"h.e.l.lo, there, Mr. Hardy!"

"h.e.l.lo," responded Hardy. "Who is this, anyway?"

"Jim Swope," replied the voice, with dignified directness. "What're you doing in these parts?"

"Came down to buy a postage stamp," replied Hardy, following a habit he had of telling the truth in details.

"Huh!" grunted Swope. "It's a wonder you wouldn't go to Bender for it--that Jew over there might make you a rate!"

"Nope," responded Hardy, ignoring the too-evident desire of the Moroni storekeeper to draw him into an argument. "He couldn't do it--they say the Government loses money every time it sells one. Nice town you've got down here," he remarked, by way of a parting compliment; but Swope was not satisfied to let him escape so easily.

"Hold on, there!" he exclaimed, rousing up from his place. "What's your b.l.o.o.d.y hurry? Come on back here and shake hands with Mr.

Thomas--Mr. Thomas is my boss herder up in Apache County. Thinking of bringing him down here next Fall," he added laconically, and by the subtle change in his voice Hardy realized intuitively that that move had been the subject of their interrupted argument. More than that, he felt vaguely that he himself was somehow involved in the discussion, the more so as Mr. Thomas balked absolutely at shaking hands with him.

"I hope Mr. Thomas will find it convenient to stop at the ranch," he murmured pleasantly, "but don't let me interfere with your business."

"Well, I guess that's all to-night, Shep," remarked Swope, taking charge of the situation. "I jest wanted you to meet Hardy while you was together. This is the Mr. Hardy, of the Dos S outfit, you understand," he continued, "and a white cowman! If you have to go across his range, go quick--and tell your men the same. I want them dam' tail-twisters up in that Four Peaks country to know that it pays to be decent to a sheepman, and I'm goin' to show some of 'em, too, before I git through! But any time my sheep happen to git on your range, Mr. Hardy," he added rea.s.suringly, "you jest order 'em off, and Mr. Thomas here will see to it that they go!"

He turned upon his boss herder with a menacing gesture, as if charging him with silence, and Thomas, whose sole contribution to the conversation had been a grunt at the end, swung about and ambled sullenly off up the street.

"Feelin' kinder bad to-night," explained Swope, as his _mayordomo_ b.u.t.ted into the swinging doors of a saloon and disappeared, "but you remember what I said about them sheep. How do things look up your way?" he inquired. "Feed pretty good?"

"It's getting awfully dry," replied Hardy noncommittally. "I suppose your sheep are up on the Black Mesa by this time."

"Ump!" responded the sheepman, and then there was a long pause. "Sit down," he said at last, squatting upon the edge of the sidewalk, "I want to talk business with you."

He lit a short black pipe and leaned back comfortably against a post.

"You seem to be a pretty smooth young feller," he remarked, patronizingly. "How long have you been in these parts? Two months, eh?

How'd Judge Ware come to get a-hold of you?"

"Just picked me up down at Bender," replied Hardy.

"Oh, jest picked you up, hey? I thought mebby you was some kin to him.

Ain't interested in the cattle, are you? Well, I jest thought you might be, being put in over Jeff that way, you know. Nice boy, that, but hot-headed as a goat. He'll be making hair bridles down in Yuma some day, I reckon. His old man was the same way. So you ain't no kin to the judge and've got no int'rest in the cattle, either, eh? H'm, how long do you figure on holding down that job?"

"Don't know," replied Hardy; "might quit to-day or get fired to-morrow. It's a good place, though."

"Not the only one, though," suggested the sheepman shrewdly, "not by a dam' sight! Ever investigate the sheep business? No? Then you've overlooked something! I've lived in this country for nigh onto twenty years, and followed most every line of business, but I didn't make my pile punching cows, nor running a store, neither--I made it _raising sheep_. Started in with nothing at the time of the big drought in '92, herding on shares. Sheep did well in them good years that followed, and first thing I knew I was a sheepman. Now I've got forty thousand head, and I'm making a hundred per cent on my investment every year.

Of course, if there comes a drought I'll lose half of 'em, but did you ever sit down and figure out a hundred per cent a year? Well, five thousand this year is ten next year, and ten is twenty the next year, and the twenty looks like forty thousand dollars at the end of three years. That's quite a jag of money, eh? I won't say what it would be in three years more, but here's the point. You're a young man and out to make a stake, I suppose, like the rest of 'em. What's the use of wasting your time and energy trying to hold that bunch of half-starved cows together? What's the use of going into a _poor_ business, man, when there's a _better_ business; and I'll tell you right now, the sheep business is the coming industry of Arizona. The sheepmen are going to own this country, from Flag to the Mexican line, and you might as well git on the boat, boy, before it's too late."

He paused, as if waiting for his points to sink home; then he reached out and tapped his listener confidentially on the knee.

"Hardy," he said, "I like your style. You've got a head, and you know how to keep your mouth shut. More'n that, you don't drink. A man like you could git to be a boss sheep-herder in six months; you could make a small fortune in three years and never know you was workin'. You don't need to work, boy; I kin git a hundred men to work--what I want is a man that can _think_. Now, say, I'm goin' to need a man pretty soon--come around and see me some time."

"All right," said Hardy, reluctantly, "but I might as well tell you now that I'm satisfied where I am."

"Satisfied!" ripped out Swope, with an oath. "Satisfied! Why, man alive, you're jest hanging on by your eyebrows up there at Hidden Water! _You_ haven't got nothin'; you don't even own the house you live in. I could go up there to-morrow and file on that land and you couldn't do a dam' thing. Judge Ware thought he was pretty smooth when he euchred me out of that place, but I want to tell you, boy--and you can tell him, if you want to--that Old Man Winship never held no t.i.tle to that place, and it's public land to-day. That's all public land up there; there ain't a foot of land in the Four Peaks country that I can't run my sheep over if I want to, and keep within my legal rights.

So that's where you're at, Mr. Hardy, if you want to know!"

He stopped and rammed a cut of tobacco into his pipe, while Hardy tapped his boot meditatively. "Well," he said at last, "if that's the way things are, I'm much obliged to you for not sheeping us out this Spring. Of course, I haven't been in the country long, and I don't know much about these matters, but I tried to accommodate you all I could, thinking--"

"That ain't the point," broke in Swope, smoking fiercely, "I ain't threatening ye, and I appreciate your hospitality--but here's the point. What's the use of your monkeying along up there on a job that is sure to play out, when you can go into a better business? Answer me that, now!"

But Hardy only meditated in silence. It was beyond contemplation that he should hire himself out as a sheep-herder, but if he said so frankly it might call down the wrath of Jim Swope upon both him and the Dos S. So he stood pat and began to fish for information.

"Maybe you just think my job is going to play out," he suggested, diplomatically. "If I'd go to a cowman, now, or ask Judge Ware, they might tell me I had it cinched for life."

Swope puffed smoke for a minute in a fulminating, dangerous silence.

"Huh!" he said. "I can dead easy answer for that. Your job, Mr. Hardy, lasts jest as long as I want it to--and no longer. Now, you can figure that out for yourself. But I'd jest like to ask you a question, since you're so smart; how come all us sheepmen kept off your upper range this year?"

"Why," said Hardy innocently, "I tried to be friendly and treated you as white as I could, and I suppose--"

"Yes, you suppose," sneered Swope grimly, "but I'll jest tell you; we wanted you to hold your job."

"That's very kind of you, I'm sure," murmured Hardy.

"Yes," replied the sheepman sardonically, "it is--dam' kind of us. But now the question is: What ye goin' to do about it?"

"Why, in what way?"

"Well, now," began Swope, patiently feeling his way, "suppose, jest for instance, that some fool Mexican herder should accidentally get in on your upper range--would you feel it your duty to put him off?"

"Well," said Hardy, hedging, "I really hadn't considered the matter seriously. Of course, if Judge Ware--"

"The judge is in San Francisco," put in Swope curtly. "Now, suppose that _all_ of us sheepmen should decide that we wanted some of that good feed up on Bronco Mesa, and, suppose, furthermore, that we should all go up there, as we have a perfect legal right to do, what would you do?"

"I don't know," replied Hardy politely.

"Well, supposen I dropped a stick of dynamite under you," burst out Swope hoa.r.s.ely, "would you jump? Speak up, man, you know what I'm talking about. You don't think you can stand off the whole Sheepmen's Protective a.s.sociation, do you? Well, then, will ye abide by the law and give us our legal rights or will ye fight like a dam' fool and git sent to Yuma for your pains? That's what I want to know, and when you talk to me you talk to the whole Sheepmen's a.s.sociation, with money enough in its treasury to send up every cowman in the Four Peaks country! What I want to know is this--will you fight?"

"I might," answered Hardy quietly.

"Oh, you might, hey?" jeered the sheepman, tapping his pipe ominously on the sidewalk. "You might, he-ey? Well, look at Jeff Creede--_he_ fought--and what's he got to show for it? Look at his old man--_he_ fought--and where is he now? Tell me that!

"But, say, now," he exclaimed, changing his tone abruptly, "this ain't what I started to talk about. I want to speak with you, Mr. Hardy, on a matter of business. You jest think them things over until I see you again--and, of course, all this is on the q. t. But now let's talk business. When you want to buy a postage stamp you come down here to Moroni, don't you? And why? Why, because it's near, sure! But when you want a wagon-load of grub--and there ain't no one sells provisions cheaper than I do, beans four-fifty, bacon sixteen cents, flour a dollar-ninety, everything as reasonable--you haul it clean across the desert from Bender. That easy adds a cent a pound on every ton you pull, to say nothin' of the time. Well, what I want to know is this: Does Einstein sell you grub that much cheaper? Take flour, for instance--what does that cost you?"

"I don't know," answered Hardy, whose anger was rising under this unwarranted commercial badgering. "Same as with you, I suppose--dollar-ninety."

"Ah!" exclaimed Swope triumphantly, "and the extra freight on a sack would be fifty cents, wouldn't it--a cent a pound, and a fifty-pound sack! Well, now say, Hardy, we're good friends, you know, and all that--and Jasp and me steered all them sheep around you, you recollect--what's the matter with your buying your summer supplies off of me? I'll guarantee to meet any price that Bender Sheeny can make--and, of course, I'll do what's right by you--but, by Joe, I think you owe it to me!"

He paused and waited impatiently for his answer, but once more Hardy balked him.

"I don't doubt there's a good deal in what you say, Mr. Swope," he said, not without a certain weariness, "but you'll have to take that matter up with Judge Ware."

"Don't you have the ordering of the supplies?" demanded Swope sharply.

"Yes, but he pays for them. All I do is to order what I want and O. K.