"
"Then all the cattle we've seen grazing by thousands for the last few
miles belong to you?" asked Dick, as soon as he had recovered from his
surprise.
"Sure thing," returned their host, "and they're only a few of them. It
would take a cowboy the better part of a day to start at one end of the
ranch and circle around it. And there's plenty of ranches in the State
bigger than mine."
Now the going was steadily uphill and the horses subsided to a walk. They
were in the foothills of the Rockies. In the gathering dusk they could
see ahead of them the mighty peaks in the background rising to a height
of many thousand feet. Higher and higher they went, until they were as
much as six hundred feet above sea level. If they had had no other proof
they would have found it in the increasing rarity of the air and the
slightly greater difficulty in breathing.
"You'll soon get used to that," said Melton. "After a day or two you
won't notice any difference. I could of course have built on a lower
level, and in some ways that would have been an advantage. But when I
settled here I made up my mind that I wanted air that was washed clean
by the mountain breezes, and I planted my stakes according.
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