False dawn had passed and the night, never one to surrender easily, had blackened this high land for a short time in its mighty effort to delay the daybreak.

Now, the sun, in his relentless conquering march over darkness, had broken the grip of the black one and had, in moments, pierced the disputed territory of the sky with innumerable, rending, blazing, multicolored swords of light. Golden streamers pierced through snow-white, cotton-candy clouds, with confederate grey bellies, and became translucent brushes in the master artist's hand. Dipped in fantasy shades of red, orange, and yellow, they painted the mountains and buttes of this beautiful land in every imaginable color.

Darkness had fled and where there had been dark, impenetrable shadow only moments before upon the land, there lay a landscape of such incredible beauty that it had demanded awe-inspired worship from the original inhabitants. A canopy of blue in every hue from azure to cobalt now formed an unforgettable covering for this particular miracle of morning.

None of this was lost on the long, weather-beaten man who sat thoughtfully on his big sorrel horse at the top of a boulder-strewn, cedar-covered divide.

Dan Stepp had crisscrossed this fabulous land for the past ten years and had never ceased to marvel at the beauty that surrounded him.

He had come to love the sights and sounds that permeated this, his adopted part of the country.

The bite of the invigorating morning air, the sharp smell of the cedars intermingled with the warm pine- and sage-scented eddies of an occasional breeze.

The ratchet hammering of a Flicker, clearing a dead snag of its wriggling guests. The sudden shrill whistle of a rock-chuck who was disturbed in his morning rounds by the discovery of this stranger sitting stock-still on a horse in his backyard.

It all had a profound effect on Stepp. He had seen too much of ugliness in his lifetime. Now these times of unspeakable beauty were an oasis to him. They refreshed and relieved his heart, mind, and soul. They gave him a deep inward renewal. They convinced him continually of the perfect order that was originally intended to be. He believed that the God that had created all this beauty and wonder must control even the most confusing and disastrous times. He had seen and experienced it. There was justice and order, he was convinced of it. He had to believe it.

He believed that he was a part of it and it had set his convictions in concrete. He felt that it was worth every effort possible to preserve this beautiful land for those who would love it and appreciate its bounty.

As Stepp sat there, he was also disturbed at the thought that there were those who never saw the wonder that he beheld this idyllic morning. There were those, in fact, who made a living of depriving others of that of which they had dreamed, worked, and struggled to bring to reality.

Stepp was a complicated man, but his inward thoughts were pretty simple.

In this land that could be so beautiful and so harsh, there were only two kinds of men and women: those who were in the right in attempting to achieve their goals, and those dreadfully wrong in trying to thwart the efforts of those in the right. Wrong and right, black and white.

He was determined to be on the side of right because he believ