He bought out small ranchers who were crowded to the selling point in one way or another.
They would find themselves fenced off from water, the Sawtooth having acquired the water rights to creek or spring.

Or they would be hemmed in with fenced fields and would find it next to impossible to make use of the law which gave them the right to "condemn" a road through.

They would not be openly assailed,--Bill Warfield was an intelligent man.

A dozen brands were recorded in the name of the Sawtooth Cattle Company, and if a small rancher found his calf crop shorter than it should be, he might think as he pleased, but he would have no tangible proof that his calves wore a Sawtooth brand.
Inevitably it became necessary now and then to stop a mouth that was ready to speak unwelcome truths.

But if a Sawtooth man were known to have committed violence, the Sawtooth itself was the first to put the sheriff on his trail.