In the neighborhood in which Whitey found himself, this enmity was particularly bitter, for more and more had the sheep been encroaching on the plains that the cattlemen regarded as their own.

And the reason for this enmity: once the white-coated flocks had passed over the land it was dead as a feeding-ground for cattle.
So little wonder that the cattlemen thought of the sheep as pests or vermin, and considered their owners as deadly foes, and in turn were regarded as foes by the sheepmen.

The cattlemen were in possession of most of the ranges, and possession was nine points of the law in a country in which there was little law, except that of the gun..