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late afternoon when they returned to the ranch. “See to your horses, and have Lem check their hooves. Make sure your string is in good shape. From what I’ve seen, we have a lot of work to do, and they need be ready to go.”
    Buck reached for the reins of Jeb’s horse. “That’s okay, Buck. I’ll take care of him. I like to see to my own ride. It’s a holdover from my Cavalry days. You take good care of your horse, and he’ll take good care of you.”
    Jeb rapped on the back door. It was opened by Emma a couple of minutes later. “Come in,” she said. “How did it go today?”
    “It depends on how you look at it,” he said. “There were no problems with the men, but I found several things that need attention.”
    “Such as?” she asked.
    “The cattle are pretty well scattered”, Jeb said.. “The strays haven’t been rounded up for a while. The grass is overgrazed in several places so the cattle on those places have to be moved. We found some places where Clete and Buck said there should have been water, but wasn’t.
    “We’ve pretty well got our work cut out for us, but we’ll get after it tomorrow morning. I have a question for you though,” he said.
    “What is it you want to know?” she asked.
    “Down in Texas, most of the ranches I saw were getting away from the open range. Have you seen or heard anything about it happening here?” he asked.
    “No,” she replied, but when I go to church Sunday, I’ll ask Case Jamison from the Lazy J and Zeb Parsons from the Circle P. They’re the two largest ranches in the territory.
    “Are you a man of faith? You don’t have to answer that if you prefer not to. It’s none of my business, but if you would like to go to church on Sunday, it would give you a chance to meet some of the neighbors.
    “I also think we’ll be bringing Sam home then too,” she finished.
    “When I was a shirt tail kid, my mother made us go to church every Sunday. I went a few times at the Point, but after that, I never seemed to have the time,” he said.
    The ranch hands were in the saddle shortly after daybreak. Since he believed they should work in pairs, there were three groups when they rode out. He put Clete and Buck in separate groups, since they were the most experienced. He sent Clete and his partner off to move the cattle from one pasture to another for new grass. He did the same with Buck and his partner.
    He teamed up with Shane, the youngest of the cowboys, and barely eighteen. They backtracked from one of the dried up water holes, for a little over a mile, before they came to the cause of the problem. They found a beaver dam spanning most of the creek, reducing the flow of the water to a trickle..
    “Give me one end of your rope, and tie the other end off to your saddle horn,” he told Shane. He took the end of the rope, removed his boots and socks, and walked out to the base of the dam, where he tied the rope around several of the limbs. He mounted his horse and did the same thing on the other side of the dam.
    “Now take up the slack, and let’s pull together. We should be able to break it up,” he said. “Ready? Pull!”
    With the two horses pulling against it, the wall of the dam began to come apart. The force of the water did the rest, and with the dam broken, the water began flowing again. “Likely, they’ll build it back, and we’ll have to do this again,” he told the young cowboy.
    “Let’s head back, and help move the herd,” he said. “We’ll back track the other stream another day. It’s probably another beaver dam.”
    With Jeb directing the operation, the daily work of the ranch was accomplished with much more efficiency. He turned his attention to other parts of the operation.
    One morning he went to the main house. “Miss Emma, what about the ledgers for the ranch? Are they up to date?”
    Her face colored. “Jeb, I haven’t done a thing with them. Caleb always took care of them, and I don’t know anything about them.