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Cat griets here”

“I’ll drink to that” Jessy lifted her tin cup in a oodbye to Quint when he raced off to meet his father

Convinced that her , Jessychute Cup in hand, she propped a foot on the lower rail

“How’s it going?” she asked

Chase acknowledged her presence with a sideways glance, then brought his attention back to the work at hand as the first cow reluctantly clattered up the chute and balked at the entrance to the trailer “Better than I expected”

“We only have one day left Are we going to make it?”

“With luck, we should”

Crowded from behind, the first coas forced into the trailer The others followed, lowing in protest “Where are you taking this bunch?”

“Back to headquarters for the ti,” Chase replied “South Branch was able to handle only another fifty head Broken Butte is already at capacity True to see if it can handle any more cattle If we’re lucky, we can scatter another twenty or thirty head around the ranch, but that’s about it The majority we’ll have to hold at headquarters until we find out whether we’ll get the grazing permit reinstated”

“What are the lawyers saying?”

“They claim to be as surprised as we are by all this, and insist they didn’t see it cori note of anger

“Have you heard anything more from them?”

Chase leaned on the top rail, his big hands folded together “Farnsworth called thisSo far, all their inquiries have been met with a wall of silence They haven’t found anybody ill adovernment’s decision”

“Then we still don’t knohy it was done,” Jessy htfully

“I don’t give a good goddamn why it was done” The low-voiced words fairly exploded frohts to this land back We can’t hold all these cattle at headquarters forever If we don’t get the land back soon, on’t have any choice but to sell the white “Daet et from all the rest of the ranch combined Even more than the hay, we need the water frole ti the worst droughts Losing this land cripples our entire operation”