vely. "We've
got to break up the first rush."

"And yet it seems too bad to kill innocent animals," went on Bud. "Do
you know, I have an idea!" he cried.

"No? Really?" asked Dick with a playful attempt at sarcasm.

"Sure I have," Bud went on. "What we want to do is to drive them back,
isn't if?"

"That's it," said Billee. "We not only want to drive 'em back, but we
want to discourage 'em from coming over again."

"Then I think I know what will do the trick!" went on Bud. "It won't
be powder and bullets, either," he added. "We won't have to kill
anything or anybody."

"How you going to do it?" asked Snake, a bit skeptical.

"I'll show you," said Bud. "Wait until I make one."

His companions wondered what his scheme might be. The older cowboys
were great believers in the efficacy of the .45, and they had their
guns ready.

But Bud busied himself with some things he took from a bundle he
carried on his saddle. Dick and Nort saw their cousin had some strong
rubber bands, bits of cord, squares of leather and a Y-shaped branch he
cut from a cottonwood tree.

"Say, are you making a sling shot?" asked Dick.

"That's just what I'm making," answered Bud. "If we each have a
slingshot, and a supply of stones, I think we can turn the Greasers and
their horses, as well as the sheep back without killing any of 'em!"

For a moment they regarded Bud in silence. Then Nort cried:

"I believe it'll work!"

And as Bud finished his sling shot and sent a stone zipping into the
creek with a vicious "ping!" Billee cried:

"That's the best trick yet. I think it'll work! I hated to shoot to
kill, but I didn't see any way out of it. Now we can sting 'em enough
with stones to turn 'em, especially as they'll be in the water. Bud, I
think it'll work."

"I don't want to throw a monkey wrench in the gears," said Snake
softly, "but it 'pears to me that while we're shootin' harmless stones
they'll be firin' real bullets. An' where will we be then?"

"We don't run any more risks than if we were firing bullets, too," said
Bud. "And I think with them having to guide their horses in the water,
look out for quicksands and drive the frightened sheep over, we can
demoralize 'em with these slingshots."

"Sure you can!" cried Billee Dobb. "Come on," he ordered. "Every man
make a slinger. It's like the old Bible story of David and Goliath.
But how'd you happen to have those rubber bands, Bud?"

"Oh, I got 'em to make