got a lease on this land?" he asked.

"I carry my papers right here," Hall replied, touching his belt.

Mackenzie looked about the range as if considering which way to go.
Then, turning again to Hall:

"I don't know any bounds but the horizon when I'm grazing on
government land that's as much mine as the next man's. I don't like to
refuse a neighbor a request, but my sheep are going to stay right
here."

Hall leaned over a little, putting out his hand in a warning gesture,
drawing his dark brows in a scowl.

"Your head's swelled, young feller," he said, "on account of that
lucky thump you landed on Swan Carlson. You've got about as much
chance with that man as you have with a grizzly bear, and you've got
less chance with me. You've got till this time tomorrow to be six
miles west of here with that band of sheep."

Hall rode off with that word, leaving a pretty good impression that he
meant it, and that it was final. Mackenzie hadn't a doubt that he
would come back to see how well the mandate had been obeyed next day.

If there was anything to Hall's claim on that territory, by agreement
or right of priority which sheepmen were supposed to respect between
themselves, Tim Sullivan knew it, Mackenzie reflected. For a month
past Tim had been sending him eastward every time the wagon was moved,
a scheme to widen the distance between him and Joan and make it an
obstacle in her road, he believed at the time. Now it began to show
another purpose. Perhaps this was the winter pasture claimed by the
Hall brothers, and Tim had sent him in where he was afraid to come
himself.

It seemed a foolish thing to squabble over a piece of grazing land
where all the world lay out of doors, but Hector Hall's way of coming
up to it was unpleasant. It was decidedly offensive, bullying,
oppressive. If he should give way before it he'd just as well leave
the range, Mackenzie knew; his force would be spent there, his day
closed before it had fairly begun. If he designed seriously to remain
there and become a flockmaster, and that he intended to do, with all
the sincerity in him, he'd have to meet Hall's bluff with a stronger
one, and stand his ground, whether right or wrong. If wrong, a
gentleman's adjustment could be made, his honor saved.

So deciding, he settled that matter, and put it out of his head until
its hour. There was something more pleasant to cogitate--the parallel
of Jacob and Laban, Tim Sullivan and himself. It was stran