"It would only waste your time," Harris said. "We couldn't prove it on him—the way things are."
"Fact," Alden agreed. "But I could hold him till after you're back at the ranch. Some day folks may wake up and need a sheriff. It's hard to say."
The men had finished working the herd and were crowding around the wagon for their meal.
"You go ahead and eat, Billie," Alden said. "Cal and I'll feed a little later on. I've got a fuss to pick with Cal."
Billie left them together and the sheriff squatted on his heels.
"What's this rumor about your farming the Three Bar?" he asked. "Horne said all the hands were guessing, but I haven't heard anything about it outside."
"And I don't want it leaking out before we start," Harris said. "But we're going to break out the flat. I had the plans all laid and sent word off. Things are moving toward the start right now."
"It'll stir things up," Alden predicted. With one forefinger he traced a design in the dust, then blotted it out. "I'll play in with you the best I can."
"We've got to make a clean split," Harris said. "Get the wild ones definitely set apart. Then they can be handled." When he spoke again it was apparently as if to himself. "Al Moody sprung it in the Gallatin country a few years back," he said reflectively. "And old Con Ristine worked it on the Nations Cow-trail twenty years ago. It always brings the split."
"That kind of thing is dead against the law," the sheriff said. "But it works right well—that backfire stuff. And it's never been proved on either Al Moody or old Con Ristine, so I hear."