"I am sure I should like to," cried Donald impulsively.

"No, no," his father responded, shaking his head. "Do not give your word so thoughtlessly. It is a serious matter to choose what you will do in life. You must take a long time to think about it--years, perhaps.

You are only fourteen. There will be many an idea popping in and out of your head between now and the time you are twenty. Just stow the thought away; take it out sometimes, turn it over, and put it back again."

"I will, father."

"And now, just for a moment, let us suppose you really are twenty and are helping me with the ranch. The first thing we should be doing now would be trying to make up our minds about this new manager."

"Yes, I suppose we should."

"What should you say about that?"

"I wouldn"t appoint Thornton, father!"

His father smiled at the instant decision.

"You must not be so positive in condemning Thornton, Don. We must be careful that we are right before we turn him down. To have the care of Crescent Ranch is a responsible position. We want a faithful man--somebody we can trust when we are in the East; somebody who will run the ranch exactly as if we were here."

"Thornton wouldn"t!"

"That is what I am trying to find out," Mr. Clark said.

"Have you anybody in mind, father--anybody beside Thornton?"

Mr. Clark fingered his watch-chain.

"I am watching my men, Don. It is the little things a man does rather than the big things that tell others what he is. Remember that. Watch the little things."

"I didn"t know you were watching anybody at all," avowed Donald. "You did not seem to be doing much but wander round and have a good time."

"I am glad of that," answered his father.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER V

THORNTON HAS A REPRIMAND

Donald had now been long enough at the ranch so that he had discovered a number of ways in which he could be of use. Most of his efforts, to be sure, were confined to aiding Sandy; but as Sandy had almost more work than he could do he greatly appreciated the boy"s help. Donald carried meal to the feeding-troughs, fed the dogs, ran errands, and carried messages from one pasture to another. He was not a little proud when one day Sandy bestowed on him the t.i.tle of first a.s.sistant. To think of being the a.s.sistant of Sandy McCulloch! Donald"s heart bounded! Of course he got tired. The days were long and the work was real. It was, however, good wholesome work in the open air--work that made his muscles ache at first and then grow steadily stronger.

One evening after he had put in an unusually active day and was sitting in the lamplight with his father Sandy came to the door of the room and asked:

"Might I come in and speak to you and Donald, Mr. Clark?"

Mr. Clark laid down his book. He always enjoyed a talk with Sandy.

"Certainly," he answered. "Come up by the fire, Sandy. The chilly evenings still hang on, don"t they?"

"They do so. I"m thinking, Mr. Clark, that now Thornton is back again it is time I started for the range. Some of the herders have gone already, as you know; the rest will be off to-morrow. I ought to be getting under way soon if I want to land my flock in high, cool pasturage before the heat comes."

"Very true, Sandy. I have kept you behind because your aid in starting off the wagons and the other herders was invaluable. But, as you say, there is no need to detain you longer. How soon could you get away?"

"I could start to-morrow if I had my permit."

"How is that?"

"As you remember, sir, we must have permits to graze on the range. You have paid enough money to the government to realize that."

"Yes, indeed. And I never grudge the money, either."

"What are permits, Sandy?" put in Donald eagerly.

"Well, laddie, long ago people who raised horses and sheep wandered over all the mountainsides with their herds, and fed them wherever gra.s.s was plenty. It was free land. Anybody could graze there. It was a fine thing for a man with thousands of sheep not to have to pay a cent for their food, wasn"t it?"

"Of course."

"You would have thought there would have been enough for everybody to feed their stock peaceably, wouldn"t you?"

"Yes, indeed!"

"Well now, it didn"t work out so at all. The sheepmen and the cattlemen came to actual war. The cattlemen declared that their herds would not graze where the sheep had been because of some queer odor the sheep left behind them; they argued, moreover, that sheep gnawed the gra.s.s off so close to the roots that they destroyed the crop and left barren land.

The sheepmen, on the other hand, complained because the cattle--loving to stand in the water--waded into the water-holes and spoiled them. Each faction tried to crowd the other off the range. Dreadful things happened. Vaqueros, or cowboys, would dash on horseback right into the midst of a flock and scatter the sheep in every direction. Often many of the sheep fled into the hills and their owners never could find them again. Or sometimes the cowboys would drive the sheep ahead of them over high precipices. Cattlemen, being on horseback, had a great scorn for sheep-herders, who were obliged to trail their flocks on foot. The feud between the two varieties of stock-raisers became worse and worse."

Donald listened breathlessly.

"More men took up stock-raising as time went on, and in consequence more herds were turned onto the range. Soon the results began to show. The young trees of the forest lands were trampled down, or nibbled and destroyed; water-holes, which the settlers had used as their water supply, began to be polluted; homesteaders, who had built houses and settled in the sheep-raising districts, were driven off the range and had no place where they could be sure of feeding their flocks. The worst evil, though, was that one band of sheep after another would feed in the same spot. The first flock would nip off the top of the gra.s.s; the next flock had to eat it closer in order to get food enough; and when the last flocks came they burrowed into the earth with their sharp noses and dug the gra.s.s up by the roots. Whole stretches of land that had once been green and beautiful were left bare so that nothing would grow on them for years and years. Cattle do not eat the turf so close as that, and I do not wonder that the vaqueros complained, do you?"

"I should think they would have!" agreed Donald heartily.

"Then, too, the sheep have small, sharp hoofs, you know; these hoofs cut through the soil so that if many sheep travel over a place they grind the earth to powder. Well, that is just what happened. The sheep left the hillsides nothing but patches of brown dust. Things went on from bad to worse until our government stepped in."

Donald kept his eyes intently on Sandy"s face.

"What could our government do?" he asked earnestly.

"Well, it could do a good many things, and it did. First, it took about 160,000,000 acres of land as National Forests. It was no longer free pasture. It belonged to the United States."

"I should think the herders would have been pretty cross about that!"

"They were. You can see just how they felt. They made their living by raising stock, and to be deprived of pasturage angered them. At first the government intended to stop all herds from feeding in these National Reserves. They thought it was time to protect the forests that we might not have floods, landslides, and forest fires. They called it conserving the forests. Afterward, though, they considered that the western people made their living by raising cattle and sheep, and they worked out a plan whereby every owner who wanted to graze on the range should pay a certain sum to the United States Government for a permit, and should be allotted a particular pasture for his herd. The only restriction was that if an owner was granted a permit he must promise to obey the rules of the range. It was a wise and just arrangement. Only a certain number of sheep are now allowed to graze on a given area; there is therefore plenty of gra.s.s and no need for the flocks to eat the herbage down close and destroy it. The money for the permits, in the meantime, goes to the government, and enriches the United States treasury. Much of this money is spent in paying men to work on the range and better the conditions there, so really it comes back to the people who pay it."

"I understand," Donald replied quickly, when Sandy paused for breath.

"It is very interesting isn"t it, father? But I do not see how they can prevent herders who have no permits from grazing on the range."

"They ought not to have to prevent them!" answered Sandy, hotly. "The herders ought to be decent enough to obey the law. If you are granted a favor you ought to be a gentleman in accepting it. Now I"m born of generations of shepherds--poor country folk they were, too; but my people ever had a sense of honor--they were gentlemen."