eary swung one long leg out from under his blankets and reached for his
clothes. He did not say anything, but his face portended trouble for the
invaders.

"Say!" cried Big Medicine, coming out of his bunk as if it were afire,
"I tell yuh right now then blattin' human apes wouldn't git gay around
here if I was runnin' this outfit. The way I'd have of puttin' them
sheep on the run wouldn't be slow, by cripes! I'll guarantee--"

By then the bunk-house was buzzing with voices, and there was none to
give heed to Big Medicine s blatant boasting. Others there were who
seemed rather inclined to give Weary good advice while they pulled
on their boots and sought for their gloves and rolled early-morning
cigarettes, and otherwise prepared themselves for what Fate might have
waiting for then outside the door.

"Are you sure they're in the coulee, Cadwalloper?" Weary asked, during a
brief lull. "They could be up on the hill--"

"Hell, yes!" was Pink's forceful answer. "They could be on the hill, but
they ain't. Why, darn it, they're straggling into the little pasture! I
could see 'em from the stable. They--"

"Come and eat your breakfast first, boys, anyway." Weary had his hand
upon the door-knob. "A few minutes more won't make any difference, one
way or the other." He went out and over to the mess-house to see if
Patsy had the coffee ready; for this was a good three-quarters of an
hour earlier than the Flying U outfit usually bestirred themselves on
these days of preparation for roundup and waiting for good grass.

"I'll be darned if I'd be as calm as he is," Cal Emmett muttered while
the door was being closed. "Good thing the Old Man ain't here, now. He'd
go straight up in the air. He wouldn't wait for no breakfast."

"I betche there'll be a killin' yet, before we're through with them
sheep," gloomed Happy Jack. "When sheepherders starts in once to be
ornery, there ain't no way uh stoppin' 'em except by killin' 'em off.
And that'll mean the pen for a lot of us fellers--"

"Well, by golly, it won't be me," Slim declared loudly. "Yuh wouldn't
ketch me goin' t' jail for no doggone sheepherder. They oughta be a
bounty on 'en by rights."

"Seems queer they'd be right back here this morning, after being hazed
out yesterday afternoon," said Andy Green thoughtfully. "Looks like
they're plumb anxious to build a lot of trouble for themselves."

Patsy, thumping energetically the bottom of a tin pan, sent them
trooping to the mess