That's all they need money for; all the rest's found for them."
It was in Herbert's mind to pursue the subject, but Mr. Dowling turned back to the list in his hand.
"All right," he said. "McNair goes at sixty-five. Let's get on with this."
He was in a very bad humor, and not the less that he knew he was himself to blame. Some of the old cattlemen, seeing the homesteaders come in and cut up the grazing grounds with their wire, had reluctantly faced the new conditions, had turned their bottom lands into fields and themselves into farmers. They were raising wheat, sugar beets, even experimenting with flax. But these were the men who had arable land. The others, men whose wealth still lay only in their herds, were in bad condition. Their credit was exhausted. The banks were refusing to lend money on their cattle, and along with the slump which had paralyzed business the country over came the failure of the beef market. A couple of years before the winter had been long and severe and the spring late and muddy. Even when they could buy hay and oil cake they could not get the feed to the cattle.
Mallory, foreseeing the situation, had begged Henry by mail and wire to sell when he could, or to ship South for feeding. But Henry was stubborn. Shipping cost money, and he had put enough in the hole as it was. And still later on Jake had had the pleasure of knowing he had been right, and the agony of seeing his herds freezing and starving to death through a terrible winter. He bought hay and oil cake, and was close to having to pay for it himself! And when he had paid his prohibitive prices at the railroad, through a wet and muddy spring he labored to get the feed to them, only too often to be too late. The sticky gumbo caught his wagons and held them tight, his trucks went into ditches and stayed there. And in March and early April he had ridden out himself with his revolver, and shot the ones who lay dying in the fields. The rest were sold for less than the cost of wintering them.
The ranch had never recovered and now Henry was facing a calamitous loss. It would not wipe him out; unlike most
