Only his scheme to fence the pasture he’d bought adjacent to the Rocking J as a hedge against drought had saved him from having no grass at all. But he’d borrowed against the land, and unless he got the loan extended, he’d lose it and be forced to bring the animals back to the lower pasture near the ranch house and purchase expensive feed for them. With no money coming in from ranch operations, the monthly checks Wallace Claiborne Hale sent from Matthew’s trust account kept Patrick from going further into debt. For that he was grateful. A month ago at a stockman’s meeting in Alamogordo, the talk was about drought and how to deal with it. A professor from the agricultural college in Las Cruces who came and spoke to the group applauded Patrick’s strategy of resting grasslands as an example of good ranching practices. A rancher with a small outfit pointed out that Patrick’s scheme worked only if you had the land to spare. To pay the bills and keep creditors off his back, the man hired on as a logger in the Sacramento Mountains when work was to be had, while his wife and two young sons looked after the ranch in his absence.
