Page:Patches (1928).pdf/67

 "I am sorry to say it is," returned his uncle. "There are lots of men in this world that would rather live by thieving than by getting a living honestly. The cattle business which is done on such a large scale and out in the open is especially vulnerable to such practices. It is not an unheard of thing to find your fences cut and forty or fifty fat steers missing. They always take the best ones."

"But what do they do with them?" inquired Larry.

"Why, they drive them away for a long distance and keep them for a while until the theft has been forgotten, then they sell them.

"The government has done what it could to help detect such sales for, in every county, the railroads must keep books with a list of all cattle shipped out and these figures are open for inspection any time by anybody.

"The cattle business is much more civilized today than it was twenty-five years ago, then the cattle men, the sheep men, and the goat men fought many desperate battles over the ranch land and especially the water-holes. Water, in this ranch game, is very important."

"What are the water-holes?" inquired the tenderfoot.

"You see," said his uncle, "the sub-soil in this country is clay and in all the little hollows it holds the water almost as effectively as a man-made reservoir. So, long after the spring rains have passed, water remains in