The rain soaked up the ground and went on about its business, and the sun came out hot as roasting ears.  When I looked out front there was nothing beyond the gate but a lot of distance.  Flanner's boys had taken out, and I didn't look for them to come back.

There was work to be done around the place.  No Clinch Mountain Sackett was much account at fixin' up.  Our places yonder in the high-up hills always looked fit to fall apart, only they never done it.  Still, it griped my innards to see such a fine place run down like it was.  Besides, I was wishful to be handy if any of Flanner's outfit came back again.

After a day or two, and no trouble showing, I taken off to the meadows to find us some meat.

Each meadow was a mite higher than the last, and all told there was a thousand acres of good bottom land, the stream running from one to the other.  There was a fair stand of grazing under the scattered trees that stretched back to the mountains from the edge of the meadows, stretching back to sheer walls that reminded me of the Hermosa Cliffs edging the Animas Valley near Durango.

Old Man Talon had known what he was about when be came to this place.  He had water, grass and shade, hay and timber for the cutting.  There were other, higher meadows, bordered with groves of aspen.  He had what was needed, logs for building and shelter from the worst of the storms.  Above all, he had a closed-in land where few cowhands were needed, and where he could cut hay on the meadows against the cold of winter.

Below the ranch lay thousands of acres of prairie completely dependent for water on his mountain land.  That prairie would graze a lot of cattle, but all those vast acres were nothing but useless without water for stock.  Who held the Empty held the range.  No question about it.

At first I paid no mind to hunting.  From time to time glimpsed deer but passed them by to scout the country.  Nowhere did I see any fresh sign of horse or man, and that was what I hunted, being doubtful of any ranch a man couldn't get into.

There are few things men cannot do if they have a mind to, and I had a hunch Flanner had been trying the easy way.  Now he would have to come up with something else, and that was what we must be ready for.  Meanwhile, riding and looking, I corraled myself into a patch of thinking.

Milo Talon was a far-riding man, and he'd be somewhere along the outlaw trail.  He favored no country over another, but moved.  He was a more slender man than me, lean and hard as seasoned timber, good with horse, rope, or gun, and a handsome devil to boot.

Brown's Hole stuck in my mind, and it wasn't far off.  If he wasn't there it was certainly a place where a man could start the word along the wild country trails.  And if I was to get shut of this place I'd have to get him over here.