as a mile of north-and-south
fence to be built, and he set at once to work digging post holes well
on the inside of his line.

He had worked two hours when he saw a horseman loping easily toward him
from the west. The horseman was apparently a cow-puncher. He was
tall, dark and hard-featured. He pulled up abruptly on the fence line
and sat looking down, insolently refusing to acknowledge Payne's
greeting. At last he said: "What you think you doing?"

"Well," replied Roger, "I'm sort of under the impression that I'm
building a line fence."

"You can't fence here."

Roger paused in the act of driving his digger into the ground and
looked carefully at his visitor, who, sitting his big buckskin with
easy assurance, looked steadily back. For several seconds they
appraised one another. Roger grew warm with the anger natural to a man
who has been faced on his own land; the stranger was insolent with the
bearing of a man who feels himself master in his own country and is
face to face with a stranger. Still keeping his eyes on the man Roger
drove the digger into the soil, twisted it round and pulled up a core
of dirt. He continued doing this until the hole was dug, then pacing
deliberately forward he came on a straight line to the stranger's
horse. He touched the animal sharply with the digger.

"Up a step, boy."

"Who! Whoa ---- you!" The rider checked his mount's startled leap by
jerking back on the reins with a viciousness that threw the animal's
open mouth straight up in the air.

"What you mean ---- you?"

"Easy, easy," cautioned Roger. "Don't go to cursing. That's mighty
poor business."

"Business! What do you mean by prodding my nag that way?"

"He was standing right where the next hole is going," replied Roger,
driving the digger into the ground. "Sorry, but you were in my way.
Now I'm a busy man, Mister Whoever-you-are, and I haven't any time to
waste arguing or quarreling with you. I don't know who you are or why
you've intruded on me like this, but I do know that you're on my land
and that you've been extremely insulting; and if you've no other
business with me than to tell me what I can't do, I bid you good-day."

The rider apparently paid not the slightest attention to Roger's words.
He sat crouched in the saddle in the attitude of a man controlling
himself until the propitious moment for a sudden leap.

"In your way?" he said.

"Yes--as you see."

"And you think you come here to m