There was a mile of north-and-south
fence to be built, and he set at once to work digging post holes well
on the inside of his line.
He had worked two hours when he saw a horseman loping easily toward him
from the west. The horseman was apparently a cow-puncher. He was
tall, dark and hard-featured. He pulled up abruptly on the fence line
and sat looking down, insolently refusing to acknowledge Payne's
greeting. At last he said: "What you think you doing?"
"Well," replied Roger, "I'm sort of under the impression that I'm
building a line fence."
"You can't fence here."
Roger paused in the act of driving his digger into the ground and
looked carefully at his visitor, who, sitting his big buckskin with
easy assurance, looked steadily back. For several seconds they
appraised one another. Roger grew warm with the anger natural to a man
who has been faced on his own land; the stranger was insolent with the
bearing of a man who feels himself master in his own country and is
face to face with a stranger. Still keeping his eyes on the man Roger
drove the digger into the soil, twisted it round and pulled up a core
of dirt. He continued doing this until the hole was dug, then pacing
deliberately forward he came on a straight line to the stranger's
horse.
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