LITMIR.BIZ

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down,” invited Hollis. He rose and stood while the men draped themselves on the edge of the gallery floor–all except the spokesman, Lemuel Train. The latter faced Hollis. His face was grim in the dusk.

      “We’ve come to see what you’ve got to say about water,” he said.

      Days before Norton had told Hollis that these men who were now herding at the Rabbit-Ear were the small ranchers who had refused to aid the elder Hollis in his fight against Dunlavey some years before. Therefore Hollis did not answer at once. When he did his voice was dry and cold. He too had heard of Dunlavey’s ultimatum concerning the water.

      “Before I say anything on that subject I should like to know to whom I am talking,” he said.

      Train swept a ponderous hand toward his fellow visitors, pointing them out in turn. “There’s Truxton, of the Diamond Dot; Holcomb, of the Star; Henningson, of the Three Bar; Yeager, of the Three Diamond; an’ Clark, of the Circle Y.”

      “Correct,” affirmed Norton, behind Hollis.

      Hollis smiled grimly; he had caught a belligerent note in Norton’s voice. Plainly, if the range boss were allowed a voice in the matter, these visitors would have now received as little encouragement as they had received from Dunlavey. But Hollis’s smile showed that he held different views.

      “I am Kent Hollis,” he said to the men; “I suppose you know that.”

      “I reckon we know you,” said Train; “you’re Jim Hollis’s boy.”

      “Then you know that Dunlavey and my father were not exactly bosom friends,” returned Hollis.

      Several heads bobbed affirmatively; others sat grimly silent. Hollis smiled.

      “How many of you offered to help my father when he came to you asking for assistance in his fight against Dunlavey?”

      Train fidgeted. “I reckon they wasn’t much chance—” he began, and then hesitated, looking around at his fellows.

      “Of course,” returned Hollis quietly, after an embarrassed pause, “there wasn’t much chance for you to win then. And you had to take a big risk to help my father. But he had to take a bigger risk to fight alone. Still he fought. And he fought alone. He was almost ruined. And now you men are facing ruin. And you have come to Jim Hollis’s son to help you. Do you think he ought?”

      The men sat silent; the spokesman was without words.

      “How many men can the six of you muster–in case Dunlavey should try to carry out his decision to drive your cattle from the Rabbit-Ear–or shoot them?”

      “Eighteen, I reckon,” returned Train, looking at the others, who nodded affirmatively to his question.

      Hollis turned to Norton. “How many men does Dunlavey employ?” he questioned.

      “Thirty,” snapped Norton. “But in case he needed them he c’n get a hundred.”

      “Big odds,” smiled Hollis. “Why should I volunteer to help you fight Dunlavey? My cattle are certain of getting enough water. Why should I not be selfish, as you men were when my father went to you for assistance?”

      There was no answer. The faces that surrounded Hollis in the semi-darkness showed plainly that their owners had given up thoughts of assistance. Grim, hard lines came into them; two or three sneered. Of course they would fight Dunlavey; there was no alternative, for they could not stand idly by and see their cattle slain–Dunlavey could not drive them from water, they would have to be shot. They had reckoned on securing help from Hollis; he held one side of the Rabbit-Ear and with his support they were in a position to make things very unpleasant for any of Dunlavey’s men who might, from the opposite side of the river, attempt to shoot their cattle. But with Hollis against them they would be powerless; with Hollis against them Dunlavey’s men could swarm both sides of the river and the destruction of their cattle would be certain.

      All of the men knew this. Yet they did not answer Hollis’s question. They had not come to plead with him; they knew that the situation had narrowed down to a point where they could depend only on their own resources. They would not plead, yet as they silently started to file off the gallery there were bitter smiles on several of their faces. There were no threats; perhaps Hollis had succeeded in showing them the similarity between his conduct and their own in the long ago, when his father had gone to them for assistance. At least this was what he had tried to show them.

      Lemuel Train was the last man down the gallery. He turned as he reached the ground and looked back over his shoulder at Hollis.

      “So-long,” he said shortly. “I reckon you’re even now.”

      Hollis had not moved. “Wait, Train!” he said. The visitors halted and faced him.

      “Men,” he said quietly, “you have not answered my question. I am going to repeat it: Why should I not be selfish, as you men were when my father went to you for assistance?”

      Lemuel Train smiled ironically. “Why, I reckon it’s your trick, mister man,” he said; “you’ve got all the cards.”

      “Come back here, men,” said Hollis. “Since none of you care to answer my question I will answer it myself.” He stood silent while the men filed back and resumed seats on the gallery edge. Darkness had come on while he had been talking to the men and inside the ranchhouse Mrs. Norton had lighted the kerosene lamp and its weak, flickering rays straggled out into the darkness and upon Hollis’s face and the faces of several of the men who sat on the edge of the gallery.

      Hollis knew that he might readily become melodramatic in the few words that he purposed to say to the men, and so when he began talking he adopted a low, even tone, confidential, serious. He told them that the things he had written in his salutatory in the Kicker, months before, had been an honest declaration of the principles in which he believed. This was America, he repeated; they were all Americans; they were all entitled to that freedom of thought, speech, and movement for which their forefathers had fought. For one, he purposed to fight, if necessary, to retain his rights.

      He told them that he held no ill-feeling against them on account of their refusal to assist his father. That was past history. But now they were to look into the future; they were all facing ruin if they did not combine in a common cause. So far as he was concerned their cattle might remain at the Rabbit-Ear until the drought ended, or until the stream went dry. And if Dunlavey fought them–well, he would be with them to the finish.

      When he had concluded Lemuel Train stepped forward and shook his hand. The others followed. There was no word spoken. The men filed down from the gallery, sought their horses, mounted, and rode slowly away into the darkness. When they had gone Hollis turned to resume his chair, but found Norton standing near him, looking at him with a curious smile.

      “Shake!” said the latter. “I knowed you’d do it that way!”

      Chapter XV. To Support the Law

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      Hollis alone, of all the men whose cattle grazed on the Circle Bar side of the Rabbit-Ear, really doubted that Dunlavey would have the courage to inaugurate a war against the small owners. Lemuel Train was particularly strong in his belief that Dunlavey would not hesitate to shoot whatever cattle infringed on what he considered were his rights. “I know the skunk!” he declared heatedly to Hollis a day or two after the conversation on the porch at the Circle Bar. “He’ll do it. I’m only scared that he won’t wait till the tenth day before beginnin’. Why in hell don’t it rain?”

      This remained the great, universal interrogation. But at the end of a week it was unanswered. The sun swam in its endless circles, a great ball of molten silver at which no man could look with the naked eye, traveling its slow way through a blurred, white sky, sinking to the horizon in the evening and leaving a scorched, blasted, gasping country behind. The nights brought no relief. Clark,

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