AND THEY SIGH FOR THE DAYS THAT ARE GONE Just when Luck's new acquaintances first forgot to carry on their whimsical pretense of knowing little of range matters, neither of them could have told afterwards.

They left town with the tacit understanding between them that they were going to have some fun with the Happy Family and with this likable little man of the movies.

They rode out between long lines of hated barbed wire stretched taut, and they lied systematically and consistently to Luck Lindsay about themselves and their fellows and their particular condition of servitude to fate.
But somewhere along the trail they forgot to carry on the deception; and only Luck could have told why they forgot, and when they forgot, and how it was that, ten miles or so out from town, the two were telling how the Flying U had fought to save itself from extinction; how the "bunch" had schemed and worked and had in a measure succeeded in turning aside the tide of immigration from the Flying U range.

Big issues they talked of as they rode three abreast through the warm haze of early fall; and as they talked, Luck's mind visioned the tale vividly, and his eyes swept the fence-checkered upland with a sympathetic understanding.
"Right here," said Andy at last, when they came up to a gate set across the trail, "right here is where we drawed the line--and held it.

Now, half of those shacks you see speckled around are empty.