id. "But
we're going to break out the flat. I had the plans all laid and sent
word off. Things are moving toward the start right now."

"It'll stir things up," Alden predicted. With one forefinger he traced
a design in the dust, then blotted it out. "I'll play in with you the
best I can."

"We've got to make a clean split," Harris said. "Get the wild ones
definitely set apart. Then they can be handled." When he spoke again
it was apparently as if to himself. "Al Moody sprung it in the
Gallatin country a few years back," he said reflectively. "And old Con
Ristine worked it on the Nations Cow-trail twenty years ago. It always
brings the split."

"That kind of thing is dead against the law," the sheriff said. "But
it works right well--that backfire stuff. And it's never been proved
on either Al Moody or old Con Ristine, so I hear."

"But of course I wouldn't have a hand in anything like that," Harris
stated.

"No. Neither would I," said the sheriff. "Nothing like that."

Alden was regarding old Rile Foster who had drawn apart from the rest
and was eating his meal in solitude. The old man had taken a boot heel
from his pocket and was studying it as if fascinated by the somber
reflections it roused in him. Alden shook his head as he rose and
moved toward the wagon.

"Horne was telling me about Bangs too," he said. "Pretty tough for
Rile. They was as close as father and son, those two."

Harris and the sheriff joined the rest at the wagon and held out plates
and cups to Waddles. The girl was oddly excited, anxious for the
start, now that the decision had been made.

"How long will it take to get things moving after we get back?" she
asked.

"Not more than a week at the outside," Harris said. "Probably less."

"You don't mean that," she stated. "I want to know the truth."

"You have it," he assured her. "I had the plans all laid. Our crew is
already headed for the Three Bar. Before they get there every man will
have filed on a quarter I designated for him. Inside a week we'll have
covered the flat."

Long after the hands had turned in for the night she heard a faint
murmur of voices and looked from her teepee. The brilliant moonlight
showed Harris and the sheriff sitting off by themselves. For no
apparent reason she thought of Carlos Deane and, point by point, she
contrasted him with the man who sat talking to the sheriff. Each was
almost super-efficient in his own chosen line and