“Old man Hartley was a bone-headed cuss,” he began, at length, “that wouldn’t learn better—even by experience. He was like a fool buck-sheep that persists in buttin’ everything that gets in his way, no matter how much he hurts his head. It aint the sheep’s fault; it’s the breed of him, and the way he was raised—and I guess that was the trouble with old Hartley.
“I come across him, first time, over in the Hash-Knife country, a little while after they quit drivin’ herds up the Long Trail. The railway come in, and you could bring a bunch of cattle from the Panhandle up there in a week—it took five months on the trail. Likewise, the railway brought farmers and pilgrims and woolly-backs by the train-load, and turned ’em loose promiscus on the country, where they made more trouble with their homestead rights and barb-wire fences than all the Injuns that ever run buffalo or lifted hair.
“It wasn’t long till there was heaps of trouble on the range. A tenderfoot would file on a claim, prove up, and as soon as he got his papers a big sheep outfit would own the land—you know how they do. Pretty soon the big sheepmen began to fence the water-holes, claim or no claim, and hell broke loose. After considerable killin' and burnin' and layin' for each other, they patched up a peace; the sheepmen that didn't get killed off stayed on the creeks where they was settled, and the cow outfits held what was left of the open range.
“That was where old Hartley got in his work. He had a bunch of sheep, and stay where he belonged he wouldn't. He'd slip out on good grass and fence up a spring or little lake that might be waterin' a thousand head of cattle. If a bunch of cows come in to water, he'd sic his dogs on 'em till they'd quit the earth. If a round-up swung his way he'd knock down his fence and move out. It was a big country and hard to watch, but they caught him once or twice, and drove him back where he belonged. They give him all the show in the world to be on the square, but he wouldn't—he wasn't built that way. He swore 'by God' that he had as much right to drive his blatin', stinkin' woolly-backs all over the range as the cowmen had to turn their longhorns loose on the country. He was a big, burly, noisy-mouthed cuss, with the muscle of a pack-mule and the soul of a prairie-dog. He was game, for all his low-down ways, but he went up against the cowmen once too often; a round-up headed him north one day with his sheep and a camp-wagon, and sent a couple of riders along to see that he kept a-goin'. Then they swung around to his home ranch and made a bonfire of it, to show the rest of the ca-na-na's that there'd be no monkey business on the Hash-Knife range.
“I didn't see nor hear of him no more till that fall. Then the layout I was workin' for bought a bunch of cattle over here and sent me to rep for 'em—same as I’m doin’ now. I was huntin’ for the Big Four wagon, which was supposed to be workin’ on the upper part of the White Mud, when I struck his trail. Comin’ north along the creek one day I turned a bend and come on a fellow talkin’ to a girl. It was Stella Hartley. I met her once at a dance on Powder River, and I knowed her the minute I laid eyes on her. She was about as nice a little girl as ever struck Custer County.
“I rode up and says ‘Howdy’ to her, and then I see it was Bobby Collins she was talkin’ to. I knew him, too—one of the whitest boys on earth, and the swiftest woddy that ever turned a cow. ‘Hash-Knife Bob’ they called him, over in Custer.
“‘M’ son,’ says I, ‘I’m sure glad to see you. But how’d you come to stray off into this wilderness?’
“He told me, then, the whole deal, Stella sittin’ on her horse tryin’ to smile, though she was nearer cryin’ than anything else; she’d been sheddin’ tears pretty considerable, as it was. Away along in the winter Stella ’d promised to marry him, but when the old man got to hear of it he just tore up the earth and swore he’d rather see her dead than married to a cowpuncher. Hash-Knife was for tellin’ him to go to the devil and gettin’ married anyway, but Stella wouldn’t have it that way. His wife bein’ dead, she was the only womankind the old man had, and she couldn’t bear to leave him like that. She said to wait awhile and the old man would come around. So in the spring Bob goes to the head of Powder River, and while he was gone the cow outfits put the run on the old man. When Hash-Knife comes back, Stella and the whole Hartley outfit had vanished plum off the earth.
“But Hash-Knife Bob was no quitter. He followed ’em up and located ’em on Milk River. Then he got a job with the Big Four, so’s to be near the girl. He had it figured out that when round-up was over that fall he’d take up a ranch on Milk River, marry Stella, and settle down. But he hadn’t more’n made his plan when old man Hartley breaks out in a fresh place.
“As I said before, old Hartley was a bull-headed old bucko. He was worse’n that; he was pig-headed and sheep-headed; he had the contrary stubbornness of all the no-account animals on God’s green earth. You’d ’a’ thought he’d ’a’ taken a tumble to himself after livin’ so long in a sagebrush country, and ’specially after bein’ run out of one part of it. But, no, sir! his way was the way. He wasn’t content on Milk River—he wanted a whole blamed county to graze over. So he went pokin’ around on the north side, and stumbled onto the Crossin’ here. It looked good to him, and without sayin’ a word to anybody but his herder—who was a knot-head like himself and crazy after Stella—he picks up his traps and sashays in here.