Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/162

 the ticks all over the range. Already miles of the finest grazing country had been infected. Grazing in the territory traversed by the Texas herd was at an end until next spring, and there would be a risk in it then. No wonder they were bitter against him, Hartwell thought.

Morning disclosed that the Texans had rushed their long-winded cattle forward with little pause. They had penetrated twenty-five miles into the forbidden country, and had come to camp now with their great herd spread wide, watched by double the number of herders usually employed to control that many cattle.

Dee Winch met the defenders of the range at sunrise, coming from his camp on the flank of the Texas herd, where he had hung like a wily old wolf waiting the arrival of his friends. He did not return Hartwell's greeting, but looked him straight in the face as he rode up to Duncan and made his report.

The Texans were defiant, he said. They held themselves to be within their rights, and they would defend such rights at any cost. So there seemed to be no way out of it but through a fight. They rode on to the place where Winch had camped, talking it over between them. Winch and Duncan had a few words apart, about him, Hartwell be-