That is the way it was with the Flying U. Old J. G. Whitmore
fought doggedly against the changing conditions--and he
fought intelligently and well. When he saw the range
dwindling and the way to the watering places barred against
his cattle with long stretches of barbed wire, he sent his
herds deeper into the Badlands to seek what grazing was in
the hidden, little valleys and the deep, sequestered
canyons. He cut more hay for winter feeding, and he sowed his
meadows to alfalfa that he might increase the crops. He
shipped old cows and dry cows with his fat steers in the
fall, and he bettered the blood of his herds and raised
bigger cattle. Therefore, if his cattle grew fewer in number,
they improved in quality and prices went higher, so that the
result was much the same.

It began to look, then, as though J. G. Whitmore was
cunningly besting the situation, and was going to hold out
indefinitely against the encroachments of civilization upon
the old order of things on the range. And it had begun to
look as though he was going to best Time at his own game, and
refuse also to grow old; as though he would go on being the
same pudgy, grizzled, humorously querulous Old Man beloved of
his men, the Happy Family of the Flying U.

Sometimes, however, Time will fill a four-flush with the
joker, and then laugh while he rakes in the chips. J. G.
Whitmore had been going his way and refusing to grow old for
a long time--and then an accident, which is Time's joker,
turned the game against him. He stood for just a second too
long on a crowded crossing in Chicago, hesitating between