But he wouldn't
say anything."
"Well, he had good reason for looking peculiar. But you needn't have
told him I did it, Trix. Lay that at milord's door, where it belongs. I
don't want Keith to blame me."
"But why should he blame anybody? It isn't his land, is it?"
"No, it isn't. But--you see, Trix, it's this way: A man goes somewhere
and buys a ranch--or locates on a claim--and starts into the cattle
business. He may not own more than a few hundred acres of land, but if
he has much stock he needs miles of prairie country, with water, for
them to range on. It's an absolute necessity, you see. He takes care to
locate where there is plenty of public land that is free to anybody's
cattle.
"Take the Pool outfit, for instance. We don't own land enough to feed
one-third of our cattle. We depend on government land for range for
them. The Cross outfit is the same, only Keith's is on a smaller scale.
He's got to have range outside his own land, which is mostly hay land.
This part of the State is getting pretty well settled up with small
ranchers, and then the sheep men keep crowding in wherever they can get
a show--and sheep will starve cattle to death; they leave a range as
bare as a prairie-dog town. So there's only one good bit of range left
around here, and that's the Pine Ridge country, as it's called.
Pages:
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102