the dusty square. No one paid any further attention to his movements.
The man who had picked up the gun belt buckled it around his own waist.
Bill refilled the ever-thirsty radiator, peered at his gasoline gauge,
leisurely turned down a few grease cups. Ten minutes passed. We were
about ready to start.

Back across the square drifted a strange figure. With difficulty we
recognized it as the erstwhile Slim. He had no hat. His hair stuck out
in all directions. One eye was puffing shut, blood oozed from a cut in
his forehead and dripped from his damaged nose. One shirt sleeve had
been half torn from its parent at the shoulder. But, most curious of
all, Slim's face was evenly marked by a perpendicular series of long,
red scratches as though he had been dragged from stem to stern along a
particularly abrasive gravel walk. Slim seemed quite calm.

His approach was made in a somewhat strained silence. At length there
spoke a dry, sardonic voice.

"Well," said it, "did you kill Beck?"

"Naw!" replied Slim's remains disgustedly, "the son of a gun wouldn't
fight!"

We reached my friend's ranch just about dusk. He met me at the yard
gate.

"Well!" he said, heartily. "I'm glad you're here! Not much like the old
days, is it?"

I agreed with him.

"Journey out is dull and uninteresting now. But compared to the way we
used to do it, it is a cinch. Just sit still and roll along."

I disagreed with him--mentally.

"The old order has changed," said he.

"Yes," I agreed, "now it's one yard of calico."

THE RANCH

CHAPTER I

THE NEW AND THE OLD

The old ranching days of California are to all intents and purposes past
and gone. To be sure there remain many large tracts supporting a single
group of ranch buildings, and over which the cattle wander "on a
thousand hills." There are even a few, a very few--like the ranch of
which I am going to write--that are still undivided, still game haunted,
still hospitable, still delightful. But in spite of these apparent
exceptions, my first statement must stand. About the large tracts swarm
real estate men, eager for the chance to subdivide into small farms--and
the small farmers pour in from the East at the rate of a thousand a
month. No matter how sternly the old land-lords set their faces against
the new order of things, the new order of things will prevail; for
sooner or late old land-lords must die, and the heirs have not in them
the spirit of the ancient traditi