a single one of the men whohave burned those squatters out," she said.

  "And he never will without some help," Harris agreed. "Alden's handsare tied. He's only an ornament right now and folks have come tobelieve he's real harmless. But Alden is playing his own gamesingle-handed the best he can. One day he'll get his hooks into someof these torch-bearers so deep they'll never shake them out. Thehomestead laws can't be defied indefinitely. The government will takea hand and send marshals in here thicker than flies. Then the outfitsthat have hedged themselves in advance are on top. The rest arethrough."

  "But what can the Three Bar do against Slade until those marshalscome?" she asked.

  "There's a difference between sacking an established outfit with a bigforce of hands and burning out some isolated squatter roosting in awagon," Harris said. "I've filed on water out of the Crazy Loop tocover the section I bought in the flats. We can pick men and give thema job with the Three Bar between spells of doing prove-up work. We canput in a company ditch to cover all the filings, pay them for workingon it and charge their pro-rata share of improvements up against eachman's final settlement. When they've made final proof we can buy outthose who want to sell."

  "The cost of a project like that would be too big for the Three Bar tostand," she objected.

  "I'll put it up," he offered. "The money from the sale of the littleold Box L. I want to see this go through. We can square accounts whenthe Three Bar makes the top of the hill."

  He pointed to a bunch of cows that fed in a bottom below them.

  "Look at that. Every color under the sun--and every shape. Let's putthe flats in hay, girl, and start grading the Three Bar up. We'll weedout the runty humpbacked critters and all off-color she-stuff; keeponly straight red cows. It doesn't take much more feed to turn out areal beef steer than one of those knife-backed brothers down in theflat. We'll gather our own cows close to the home ranch and shoveother brands off our range, throw forty white-face bulls out closeround the place and start building up real beef; steers that will bringfifty a head where those runts bring twenty-five. And big redshe-stock will bring more money too. In five years we'll have astraight red brand and the Three Bar will be rated at thirty dollars ahead, come as they run on the range, instead of round ten or twelve asthey'd figure us now. We'll have good hay land that will be worth moreby itself than the whole brand is to-day. Say the word, girl, andwe'll build up the old outfit that both of our folks helped to found."

  The girl had closed her eyes as he painted this picture ofpossibilities and except for the difference of voice it might well havebeen old Cal Warren speaking; the views and sentiments were the sameshe had so often heard her father express. Next to the longed-forpartnership with old Bill Harris the dream of his life had been to seethe Three Bar flats a smooth meadow of alfalfa.

  "I'll put a bunch of terriers in there that will be hard for Slade touproot," Harris said. "What do you say, Billie? Let's give it a try."

  "I'd like to see it done," she said. "But so much depends on theoutcome. I'll have to write Judge Colton first. He has all my affairsin charge."

  Harris smiled across at her.

  "That's right peculiar," he observed. "The Judge is holding the reinsover my little prospects too. They've tangled your interests and mineup all along the line it seems. You drop a line to Judge Colton andsort of outline the plan. Maybe he'll see it our way."

  They mounted and rode back to the wagon and the girl went straight toWaddles with the proposition Harris had urged. The big man had fallenasleep with the paper he had been perusing still clutched in his hand.

  "Tell him to go his best," Waddles advised, when she had outlinedHarris's scheme. "He'll put a bunch of terriers on the Three Bar thatwill cut Slade's claws. If they burn out the boys Cal Harris puts onthe place then there'll be one real war staged at the old Three Bar."

  "He's been telling you," she accused.

  "He did sort of mention it," Waddles confessed.

  "Then his idea is to import a bunch of gun-fighters," she said. "Iwon't have a bunch of hired killers living at the Three Bar."

  "These boys will just be the sort that's handy at knowing how to avoidgetting killed themselves," Waddles evaded. "You can't rightly blameany man for that. And besides, Slade has to be met on his own ground."

  "Do you think Slade is at the bottom of the Three Bar losses everyyear?" she asked.

  "Every hoof," Waddles stated. "Every last head! Maybe the albino'slayout rustles an odd bunch on and off. But Slade is the man that'sout to wreck your brand." The big cook heaved a sigh as he reached adecision on a matter which had been troubling him for days. "That'swhat Cal Warren was afraid of--Slade's branching out our way like hehad already toward the south. And that's one reason he left thingstied up the way he did."

  He tapped the much-thumbed document on his knee and handed it to thegirl.

  "You and Young Cal have been sort of half-hostile," he said. "Cast aneye over that and maybe it'll help you two youngsters to get along."

  Three times the girl read every word of the paper while Waddles smokedhis pipe in silence. Then she sat on the gate of the wagon and gazedoff across the sage; and she was picturing again the long trail of theThree Bar cows; but this time she was reconstructing the scene at theend of it. Instead of one man scheming to trick an old friend at thelast crossing of their trails she now visioned two old men regrettingthat the life-long hope of a partnership had never been fulfilled andplanning to cement that arra
ngement in the next generation. For oldBill Harris had left her a full half-interest in everything he owned onearth with the single stipulation that she retain her half of the ThreeBar for five years after her father's death.

  "But why?" she asked presently. "Why did he do that for me? He'dnever seen me since I was three years old."

  "He did it for the girl of old Cal Warren, the best friend he hadtopside of ground," Waddles said. "Your dad and Bill Harris had beenpals since they was hatched."

  "But why didn't they let us know?" she insisted. "Instead of tanglingit up in this round-about way?"

  "Bill Harris had a soft spot in his heart for the old Three Bar thesame as your daddy had," Waddles said. "They knew there was hard timesand changes ahead and both hated to think of the old brand going underor changing hands. They was afraid that if both you and the boy knewyour path was going to be carpeted soft in any event that you mightsell out if things got to breaking wrong. This way it looked likeyou'd be sure to stick. But they both knew too that when old folks gomixing into young folks' affairs without consulting them, things areliable to get all snarled. So they hedged it for both of you."

  "How?" she asked. "What if either or both of us should have refused toabide by the terms?"

  "Then both properties would have been split between the two of you, thesame as if you'd carried them out," he said. "You didn't go and thinknow, Pet, that them two wise old heads was going to leave theyoungsters in the lurch! They was planning the best they knew. Yourdad told me to keep an eye on the general lay. And Judge Colton sentme that copy to have on hand to sort of iron things out when I thoughtbest. I'm telling you because I know you wouldn't quit the Three Baras long as there's two cows left."

  "Does Cal know?" she asked.

  "Not a word," Waddles asserted. "He's likely considerable puzzledhimself. But he's of a optimistic turn of mind, Cal is, and whitefolks too. He surmises things will break right some day, knowing hisown dad and havin' visited round a day or two with yours. 'I don'tknow what they're at,' he says to me. 'But they was both squareshooters, those old boys, and whatever it was they didn't aim to cookup any misery for either the little girl or me, so what's the use tofret?' You drop the Judge a line, girl, and turn Harris loose to ripup the Three Bar flat and seed it down to hay."

  She nodded and slipped from the end-gate of the wagon, taking the paperwith her. Harris was soaking a flannel shirt in the little stream,flattening it in a riffle and weighting it down with rocks. She wentstraight to him and sat on the bank, motioning him to a seat by herside. He dried his hands and took the paper she held out to him.

  "What's in the wind?" he asked.

  She nodded to indicate the document and he sat down to look over it.His quizzical expression was erased as he saw his father's name and thegirl watched his face for some evidence of resentment as he read on.Their status was now reversed, for Bill Harris's holdings had beeneasily double those of her own parent. She saw the sun wrinkles deepenat the corners of his eyes as he grasped the text of it and he lookedup at her and laughed.

  "Now we're resting easy," he said. "An even trade."

  "Uneven," she dissented. "Of course you know that I'll not takeadvantage of that."

  "Accounts are all squared off between us now," he said. "And of courseyou'll do just what it says." He held up his hand as she started todissent. "Don't you!" he reproved. "Let's let that end of itslide--rest for a while. Maybe some day we'll lump both into one andthe two of us boss the whole job."

  She rested a hand on his arm.

  "Of course you know I'm sorry for a number of things I've said to you,"she said. "But I want to thank you for being too decent to return themin kind. You're real folks, Cal."

  "Good girl, Billie," he thanked her. "As to what you said, it'sremarkable that you didn't say more. I knew you weren't crabbing overwhat you might lose for yourself but over the thought that your fatherhad been tricked. I tried to put myself in your place and if I'd beenyou I know I'd have kicked me off the place, or told Waddles to turnloose his wolf."

  He switched abruptly away from the topic in hand and reverted to thesubject they had discussed an hour past.

  "We've a clear field now with nothing on our minds but the job ofputting the Three Bar on its feet," he said. "The Three Bar is apretty small outfit the way things are to-day but in a few more yearsthe brand that runs three thousand head will be almost in the class ofcattle kings. The range will be settled with an outfit roosting onevery available site. The big fellows will find their range cut up andthen they're through. If the Three Bar files on all the water out ofCrazy Loop and covers the flat with hay we'll control all the range fora number of miles each way. There's not another site short ofBrandon's place west of us--twelve miles or so; about the same to theeast; still farther off south of us. We'll be riding the crest."

  "If we can only hold on against Slade," she agreed. "But can we?"

  "Watch us!" he said. "The Brandons would file on their home basin andput the V L bottoms in hay to-morrow if they could. McVey's beenwanting to do it on the Halfmoon D ever since he bought out the brandfive years back. They're all afraid to start. But they'll be forus--and follow us as soon as we show them it can be done. Art Brandonis repping with us and I've been sounding him out. You talk to him.In the meantime you try and get a letter off to the Judge to-day."

  The girl nodded.

  "We'll try it," she said. "I know that Cal Warren would rather see theThree Bar go to pieces from its own pressure, fighting from the insideto grow, than to see it whittled down from the outside without ourfighting back."

  She crossed to her teepee to write the letter asking Judge Colton'sadvice on this matter which would mean the turning point in Three Baraffairs. An hour later a man rode away from the wagon, his bed rollpacked on a led horse, heading for Brill's with the message that meantso much to the Three Bar. As he left Harris handed him two letters hehad written weeks past, before leaving the ranch.

  Presumably only the three of them knew of the intended move but in thecourse of the next few days it had become rumored among the men thatthe Three Bar was to turn into a farming outfit. The girl learned thatCarpenter was the source of these whispers. Hanson, the rep from theHalfmoon D, apprised her of this fact.

  Ever since the departure of Morrow Carp had been sullen. Twice he hadtaken exceptions to some order of Harris's but the new foreman hadpatiently overlooked the fact. However on the fifth day after thedeparture of Horne with the letter to Judge Colton, Harris whirled onthe man as he made an anti-squatter remark when the hands were gatheredfor the noon meal.

  "That'll be all," he said. "I'll figure out your time. You tookthings up where Morrow left off. Now you can go hunt him up andcompare notes."

  "Can't a man speak his mind?" Carp demanded.

  "He can talk his head off," Harris said. "But he can't overlook anyThree Bar calves on his circle while I'm running the layout. Morrowtried that on while he was breaking you in."

  Carp surveyed the faces of the men and started to speak but changed hismind and headed for the rope corral.

  "He's a cringing sort of miscreant," Moore said as Carp rode off. "Hewas even afraid to speak up for himself--thought maybe the boys wouldpass sentence on him before he could get out of sight. I expect Carpis poor sort of folks."

  "That's going to leave us short-handed," Harris said to the girl."Morrow, Carp and Bangs--three short. Horne ought to get back fromBrill's to-day. We've only one more week out so I guess we can worrythrough."

  "How did you know?" she asked. "About Carp, I mean."

  "Lanky caught him overlooking a bunch of cows with calves," Harrisexplained. "Lanky is worth double pay."

  The Three Bar girl had noted that Carpenter had been much with Bentley,Slade's rep, since Morrow had gone. She had come to be suspicious ofall things connected with Slade.

  "Are you watching Bentley?" she asked.

  Harris shook his head.

  "N
o use," he said. "Slade wouldn't work that way. Bentley is hisknown representative and anything Bent might do would reflect on Slade.Slade only works through one or two others who arrange for all therest. Morrow is likely one of his right-hand men. He'd fix it forCarp without Slade's name even coming into it at all. Carp might havea good idea where the money came from but he'd draw it from Morrow andnever get to the man behind. We'll never get anything on Bentley forthat reason--because he's known to draw Slade's pay."

  "Then how can we ever prove anything on Slade?" she insisted.

  "It's ten to one we can't," he said. "Even if one of his chief fixersshould turn him up it wouldn't work. It would be the same oldstory--the word of an owner against that of a self-confessed thief. Wemay have to handle Slade without proof."

  Horne came back from Brill's in the early evening and another man rodewith him.

  "Alden," Billie said. "I wonder what the sheriff is doing out in here."

  The sheriff stripped the saddle from his horse and the wrangler swoopeddown to haze the animal in with the remuda as Alden joined Harris andthe girl. He was a tall, gaunt man with a slight stoop. His keen grayeyes peered forth from a maze of sun-wrinkles surmounted by bushyeyebrows, the drooping gray mustache accentuating rather thandetracting from the hawk-like strength of countenance. He dropped ahand on the girl's shoulder and looked down at her.

  "How are things breaking this season, Billie?" he asked. "Everythingrunning smooth?"

  "About the same," she said. They were old friends and the girl knewthat Alden would help her in any possible way.

  The sheriff turned to Harris.

  "I see you've settled down to a steady job, Cal, instead of browsinground the hills alone. I run across Horne at Brill's and he wastelling me about some one gunning for you from the brush. Morrow, hesays. Do you want me to pick Morrow up?"

  "It would only waste your time," Harris said. "We couldn't prove it onhim--the way things are."

  "Fact," Alden agreed. "But I could hold him till after you're back atthe ranch. Some day folks may wake up and need a sheriff. It's hardto say."

  The men had finished working the herd and were crowding around thewagon for their meal.

  "You go ahead and eat, Billie," Alden said. "Cal and I'll feed alittle later on. I've got a fuss to pick with Cal."

  Billie left them together and the sheriff squatted on his heels.

  "What's this rumor about your farming the Three Bar?" he asked. "Hornesaid all the hands were guessing, but I haven't heard anything about itoutside."

  "And I don't want it leaking out before we start," Harris said. "Butwe're going to break out the flat. I had the plans all laid and sentword off. Things are moving toward the start right now."

  "It'll stir things up," Alden predicted. With one forefinger he traceda design in the dust, then blotted it out. "I'll play in with you thebest I can."

  "We've got to make a clean split," Harris said. "Get the wild onesdefinitely set apart. Then they can be handled." When he spoke againit was apparently as if to himself. "Al Moody sprung it in theGallatin country a few years back," he said reflectively. "And old ConRistine worked it on the Nations Cow-trail twenty years ago. It alwaysbrings the split."

  "That kind of thing is dead against the law," the sheriff said. "Butit works right well--that backfire stuff. And it's never been provedon either Al Moody or old Con Ristine, so I hear."

  "But of course I wouldn't have a hand in anything like that," Harrisstated.

  "No. Neither would I," said the sheriff. "Nothing like that."

  Alden was regarding old Rile Foster who had drawn apart from the restand was eating his meal in solitude. The old man had taken a boot heelfrom his pocket and was studying it as if fascinated by the somberreflections it roused in him. Alden shook his head as he rose andmoved toward the wagon.

  "Horne was telling me about Bangs too," he said. "Pretty tough forRile. They was as close as father and son, those two."

  Harris and the sheriff joined the rest at the wagon and held out platesand cups to Waddles. The girl was oddly excited, anxious for thestart, now that the decision had been made.

  "How long will it take to get things moving after we get back?" sheasked.

  "Not more than a week at the outside," Harris said. "Probably less."

  "You don't mean that," she stated. "I want to know the truth."

  "You have it," he assured her. "I had the plans all laid. Our crew isalready headed for the Three Bar. Before they get there every man willhave filed on a quarter I designated for him. Inside a week we'll havecovered the flat."

  Long after the hands had turned in for the night she heard a faintmurmur of voices and looked from her teepee. The brilliant moonlightshowed Harris and the sheriff sitting off by themselves. For noapparent reason she thought of Carlos Deane and, point by point, shecontrasted him with the man who sat talking to the sheriff. Each wasalmost super-efficient in his own chosen line and she caught herselfwondering what each one would do if suddenly transplanted to theenvironment of the other. Then her mind occupied itself with Harriswho would soon break out the first plow furrow that had ever scarredthe range within a radius of fifty miles and she pictured again a signshe had seen that day: "Squatter let your wagon wheels keep turning."