When the wolves took a few ponies, the ranchers seized the opportunity to make furious outcry and bring in the Government troops to keep the Indians in awe, and so possessed the land in serenity.

Nothing could be more perfect, more commodious.
But for several years before the coming of the Pratts certain other ominous events were taking place.

Over the mountains from the West, or up the slope from New Mexico, enormous herds of small, greasy sheep began to appear.

They were "walking" for better pasture, and where they went they destroyed the grasses and poisoned the ground with foul odors.
Cattle and horses would not touch any grass which had been even touched by these ill-smelling woolly creatures.

There had been ill-feeling between sheepmen and cattlemen from the first, but as water became scarcer and the range more fully stocked, bitterness developed into hatred and warfare.