ow much I like that old cowpuncher, you'd be horribly jealous,
James."

"I'm jealous right now, without realizing a thing except that I've got
to go off and leave you here with a bunch of lemons," he retorted--and
he spoke loud enough so that any eavesdroppers might hear.

CHAPTER 24. THE KID IS USED FOR A PAWN IN THE GAME

Did you ever stop to think of the tremendous moral lesson in the Bible
tale of David and Goliath? And how great, human issues are often decided
one way or the other by little things? Not all crises are passed in the
clashing of swords and the boom of cannon. It was a pebble the size of
your thumbend, remember, that slew the giant.

In the struggle which the Happy Family was making to preserve the
shrunken range of the Flying U, and to hold back the sweeping tide of
immigration, one might logically look for some big, overwhelming element
to turn the tide one way or the other. With the Homeseekers' Syndicate
backing the natural animosity of the settlers, who had filed upon
semiarid land because the Happy Family had taken all of the tract that
was tillable, a big, open clash might be considered inevitable.

And yet the struggle was resolving itself into the question of whether
the contest filings should be approved by the land-office, or the
filings of the Happy Family be allowed to stand as having been made in
good faith. Florence Hallman therefore, having taken upon herself the
leadership in the contest fight, must do one of two things if she would
have victory to salve the hurt to her self-esteem and to vindicate the
firm's policy in the eyes of the settlers.

She must produce evidence of the collusion of the Flying U outfit with
the Happy Family, in the taking of the claims. Or she must connive
to prevent the filing of answers to the contest notices within the
time-limit fixed by law, so that the cases would go by default. That,
of course, was the simplest--since she had not been able to gather any
evidence of collusion that would stand in court.

There was another element in the land struggle--that was the soil and
climate that would fight inexorably against the settlers; but with them
we have little to do, since the Happy Family had nothing to do with them
save in a purely negative way.

A four-wire fence and a systematic patrol along the line was having its
effect upon the stock question. If the settlers drove their cattle south
until they passed the farthest corner of Flying U fence,