The girl professed her fitness to make the trip at once, and indeed they did make it that very day. Y.D. pressed Grant to remain for breakfast, and Tompkins, notwithstanding the demoralization of equipment and supplies effected by the fire, again excelled himself. After breakfast the old rancher found occasion for a word with Grant.
“You know how it is, Grant,” he said. “There’s a couple of things that ain’t explained, an’ perhaps it’s as well all round not to press for opinions. I don’t know how the iron stakes got in my meadow, an’ you don’t know how the fire got in yours. But I give you Y.D.‘s word—which goes at par except in a cattle trade—” and Y.D. laughed cordially at his own limitations—“I give you my word that I don’t know any more about the fire than you do.”
“And I don’t know anything more about the stakes than you do,” returned Grant.
“Well, then, let it stand at that. But mind,” he added, with returning heat, “I’m not committin’ myself to anythin’ in advance. This grass’ll grow again next year, an’ by heavens if I want it I’ll cut it! No son of a sheep herder can bluff Y.D!”
Grant did not reply. He had heard enough of Y.D.‘s boisterous nature to make some allowances.
“An’ mind I mean it,” continued Y.D., whose chagrin over being baffled out of a thousand tons of hay overrode, temporarily at least, his appreciation of Grant’s services. “Mind, I mean it. No monkey-doodles next season, young man.”
Obviously Y.D. was becoming worked up, and it seemed to Grant that the time had come to speak.
“There will be none,” he said, quietly. “If you come over the hills to cut the South Y.D. next summer I will personally escort you home again.”
Y.D. stood open-mouthed. It was preposterous that this young upstart foreman on a second-rate ranch like Landson’s should deliberately defy him.
“You see, Y.D.,” continued Grant, with provoking calmness, “I’ve seen the papers. You’ve run a big bluff in this country. You’ve occupied rather more territory than was coming to you. In a word, you’ve been a good bit of a bully. Now—let me break it to you gently—those good old days are over. In future you’re going to stay on your own side of the line. If you crowd over you’ll be pushed back. You have no more right to the hay in this valley than you have to the hide on Landson’s steers, and you’re not going to cut it any more, at all.”