"Oh, the new man by the name of Livingston. Do you boys know him?" asked the girl curiously.
"Nope! Don't want to, neither. Seen him lots of times, though," answered Dave.
"He's come in here without bein' asked, an' thinks he can run the whole country," explained the soft-voiced twin.
"Is he trying to run the whole country?" asked Hope.
"Well, he's runnin' his sheep over everybody's range, an' they ain't goin' to stand for it," replied the boy.
"But what can they do about it? Have they asked him to move his sheep?"
"No. What's the use after they've been over the range—spoiled it, anyhow. No, you bet they ain't goin' to ask him nothing!"
The girl thought for a moment, absently pulling the "witches' knots" from her horse's mane, while it climbed a hill at a swinging gait, then continued as though talking to herself:
"Once upon a time a young man took what money he had in the world, and going into a far-away, wild country started in business for himself. He had heard, probably, that there was more money in sheep than in cattle. A great many people do hear that, so he bought sheep, thinking, perhaps, to make a pile of money in a few years, and then go back to his home and marry some nice, good girl of his choice. It takes money to get married and make a home, and to do mostly anything, they say, and so this young man bought sheep, for no one goes into the sheep business or any other kind of business unless they want to make money. They don't generally do it for fun. And, of course, he thought, as they all do, to get rich immediately. He made a great mistake in the beginning, being extremely ignorant. He brought his sheep to a cattle country, where there were no other sheep near his own. All the men around him hated sheep, as men who own cattle always do, and hating the sheep, they thought they hated the sheep-man also, who really was a very harmless young man, and wouldn't have offended them for anything. But these men's dislike for the sheep grew daily, and so their fancied dislike for the young man grew in proportion.
"The men in the country would meet together in little groups, and every day some man would have some new grievance to tell the others. It finally got on their brains, until all they could think or talk about was this new man and his sheep. The more they thought and talked, the more angry they became, until finally they forgot that he was another man like themselves—in all likelihood a good, honest man, who would not have done them wrong knowingly. They forgot a great many things, and all they could think about night or day was how they could do something to injure his business or himself. They got so after awhile that they talked only in low whispers about him, taking great pains that their families, children, and even their big boys, should not know their plans. They made a great mistake in not taking their boys into their confidence, because boys are very often more reliable than men, and can always keep a secret a whole lot better. But perhaps the fathers knew that the boys had very good sense and would not go into anything like that without a better reason than they had, which was no reason at all.