ent, and, womanlike, she tried to cheer him.
Some way would be found. The action of the railway was so high-handed
and unjust that it could not succeed. But though she spoke cheerfully,
her keen eyes were troubled, and her face was clouded as they rode up
to the ranch.

They found Donald McCrae at the stables. He was a dark-faced giant of a
man, and for all his years carried himself as straight as a young pine.
All his life had been spent on the frontier. He had seen it move
westward, and had moved with it from the Great Lakes across the Great
Plains. He had seen it vanish, as the wild pigeon and the buffalo had
gone--mysteriously, in a season, almost. Wheat fields, etched in green
and gold, lay where he had made his lonely camps; orchards nestled by
little lakes and in mountain valleys where he had trapped the beaver;
strings of brass-bound, vestibuled coaches whirled where he had ridden
his pony with the pack train shuffling behind. And here, on the
Coldstream, he had made his last stand, taken up land, and turned, when
past his prime, to the quiet life of a rancher.

"Light down, light down, Casey!" he called. "Put your cayuse in the
stable. Give me Beaver Boy, Sheila. Go up to the house and fix us some
whiskey with a chip of ice in it, like a good girl. Stir up the Chink
as you go through, and make him rustle supper in a hurry. We'll be
right in." He took his daughter's horse, and in the stable turned to
Dunne.

"Well?" he demanded tersely.

"Nothing," Casey replied. "They stand their hand."

"I was afraid of it," said McCrae. "And they outhold us, Casey."

"Yes. Too much money."

"Will they buy us?"

"No. York offered to buy me. I was to be a decoy for the rest, I think.
I refused. Now he will freeze us out."

"Will he?" said McCrae heavily. "Will he? Maybe so. And maybe----" He
did not complete the sentence, but stood at the door, scowling at the
fair fields. "Twenty years back, Casey--yes, ten, even--if a man jumped
my staking I'd have known what to do. We own this water. What's the
difference? Can't the law help us? Do we have to help ourselves?"

"It may come to that," Casey replied. "Yes, it's pretty nearly come to
that, McCrae. I saw a lawyer--one of the best in the business. He says
the odds are against us. They will appeal and appeal--carry it up to
the highest court. Meanwhile our land will be dry likely. We're out on
a limb. If we hang on they shoot, and if we drop off they skin us."

"I gue