of any bronch on his
ranch; and, when there's a quick turn to be made, it's a motor car.
Why don't you let me send you up a couple of Moyese's nags? You could
pasture 'em here and get their use for nothing. I could do that right
off my own responsibility. Need be no connection with the old man."

"Bat," said the Ranger, "did you stay up here to say that to me?"

"I don't know whether I did or not; but, now that I _am_ here, I say it
anyway; and I say a whole lot more--don't be a bally fool and buck into
a buzz-saw! Why don't you take the Senator's offer? Holy Smoke! What
are you gaining stuck up here in a hole of a shack that's snowed ten
feet deep all winter? What's the use of fighting the Smelter thieves,
and the Timber thieves, and the Dummy homesteaders, and all that? You
can't buck the combination, Dick! It isn't only Moyese! He's a mere
tool himself in this game. It's the Ring you're up against, and you
can chase yourself all your life round that Ring, and never get
anywhere. The big dubs at Washington, the politicians, they are only
spokes themselves in that wheel. If you buck into that wheel, you get
yourself tangled into a pulp; and if any of those dubs down in
Washington thinks he won't fit into the Ring, why he'll find himself
broken and jerked out so quick he won't know what has happened till he
sees the Wheel going round again with a new spoke in his place."

"Bat, did you stay up here to say that to me?"

"No, I did not." With a twig Bat pushed down the tobacco in his pipe.
"I stayed up here, if you want to know, because we were on our way to
the cow camp when the parson and his kid joined us. I guess every man
has his limit. That cow-camp gang is mine. I want to live a little
longer; and I don't want to know things that might make it useful for
me to die. When Moyese wants to deal with that gang, he can go it
alone."

"Brydges," said Wayland, "you have given me some frank advice. _I'm_
going to reciprocate. You know what is going on out here. You know
why that Arizona gang comes up here. You know why we can't touch
them--they are off the Range of the Forest. You know about the stolen
coal for the Smelter Ring, thousands of acres of it; and the stolen
timber limits for the Lumber Ring, millions of acres of them. If the
public knew, Bat, we'd win our fight. It would be a walk over. Every
man jack of them would lie down, and stay put. Why don't you tell in
your paper? Why do