methods. He was famous for saying once (when
in his cup): "I always thought sheepmen were blankety blank sons of guns,
and now I'm one of 'em I _know_ they are." Some of the cattle-men in the
room had suffered from his greed, and while they were not partisans of the
Supervisor they were glad to see him face his opponent fearlessly.

Lize delivered a parting blow. "Bullfrog, you and me are old-timers. We're
on the losing side. We belong to the 'good old days' when the Fork was 'a
man's town,' and to be 'shot up' once a week kept us in news. But them
times are past. You can't run the range that way any more. Why, man,
you'll have to buy and fence your own pasture in a few years more, or else
pay rent same as I do. You stockmen kick like steers over paying a few old
cents a head for five months' range; you'll be mighty glad to pay a dollar
one o' these days. Take your medicine--that's my advice." And she went
back to her cash-drawer.

Redfield's voice was cuttingly contemptuous as he said quite calmly:
"You're all kinds of asses, you sheepmen. You ought to pay the fee for
your cattle with secret joy. So long as you can get your stock pastured
(and in effect guarded) by the Government from June to November for twenty
cents, or even fifty cents, per head you're in luck. Mrs. Wetherford is
right: we've all been educated in a bad school. Uncle Sam has been too
bloomin' lazy to keep any supervision over his public lands. He's
permitted us grass pirates to fight and lynch and burn one another on the
high range (to which neither of us had any right), holding back the real
user of the land--the farmer. We've played the part of selfish and greedy
gluttons so long that we fancy our privileges have turned into rights.
Having grown rich on free range, you're now fighting the Forest Service
because it is disposed to make you pay for what has been a gratuity. I'm a
hog, Gregg, but I'm not a fool. I see the course of empire, and I'm
getting into line."

Gregg was silenced, but not convinced. "It's a long lane that has no
turn," he growled.

Redfield resumed, in impersonal heat. "The cow-man was conceived in
anarchy and educated in murder. Whatever romantic notions I may have had
of the plains twenty-five years ago, they are lost to me now. The
free-range stock-owner has no country and no God; nothing but a range that
isn't his, and damned bad manners--begging pardon, Miss Wetherford. The
sooner he dies the better for the State. He's