In a slow fever of apprehension Hardy rode ceaselessly along the rim of Bronco Mesa, without finding so much as a track. Throughout that long month of watching and waiting the memory of his conversation with Jim Swope had haunted him, and with a sinister boding of impending evil he had ridden far afield, even to the lower crossing at Pablo Moreno’s, where a few Mexicans and Basques were fording the shallow river. Not one of those veiled threats and intimations had he confided to Creede, for the orders from Judge Ware had been for peace and Jeff was hot-headed and hasty; but in his own mind Hardy pictured a solid phalanx of sheep, led by Jasp Swope and his gun-fighting Chihuahuanos, drifting relentlessly in over the unravaged mesa. Even that he could endure, trusting to some appeal or protest to save him from the ultimate disaster, but the strain of this ominous waiting was more than Hardy’s nerves could stand.
As the town herd was put on the long trail for Bender and the round-up hands began to spit dry for their first drink, the premonition of evil conquered him and he beckoned Creede back out of the rout.
“I’ve got a hunch,” he said, “that these sheepmen are hanging back until you boys are gone, in order to raid the upper range. I don’t know anything, you understand, but I’m looking for trouble. How does it look to you?”
“Well,” answered Creede sombrely, “I don’t mind tellin’ you that this is a new one on me. It’s the first fall gather that I can remember when I didn’t have a round-up with a sheepman or two. They’re willin’ enough to give us the go-by in the Spring, when there’s grass everywhere, but when they come back over The Rolls in the Fall and see what they’ve done to the feed –– well, it’s like fightin’ crows out of a watermelon patch to protect that upper range.
“The only thing I can think of is they may be held back by this dry weather. But, I tell you, Rufe,” he added, “it’s jest as well I’m goin’ –– one man can tell ’em to he’p themselves as good as two, and I might get excited. You know your orders –– and I reckon the sheepmen do, too, ’s fer ’s that goes. They’re not so slow, if they do git lousy. But my God, boy, it hurts my feelin’s to think of you all alone up here, tryin’ to appeal to Jasp Swope’s better nature.” He twisted his lips, and shrugged his huge shoulders contemptuously. Then without enthusiasm he said: “Well, good luck,” and rode away after his cattle.
Creede’s scorn for this new policy of peace had never been hidden, although even in his worst cursing spells he had never quite named the boss. But those same orders, if they ever became known, would call in the rapacious sheepmen like vultures to a feast, and the bones of his cattle –– that last sorry remnant of his father’s herds –– would bleach on Bronco Mesa with the rest, a mute tribute to the triumph of sheep.
All that day Hardy rode up the Alamo until he stood upon the summit of the Juate and looked over the divide to the north, and still there were no sheep. Not a smoke, not a dust streak, although the chill of Autumn was in the air. In the distant Sierra Blancas the snow was already on the peaks and the frosts lay heavy upon the black mesa of the Mogollons. Where then could the sheep be, the tender, gently nurtured sheep, which could stand neither heat in Summer nor cold in Winter, but must always travel, travel, feeding upon the freshest of green grass and leaving a desert in their wake? The slow-witted Mexicans and Basques, who did not follow the lead of the Swopes, had returned on their fall migration with the regularity of animals, but all those cheery herders for whom he had cooked and slaved –– Bazan, McDonald, the Swopes and their kin, who used the upper ford –– were lost as if the earth had swallowed them up.
The stars were shining when Hardy came in sight of the ranch at the end of that unprofitable day, and he was tired. The low roof of the house rose up gloomily before him, but while he was riding in a hound suddenly raised his challenge in the darkness. Instantly his yell was answered by a chorus, and as Chapuli swerved from the rush of the pack the door was thrown open and the tall, gaunt form of Bill Johnson stood outlined against the light.
“Yea, Ribs; hey, Rock; down, Ring!” he hollered. “Hey, boys; hey, Suke!” And in a mighty chorus of bayings the long-eared hounds circled about and returned to the feet of their master, wagging their tails but not abating their barking one whit. Standing bareheaded in the doorway with his hair and beard bushed out like a lion’s mane Johnson strove by kicks and curses to quiet their uproar, shouting again and again some words which Hardy could not catch.
At last, grabbing old Suke, the leader of the pack, by an ear, he slapped her until her yelpings silenced the rest; then, stepping out into the opening, he exclaimed:
“My God, Hardy, is that you?”
“Sure,” replied Hardy impatiently. “Why, what’s the matter?”
“Sheep!” shouted Johnson, throwing out his hands wildly, “thousands of ’em, millions of ’em!”
“Sheep –– where?” demanded Hardy. “Where are they?”
“They’re on your upper range, boy, and more comin’!”
“What?” cried Hardy incredulously. “Why, how did they get up there? I just rode the whole rim to-day!”
“They come over the top of the Four Peaks,” shouted the old man, shaking with excitement. “Yes, sir, over the top of the Four Peaks! My hounds took after a lion last night, and this mornin’ I trailed ’em clean over into the middle fork where they had ’im treed. He jumped down and run when I come up and jist as we was hotfoot after him we run spang into three thousand head of sheep, drifting down from the pass, and six greasers and a white man in the rear with carbeens. The whole dam’ outfit is comin’ in on us. But we can turn ’em yet! Whar’s Jeff and the boys?”
“They’ve gone to town with the cattle.”
“Well, you’re dished then,” said the old man grimly. “Might as well put up your horse and eat –– I’m goin’ home and see that they don’t none of ’em git in on me!”
“Whose sheep were they?” inquired Hardy, as he sat down to a hasty meal.
“Don’t ask me, boy,” replied Johnson. “I never had time to find out. One of them Mexicans took a shot at Rye and I pulled my gun on him, and then the boss herder he jumped in, and there we had it, back and forth. He claimed I was tryin’ to stompede his sheep, but I knowed his greaser had tried to shoot my dog, and I told him so! And I told him furthermore that the first sheep or sheepman that p’inted his head down the Pocket trail would stop lead; and every one tharafter, as long as I could draw a bead. And by Gawd, I mean it!” He struck his gnarled fist upon the table till every tin plate jumped, and his fiery eyes burned savagely as he paced about the room.
At first peep of dawn Bill Johnson was in the saddle, his long-barrelled revolver thrust pugnaciously into his boot, his 30-30 carbine across his arm, and his hounds slouching dutifully along in the rear. Close behind followed Hardy, bound for the Peaks, but though the morning was cold he had stripped off his coat and shaps, and everything which might conceal a weapon, leaving even his polished Colt’s in his blankets. If the sheep were to be turned now it could never be by arms. The sheepmen had stolen a march, Creede and his cowboys were far away, and his only hope was the olive branch of peace. Yet as he spurred up the Carrizo trail he felt helpless and abused, like a tried soldier who is sent out unarmed by a humanitarian commander. Only one weapon was left to him –– the one which even Jim Swope had noticed –– his head; and as he worked along up the hogback which led down from the shoulder of the Four Peaks he schooled himself to a Spartan patience and fortitude.
At last from a high cliff which overshadowed the broad cañon of the middle fork, he looked down and saw the sheep, like a huge, dirty-brown blot, pouring in a hundred diverging lines down the valley and feeding as they came. Higher and higher up the