ost every week even in July and August. It had once been a part of the
forest, but under pressure the President had permitted it to be restored
to the public lands open for entry. It was not "agricultural grounds," as
certain ranchers claimed, but it was excellent summer pasture, and the
sheepmen and cattle-men had leaped at once into warfare to possess it.
Sheep were beaten to death with clubs by hundreds, herders were hustled
out of the park with ropes about their necks and their outfits
destroyed--and all this within a few miles of the forest boundary, where
one small sentinel kept effective watch and ward.

Cavanagh had never been over this trail but once, and he was trying to
locate the cliff from which a flock of sheep had been hurled by cattle-men
some years before, when he perceived a thin column of smoke rising from a
rocky hillside. With habitual watchfulness as to fire, he raised his glass
to his eyes and studied the spot. It was evidently a camp-fire and
smouldering dangerously, and turning his horse's head he rode toward it to
stamp it out. It was not upon his patrol; but that did not matter, his
duty was clear.

As he drew near he began to perceive signs of a broken camp; the ground
was littered with utensils. It was not an ordinary camp-fire, and the
ranger's heart quickened. "Another sheep-herder has been driven out, and
his tent and provisions burned!" he exclaimed, wrathfully.

His horse snorted and shied as he rode nearer, and then a shudder passed
through the ranger's heart as he perceived in the edge of the smouldering
embers a boot heel, and then--_a charred hand!_ In the smoke of that fire
was the reek of human flesh.

For a long time the ranger sat on his horse, peering down into those ashes
until at last it became evident to his eyes that at least two
sheep-herders had been sacrificed on the cattle-man's altar of hate and
greed.

All about on the sod the story was written, all too plain. Two men,
possibly three, had been murdered--cut to pieces and burned--not many
hours before. There stood the bloody spade with which the bodies had been
dismembered, and there lay an empty can whose oil had been poured upon the
mingled camp utensils, tent, and wagon of the herders, in the attempt to
incinerate the hacked and dismembered limbs of the victims. The
lawlessness of the range had culminated. The ferocity of the herder had
gone beyond the savage. Here in the sweet autumn air the reek of the
cattle