couldn't do somethin' with these
sheepmen."

He paused and looked at the circle of faces with a smile that was
almost a sneer.

"You fellers wouldn't back me up when it come to fightin'--none except
Ben Reavis and the Clark boys--so I told the old judge we might as
well lay down, and to send up some smooth _hombre_ to try and jockey
'em a little. Well, Hardy's the _hombre_; and bein' as you fellers
won't fight, you might as well look pleasant about it. What's that you
say, Bill?"

He turned with a sardonic grin to Lightfoot, who had already been
reduced to a state of silence by the relentless persecutions of the
_rodeo_ boss.

"I never said nawthin'," replied Lightfoot sullenly. "But if you'd've
gone at 'em the way we wanted to," he blurted out, as the grin
broadened, "instead of tryin' to move the whole outfit by daylight,
I'd've stayed with you till hell froze over. I don't want to git sent
up fer ten years."

"No," said Creede coolly, "ner you never will."

"Well, I don't see what you're pickin' on me fer," bellowed Lightfoot,
"the other fellers was there too. Why don't you sass Ensign or Pete a
while?"

"For a durned good reason," replied Creede steadily. "They never _was_
for fightin', but you, with that yawp of yours, was always a-hollerin'
and ribbin' me on to fight, and then, when the time come, you never
said 'Boo!' at 'em. Tucked your young cannon into the seat of your
pants and flew, dam' ye, and that's all there was to it. But that's
all right," he added resignedly. "If you fellers don't want to fight
you don't have to. But, dam' it, keep shut about it now, until you
mean business."

As to just who this man Hardy was and what he proposed to do with the
sheep the members of the Four Peaks round-up were still in ignorance.
All they knew was that he could ride, even when it came to drifting
his horse over the rocky ridges, and that Jeff Creede took him as a
matter of course. But, for a superintendent, he never seemed to have
much to say for himself. It was only when he walked up to his sorrel
pony in that gentle, precise way he had, and went through the familiar
motions of climbing a "bad one" that they sensed, dimly, a past not
without experience and excitement. Even in the preoccupation of their
own affairs and doings they could not fail to notice a supple strength
in his white hands, a military precision in his movements, and above
all a look in his eyes when he became excited--the steady resolu