They fed upon the brow of the hill
opposite the ranch buildings; they squeezed under the fence and
spilled a ragged fringe of running, gray animals down the slope.
Half a mile away though the nearest of them were, the murmur of
them, the smell of them, the whole intolerable presence of them,
filled the Happy Family with an amazed loathing too deep for
words.
Technically, that high, level stretch of land bounding Flying U
coulee on the south was open range. It belonged to the
government. The soil was not fertile enough even for the most
optimistic of "dry land" farmers to locate upon it; and this was
before the dry-land farming craze had swept the country,
gathering in all public land as claims. J. G. Whitmore had
contented himself with acquiring title to the whole of the Flying
U coulee, secure in his belief that the old order of things would
not change, in his life-time, at least, and that the unwritten
law of the range land, which leaves the vicinity of a ranch to
the use of the ranch owner, would never be repealed by new
customs imposed by a new class of people.
Legally, there was no trespassing of the Dots, beyond the two or
three hundred which had made their way through the fence.
Morally, however, and by right of custom, their offense would not
be much greater if they came on down the hill and invaded the Old
Man's pet meadows, just beyond the "little pasture.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127