ow my rights, and I'm goin' to
stick to 'em."

"The devil you say!" Now that he was sure of Moran's complicity in the
matter, Wade felt himself becoming angry, in spite of his resolve to
keep cool. "You'd best listen to reason and pull out while you're able
to travel. There are men in this valley who won't waste time in talk
when they know you're here."

"Bah!" Jensen snorted contemptuously. "I can take care of myself. I know
what I'm doin', I tell you."

"You may, but you don't act like it," was Wade's parting remark, as he
turned his horse and rode off.

"Go to hell!" the Swede shouted after him.

Heading toward Crawling Water, the ranch owner rode rapidly over the
sun-baked ground, too full of rage to take notice of anything except his
own helplessness. The sting of Jensen's impudence lay in Wade's
realization that to enlist the aid of the sheriff against the sheep man
would be very difficult, if not altogether impossible. There was very
little law in that region, and what little there was seemed, somehow, to
have been taken under the direction of Race Moran.

It was now broad day and the prairie warmed to the blazing sun. Long,
rolling stretches of grass, topped with rocks and alkaline sand, gave
back a blinding glare like the reflection of a summer sea, from which
arose a haze of gray dust like ocean mists over distant reaches. Far to
the South, a lone butte lifted its corrugated front in forbidding
majesty.

Beyond the summit of the butte was a greenish-brown plateau of sagebrush
and bunch-grass. Behind this mesa, a range of snow-topped mountains cut
the horizon with their white peaks, and in their deep and gloomy canyons
lurked great shadows of cool, rich green. As far as the eye could see,
there was no sign of life save Wade and his mount.

The horse's feet kicked up a cloud of yellow dust that hung in the air
like smoke from a battery of cannon. It enveloped the ranchman, who rode
with the loose seat and straight back of his kind; it came to lie deeply
on his shoulders and on his broad-brimmed Stetson hat, and in the
wrinkles of the leather chaps that encased his legs. He looked steadily
ahead, from under reddened eyelids, over the trackless plain that
encompassed him. At a pace which would speedily cover the twenty odd
miles to Crawling Water, he rode on his way to see Race Moran.

Two hours later Oscar Jensen was shot from behind as he was walking
alone, a little distance from his camp. He fell dea