e men whose cattle grazed on the Circle Bar side
of the Rabbit-Ear, really doubted that Dunlavey would have the courage
to inaugurate a war against the small owners. Lemuel Train was
particularly strong in his belief that Dunlavey would not hesitate to
shoot whatever cattle infringed on what he considered were his rights.
"I know the skunk!" he declared heatedly to Hollis a day or two after
the conversation on the porch at the Circle Bar. "He'll do it. I'm only
scared that he won't wait till the tenth day before beginnin'. Why in
hell don't it rain?"

This remained the great, universal interrogation. But at the end of a
week it was unanswered. The sun swam in its endless circles, a great
ball of molten silver at which no man could look with the naked eye,
traveling its slow way through a blurred, white sky, sinking to the
horizon in the evening and leaving a scorched, blasted, gasping country
behind. The nights brought no relief. Clark, of the Circle Y,
sarcastically declared it to be his belief that some meddler in things
firmamental was paying the owner of the sun to work it overtime.

Hollis's daily twenty mile ride from the Circle Bar to Dry Bottom and
return became a trial to him. At night, when he returned from the trip,
hot, dry, dusty, he would draw a chair out on the gallery floor and scan
the sky for signs of rain. To his recollection since his adventure on
the night of the storm there had not been a cloud in the sky. On the
trails the dust was inches deep and light as a feather. It rose in
stifling whirlwinds, filling the nostrils and the lungs, parching the
tongues of man and beast and accentuating the suffering caused by lack
of water.

All the pleasure had been drawn from Hollis's rides because of the
dryness and heat. On a morning a week following the day upon which
Dunlavey had issued his warning to the cattle owners, Hollis made his
usual trip to Dry Bottom. Norton accompanied him, intending to make some
purchases in town. They rode the ten miles without incident and Hollis
left Norton at the door of the _Kicker_ office, after telling the
range boss to come back to the office when he had made his purchases as
he intended returning to the Circle Bar before noon. Hollis found Potter
inside. The latter had remained in Dry Bottom over night and was busy at
a type case when his chief entered. Hollis did not remain long in the
office. He looked over some letters that Potter had placed on his desk,
placed o