Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/217

 For all Rawlins' qualms, that day passed uneventfully. Hewitt evidently was a man who respected his word. Rawlins felt that he would be as inexorable in the other extreme as he was faithful in the observance of his truce.

Rawlins spent the day in vigilance, planning what his action should be if they appeared on this side; how he would move to defend his little house if they came up on that. His situation was in a valley about two miles wide, the hills on its borders dwindling down to blend with it out of their rough cast and sullen aspect, their slopes refreshed with abundant grass and green shrubs. By day, a surprise was impossible; even at night a watchful man would have warning of an approach, unless made stealthily on foot, an unlikely way for Hewitt's men to come on that business against a man whose puny defiance they would despise.

They would come in determination to wipe him out so effectually, and humiliate him so thoroughly, as to discourage others. The success of this bold homesteader would mean the loss of their idle jobs of fence-riding, for others would pour in if he could make that piece of paper from a misguided land agent hold. Rawlins realized that he faced the anomaly of being in greater danger on account of his unquestionable tenure, a situation not uncommon in the relations of might and right.

There would be no sleep for him this night, the last before the great issue between him and Galloway's men.

The strategy of the savage man, instead of the careful planning of the trained mind, is the resort of one