“I never quite knew what the cattle-barons were, except that your father’s one, and they’re mostly rich,” said Miss Schuyler.
Hetty’s eyes twinkled. “I don’t think Larry’s very rich. They’re the men or the sons of them, who went west when the prairie belonged to the Indians and the Blackfeet, Crows, and Crees made them lots of trouble. Still, they held the land they settled on, and covered it with cattle, until the Government gave it to them, ’most as much as you could ride across in a day, to each big rancher.”
“Gave it to them?”
Hetty nodded. “A lease of it. It means the same thing. A few of them, though I think it wasn’t quite permitted, bought other leases in, and out there a cattle-baron is a bigger man than a railroad king. You see, he makes the law—all there is—as well as supports the industry, for there’s not a sheriff in the country dares question him. The cattle-boys are his retainers, and we’ve a squadron of them at the Range. They’d do just what Torrance of Cedar told them, whatever it was, and there are few men who could ride with them in the U. S. Cavalry.”
“Then,” said Flora Schuyler, “if the Government ever encouraged homesteading in their country they’d make trouble.”
Hetty laughed. “Yes,” she said drily, “I guess they would, but no government dares meddle with us.”
“Well,” said Flora Schuyler, “you haven’t told us yet who Larry is. You know quite well what I mean.”
Hetty smiled. “I called him my partner when I was home. Larry held me on my first pony, and has done ’most whatever I wanted him ever since. Fremont isn’t very far from the Range, and when I wanted to ride anywhere, or to have a new horse broken, Larry was handy.”
Miss Schuyler appeared reflective, but there was a bond of confidence between the two, and the reserve that characterizes the Briton is much less usual in that country.
“It always seemed to me, my dear, that an arrangement of that kind is a little rough on the man, and I think this one is too good to spoil,” she said.