I drew a long breath of relief when I saw the last wagon disappear and looked up fully expecting to see the dove of peace pluming herself on our roof-tree. But apparently doves in the cattle country never alight,—they just pass by.
Owen had bought several thousand acres of land from the railroad. A car of barbed wire for the fence, which was to encircle the entire ranch, was at the station. Our land was now in one solid block with the exception of a few acres of Government land which could only be acquired by homestead entry. This limited acreage in the great checkerboard was all that remained of the “free range.”
At this juncture Owen was served with a notice by the United States Marshal forbidding him to build the fence. It would enclose Government land. Every mile of the proposed fence would have been on ground which he had bought, paid for, and on which he was paying taxes—but still—he could not fence it. “Government land must remain uninclosed.” It made no difference, apparently, what happened to the cattleman whose money was tied up in property he could not use. Government land must remain free and open to the public. But, while those few acres of free range remained open to the public, thousands of acres of our unprotected land remained open also. Everyone used it. The ranchmen for miles around, learning that Owen was forbidden to fence, gathered all their cattle and threw them onto our land.
It was a very serious problem. Our range was being destroyed, the grass was eaten off so closely nothing remained for winter range. Our full-blooded Hereford breeding stock was of little use to us. All our money was invested in land and cattle and there was only one thing left to do,—put riders on our range to drive the other cattle off.
Upon this solution of the problem the dove of peace promptly departed and we entered upon a long, hard struggle for the possession and use of what was our own. Owen was faced, not only with financial failure, but absolute ruin. The future was far from bright, but when an old school-mate came with her husband to visit us it seemed positively brilliant by contrast.
Alice Joice and I had been devoted friends for years. The summer before we had spent in Europe, where I had left her, deep in the study of Art, to which she intended “to devote” her life.