the Strong Shall Live (Ss) (1980) by Louis L'amour Page A

spoiled by a few thousand cattle?"
    "Your father said the same thing," Barry said, "but you both forget that the buffalo never stopped moving as they grazed. They were constantly moving and as they moved on, the grass had a chance to grow back before they returned again. Now the range is fenced and die cattle are continually feeding over the same ground."
    Candy was exasperated. "We always have the same argument," she protested. "Can you talk of anything else?"
    "Many things, if you'll listen. Candy, why don't you come over to my place and see for yourself?"
    "To your place?" She was shocked, yet as the idea took hold, she was intrigued. Like all in the valley she was curious. What was he doing back there? Nobody had visited the basin since he took over, and they all knew Barry Merrano paid cash for everything. How could he do it?
    That he ran cattle, they all knew. He had drivencattle into Aragon to sell and Aragon was out of the way for people from the valley. They knew he did it to avoid meeting them.
    "It wouldn't be proper," she said, but as she said it she knew it was a feeble excuse. She had done many things that were often considered improper. "Anyway, that dark tunnel would frighten me. However did you make it?" "It was not hard. Want to come?" Her father's disapproval and what might be considered proper was opposed to her curiosity, which resulted in a sweeping victory . . . for her curiosity.
    Interested in spite of herself, she followed along. He drove the buckskins into the dark tunnel, and she fell in behind them. The buckskins trotted along undisturbed by the darkness until rounding a small curve they saw light before them. When she emerged from the tunnel she pulled up with a gasp.
    The first impression was of size. She had thought of the basin as a small place, yet there must have been thousands of acres within that circle of hills. When she looked again she saw nothing was as it had been.
    The basin, in contrast to the country she had left, was green and lovely. A winding road led to a stone cottage that stood on a wide ledge and on either side of the road there were fenced fields, the one on the right of clover, on the left of corn, and the corn was shoulder high as she rode past it on her horse.
    The old trees she remembered from a time she had come here as a child, when it was abandoned, but there were younger trees, including a small orchard, carefully set out. The valley of .the basin itself was green, with here and there a small pool that caught the sunlight.
    "Is that grass down there?"
    "Most of it. Some is black grama, some is curly mesquite grass. It has always grown in this country but I am careful not to overgraze it. The basin opens at the other end into a canyon and then into Long Valley, the old Navajo sheep range. I made a deal with the Navajo to graze some of it. I run about fifteen head to the section but actually most of this will support twice as many."
    Her father should see this, she thought. He would never believe it if she told him.
    "But what about water? Where do you get water?"
    "This country never has enough, and most of the rain comes in late summer. When I came back I already knew the problem I faced. I did some blasting, built three dams the first summer, damming three draws that open into the basin. Wherever I found a low spot I made some kind of a reservoir. Now I have a couple of small lakes behind the dams and there are pools scattered all over the basin and down into Long Valley. Toward the end of summer most of them do dry up, but by that time the rains are not far off.
    "In this country water runs off the hills like off a tin roof so you have to save what you can. Of course, I've drilled a couple of wells, too."
    Amazed, she listened with only half her attention. Suddenly, she was frightened. If Joe Stangle saw this place his hatred and envy would be doubled.
    She thought of something she had wondered about. "Barry? However did you make that tunnel?"
    He chuckled. "Candy,