ive issues now and then, and while
cattle-man and homesteader braced themselves for the conflict which they
felt would come, the truce might have lasted longer but for the fact that
one night Muller slept indifferently in the new house he had built. He was
never quite sure what made him restless, or prompted him to open and lean
out of his window; and, when he had done this, he saw and heard nothing
unusual for a while.

On one hand the birch bluff rose, a dusky wall, against the indigo of the
sky, and in front of him the prairie rolled away, silent and shadowy.
There was scarcely a sound but the low ripple of the creek, until,
somewhere far off in the distance, a coyote howled. The drawn-out wail had
in it something unearthly, and Muller, who was by no means an imaginative
man, shivered a little. The deep silence of the great empty land
emphasized by the sound reacted upon him and increased his restlessness.

Scarcely knowing why he did so, except that he felt he could not sleep, he
slipped on a few garments, and moved softly to the door, that he might not
disturb his daughter. There was no moon when he went out, but the stars
shone clearly in the great vault of blue, and the barns and stables he had
built rose black against the sky. Though Grant had lent him assistance and
he had hewn the lumber on the spot, one cannot build a homestead and equip
it for nothing, and when he had provided himself with working horses,
Muller had sunk the last of his scanty capital in the venture. It was
perhaps this fact which induced him to approach the stable, moving
noiselessly in his slippers, and glance within.

The interior was black and shadowy, but there was no doubting the fact
that the beasts were moving restlessly. Muller went in, holding his breath
as he peered about him, and one broncho backed away as he approached its
stall. Muller patted it on the flank, and the horse stood still, as though
reassured, when it recognized him, which was not without its meaning. He
listened, but hearing nothing groped round the stable, and taking a
hayfork went out as softly as he had entered, and took up his post in the
deepest shadow, where he commanded outbuildings and house. There was, he
knew, nobody but Grant dwelling within several leagues of him, and as yet
property was at least as safe in that country as it was in Chicago or New
York; but as he leaned, impassively watchful, against the wall, he
remembered an episode which had happen