“Just human nature. Any law against laughing?”
Cullison turned his back on him. “See you on Thursday if that’s soon enough, boys.”
“All the time you want, Luck. Let mine go till after the roundup if you’d rather,” Mackenzie suggested.
“Thursday suits me.”
Cullison rose and stretched. He had impressed his strong, dominant personality upon his clothes, from the high-heeled boots to the very wrinkles in the corduroy coat he was now putting on. He bad enemies, a good many of them, but his friends were legion.
“Don’t hurry yourself.”
“Oh, I’ll rustle the money, all right. Coming down to the hotel?” Luck was reaching for his hat, but turned toward his friends as he spoke.
Without looking again at Fendrick, he led the way to the street.
The young man left alone cursed softly to himself, and ordered another drink. He knew he was overdoing it, but the meeting with Cullison had annoyed him exceedingly. The men had never been friends, and of late years they had been leaders of hostile camps. Both of them could be overbearing, and there was scarcely a week but their interests overlapped. Luck was capable of great generosity, but he could be obstinate as the rock of Gibraltar when he chose. There had been differences about the ownership of calves, about straying cattle, about political matters. Finally had come open hostility. Cass leased from the forestry department the land upon which Cullison’s cattle had always run free of expense. Upon this he had put sheep, a thing in itself of great injury to the cattle interests. The stockmen had all been banded together in opposition to the forestry administration of the new régime, and Luck regarded Fendrick’s action as treachery to the common cause.
He struck back hard. In Arizona the open range is valuable only so long as the water holes also are common property or a private supply available. The Circle C cattle and those of Fendrick came down from the range to the Del Oro to water at a point where the cañon walls opened to a spreading valley. This bit of meadow Luck homesteaded and fenced on the north side, thus cutting the cattle of his enemy from the river.