“Well, I’ll be damned!” said the colonel, warming at this warlike news.
“Macdonald’s had the gall to send me notice to keep out of that country up the river, and to run my cattle out of there, and it’s my own land, by God! I’ve been grazin’ it for eighteen years!”
“It looks like a serious situation,” the colonel admitted.
“Serious!” There was scorn for the word and its weakness in Chadron’s stress. “It’s hell, I tell you, when a man can’t set foot on his own land!”
“Are they all rustlers up there in the settlement? are there no honest homesteaders among them who would combine with you against this wild man and his unlawful followers?” the colonel wanted to know.
“Not a man amongst ’em that ain’t cut the brand out of a hide,” Chadron declared. “They’ve been nestin’ up there under that man Macdonald for the last two years, and he’s the brains of the pack. He gits his rake-off out of all they run off and sell. Me and the other cattlemen we’ve been feedin’ and supportin’ ’em till the drain’s gittin’ more’n we can stand. We’ve got to put ’em out, like a fire, or be eat up. We’ve got to hit ’em, and hit ’em hard.”
“It would seem so,” the colonel agreed.
“It’s a state of war, I tell you, colonel; you’re free to use your troops in a state of war, ain’t you? Twenty-five troopers, with a little small cannon”—Chadron made illustration of the caliber that he considered adequate for the business with his hands—“to 141 knock ’em out of their ditches so we could pick ’em off as they scatter, would be enough; we can handle the rest.”
“If there is anything that I can do for you in my private capacity, I am at your command,” offered Colonel Landcraft, with official emptiness, “but I regret that I am powerless to grant your request for troops. I couldn’t lift a finger in a matter like this without a department order; you ought to understand that, Chadron.”
“Oh, if that’s all that’s bitin’ you, go ahead—I’ll take care of the department,” Chadron told him, with the relieved manner of one who had seen a light.