“It’ll keep them, all right,” spoke up the younger, “which is saying they won’t die.  But they’ll come out in the fall awful pore.”

“I’m using my judgment as to that,” said Plant.

“Yore judgment is pore,” said the younger Pollock, bluntly.  “You got to be a cattleman to know about them things.”

“Well, I know Simeon Wright don’t put in cattle where he’s going to lose on them,” replied Plant.  “If he’s willing to risk it, I’ll back his judgment.”

“Wright’s a crowder,” the older Pollock took up the argument quietly.  “He owns fifty thousand head.  Me and George, here, we have five hunderd.  He just aims to summer his cattle, anyhow.  When they come out in the fall, he will fat them up on alfalfa hay.  Where is George and me and the Mortons and the Carrolls, and all the rest of the mountain folks going to get alfalfa hay?  If our cattle come out pore in the fall, they ain’t no good to us.  The range is overstocked with a thousand more cattle on it.  We’re pore men, and Wright he owns half of Californy.  He’s got a million acres of his own without crowdin’ in on us.”

“This is the public domain, for all the public——­” began Plant, pompously, but George Pollock, the younger, cut in.

“We’ve run this range afore you had any Forest Reserves, afore you came into this country, Henry Plant, and our fathers and our grandfathers!  We’ve built up our business here, and we’ve built our ranches and we’ve made our reg’lations and lived up to ’em!  We ain’t going to be run off our range without knowin’ why!”

“Just because you’ve always hogged the public land is no reason why you should always continue to do so,” said Plant cheerfully.

“Who’s the public?  Simeon Wright? or the folks up and down the mountains, who lives in the country?”

“You’ve got the same show as Wright or anybody else.”

“No, we ain’t,” interposed Jim Pollock, “for we’re playin’ a different game.”

“Well, what is it you want me to do, anyway?” demanded Plant.  “The man has his permit.  You can’t expect me to tell him to get to hell out of there when he has a duly authorized permit, do you?”

The Pollocks looked at each other.

“No,” hesitated Jim, at last.  “But we’re overstocked.  Don’t issue no such blanket permits next year.  The range won’t carry no more cattle than it always has.”

“Well, I’ll have it investigated,” promised Plant.  “I’ll send out a grazing man to look into the matter.”

He nodded a dismissal, and the two men, rising slowly to their feet, prepared to mount.  They looked perplexed and dissatisfied, but at a loss.  Plant watched them sardonically.  Finally they swung into the saddle with the cowman’s easy grace.

“Well, good day,” said Jim Pollock, after a moment’s hesitation.

“Good day,” returned Plant amusedly.

They rode away down the forest aisles.  The pack mule fell in behind them, ringing his tiny, sweet-toned bell, his long ears swinging at every step.