it. But no one would raise any objection, on
account of their being women and timid about living alone. Andy smiled
sympathetically because the four conjunctive corners of the four claims
happened to lie upon a bald pinnacle bare of grass or shelter or water,
even. The shack stood bleakly revealed to the four winds--but also it
over looked the benchland and the rolling, half-barren land to the
west, which comprised Antelope Coulee and Dry Coulee and several other
good-for-nothing coulees capable of supporting nothing but coyotes and
prairie dogs and gophers.

A mile that way Andy rode, and stopped upon the steep side of a gulch
which was an arm of Antelope Coulee. He looked down into the gulch,
searched with his eyes for the stake that marked the southeast corner of
the eighty lying off in this direction from the shack, and finally saw
it fifty yards away on a bald patch of adobe.

He resisted the temptation to ride over and call upon Miss Allen--the
resistance made easier by the hour, which was eight o'clock or
thereabouts--and rode back to the others very well satisfied with
himself and his plan.

He found the whole Happy Family gathered upon the level land just
over his west line, extolling resentment while they waited his coming.
Grinning, he told them his plan, and set them grinning also. He gave
them certain work to be done, and watched them scatter to do his
bidding. Then he turned and rode away upon business of his own.

The claim-jumper, watching the bench land through a pair of field
glasses, saw a herd of cows and calves scattered and feeding contentedly
upon the young grass a mile or so away. Two men on horseback loitered
upon the outer fringe of the herd. From a distance hilltop came the
staccato sound of hammers where an other shack was going up. Cloud
shadows slid silently over the land, with bright sunlight chasing after.
Of the other horsemen who had come up the bluff with the cattle, he saw
not a sign. So the man yawned and went in to his breakfast.

Many times that day he stood at the corner of his shack with the glasses
sweeping the bench-land. Toward noon the cattle drifted into a coulee
where there was water. In a couple of hours they drifted leisurely
back upon high ground and scattered to their feeding, still watched and
tended by the two horsemen who looked the most harmless of individuals.
One was fat and red-faced and spent at least half of his time lying
prone upon some slope in the sha