use ramming my
head against a stone wall. Uncle Sam is bigger than we are. Your father
and his friends got stubborn. I didn't."

"No, you were very wise," she admitted dryly.

"You mean because I adapted myself to the conditions and made the best of
them. Why shouldn't I?" he flushed.

"Father's cattle had run over that range thirty years almost. What right
had you to take it from him?"

"Conditions change. He wouldn't see it. I did. As for the right of
it--well, Luck ain't king of the valley just because he thinks he is."

She began to grow angry. A dull flush burned through the tan of her
cheeks.

"So you bought sheep and brought them in to ruin the range, knowing that
they would cut the feeding ground to pieces, kill the roots of vegetation
with their sharp hoofs, and finally fill the country with little gullies
to carry off the water that ought to sink into the ground."

"Sheep ain't so bad if they are run right."

"It depends where they run. This is no place for them."

"That's what you hear your father say. He's prejudiced."

"And you're not, I suppose."

"I'm more reasonable than he is."

"Yes, you are," she flung back at him irritably.

Open country lay before them. They had come out from a stretch of heavy
underbrush. Catclaw had been snatching at their legs. Cholla had made the
traveling bad for the horses. Now she put her pony to a canter that for
the time ended conversation.

CHAPTER XI

A COMPROMISE

Luck lay stretched full length on a bunk, his face, to the roof, a wreath
of smoke from his cigar traveling slowly toward the ceiling into a filmy
blue cloud which hung above him. He looked the personification of vigorous
full-blooded manhood at ease. Experience had taught him to take the
exigencies of his turbulent life as they came, nonchalantly, to the eye of
an observer indifferently, getting all the comfort the situation had to
offer.

By the table, facing him squarely, sat Jose Dominguez, a neatly built
Mexican with snapping black eyes, a manner of pleasant suavity, and an
ever-ready smile that displayed a double row of shining white teeth. That
smile did not for an instant deceive Luck. He knew that Jose had no grudge
against him, that he was a very respectable citizen, and that he would
regretfully shoot him full of holes if occasion called for so drastic a
termination to their acquaintanceship. For Dominguez had a third interest
in the C. F. ranch, and he was the last man