Graball trotting beside the near horse, tools and such farming implements as Mrs. Peck could lend him in the box. He had made a streak for the spot where the Government surveyors' witness stone marked a township line, which was a public highway under the law, cut the wire fence, pulled up one post, making a gap about as wide as the ordinary county road. From there he had gone to his homestead, left his tools and driven across the forbidden country to Lost Cabin.
He had to cut the fence again on that side, of course, to reach town, but it was such an unexpected event for anybody to cross there with a wagon that his breach went undiscovered by the guards, at least until he had returned safely with his load of lumber and supplies.
So there he was that bright summer day, established on his homestead, a little box house, with a window as big as a handkerchief, a stovepipe through its comb, all finished, and several tons of hay cut and stacked against the needs of winter. Nobody had molested him, nobody had visited him.
While he was several miles inside sheep limit, he knew the fence-riders must have followed his wagon tracks and looked down on his activities from the surrounding hills. They knew he was there. Why they had not come with notice to clear out he did not understand. Maybe they were waiting instructions from headquarters; perhaps lying for him when it should become necessary to go to Lost Cabin for mail and groceries.
In all those days since coming into that hole and pulling it in after him, as Rawlins considered the step
