Each morning at six o'clock the ten cow-punchers of the home
ranch drove the horses to the corral, neatly roped the dozen to
be "kept up" for that day, and rewarded the rest with a feed of
grain. Then they rode away at a little fox trot, two by two.
All day long they travelled thus, conducting the business of the
range, and at night, having completed the circle, they jingled
again into the corral.
At the ten other ranches this programme had been duplicated. The
half-hundred men of Senor Johnson's outfit had covered the area
of a European principality. And all of it, every acre, every
spear of grass, every cactus prickle, every creature on it,
practically belonged to Senor Johnson, because Senor Johnson
owned the water, and without water one cannot exist on the
desert.
This result had not been gained without struggle. The fact could
be read in the settled lines of Senor Johnson's face, and the
great calm of his grey eye. Indian days drove him often to the
shelter of the loopholed adobe ranch house, there to await the
soldiers from the Fort, in plain sight thirty miles away on the
slope that led to the foot of the Chiricahuas. He lost cattle
and some men, but the profits were great, and in time Cochise,
Geronimo, and the lesser lights had flickered out in the winds of
destiny.
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