NEARING surprised the three adventurers next morning by a full endorsement of their plan for taking up homesteads in the valley above the ranch. The country was coming to it, he said; all around the Diamond Tail farmers were beginning to cut up the land. There was no wisdom in the cattlemen's further contention with them, for the farmers would win in the end, the day of vast herds on the public domain was fast coming to a close.
Further than that, he offered them the use of his teams and hay-making machinery, the latter already stored in a shed on the fenced land from which the Iowa grangers had been driven. Give him a few tons of hay if they felt like it in return for the use of the machinery; that was as much as he asked. He advised them to get at their hay-making at once, as the time between then and frost was short.
Speechless in amazement as they were over this generous offer, Gustin and Grubb still had suspicion of something behind it that would not be so comfortable. They had expected to fight for the land. They believed now that Nearing had some scheme of his own of which they were designed to be the victims.
Barrett did not share this distrust. To him there appeared to be in the cattleman's concession the thought and deed of a man who felt his consequence
