Flint (1960) by Louis L'amour Page A

that remained. Flint had asked him whether it was cattle he was interested in -- or land.
    Was that a guess? Or did Flint know something?
    The latter was unlikely, yet it did not pay to overlook possibilities. The swiftness of Flint's action both at Horse Springs and on North Plain had shocked Baldwin's men. They were wary of Flint now, and there was an old story being revived -- something about another Flint who had been a notorious killer.
    Baldwin decided there was something here he did not understand. He was aware that some of his riders believed Flint was insane, especially after he shot up Alamitos.
    Baldwin chewed his black cigar thoughtfully, sitting on the edge of his hotel bed in his shirt sleeves. Thus far things had gone according to plan. Flynn was not dead, but his death was not essential, merely that he be out of action. Kaybar was no longer a serious obstacle, and he had taken steps to eliminate Tom Nugent.
    Nugent's swift action against the nesters had alienated the feelings of a lot of people at Alamitos. It would stand against him in Socorro or Santa Fe, if it ever came to that. Nugent would have few friends, anyway, for he was a hot-tempered, arrogant man who made enemies. Several of his hands had quit, already.
    Port Baldwin had come up the hard way. It had been his experience that victory paid off, and losers got exactly nowhere. The government was inclined to a hands-off policy, and a man could get away with as much as he was big enough to handle. Port Baldwin was, he reflected, pretty big.
    He had made his money through speculation, intimidation, and conniving, getting in quick and getting out with a profit. The future of the country did not interest him. He thought only of himself and what he could get out of it now.
    He had speculated in railroads, town-site developments, in mines and shipping, but the railroad land situation, and the state in which government land stood appealed to his instinct for a fast deal.
    Word from Washington was that a change was due in the land laws, and Baldwin foresaw enormous profits for those in possession. But he decided there was a profit to be made without awaiting the legislative action.
    He knew it was almost impossible for the railroad to dispose of their land. They had been given the odd-numbered sections along both sides of the railroad right of way, but the cattlemen, accustomed to free range, grazed government and railroad land with equal disregard for ownership, and under the existing laws it was impossible to prevent such trespass.
    Where railroad land had been sold the contracts usually stipulated that if the purchaser failed to make payments on schedule all profits from the land in question would revert to the railroad, after default in payment. If payments continued to be defaulted for three months, the land purchase price became due and the company was free to foreclose.
    Thousands of land-hungry men were coming West, most of them with a little money to invest, and few of them knowing anything about the land itself. Little of the land in which Baldwin planned to deal could be farmed. It was grazing land, thin-soiled and of value for little else, and to make money from grazing land, thousands of acres were necessary.
    Once he had driven the Kaybar and Nugent from their holdings, Baldwin meant to sell the land to dry farmers, using the same contract the railroad used. He had also secured from the railroad tentative approval of a plan to sell their land, and it was this fact he planned to use in advertising land for sale. Most of the buyers would be, he knew, innocent of the procedures of land purchase, and most of them would believe he was selling only railroad land. Others would believe he was selling off the big ranches to which he had obtained title. Few would go to the extent of a title search, and for those few he had methods of persuasion. If they talked too much they would find themselves on a train going East, in an empty box-car, badly beaten