that
great wilderness of peaks which lay to the south and through which
only the dogged sheepmen could fight their way, stealthily hidden, yet
watching, lay Jasper Swope and his sheep. And not only Jasper with his
pet man-killing Chihuahuano and all those low-browed _compadres_ whom
he called by circumlocution "brothers," but Jim, sore with his defeat,
and many others--and every man armed.

After the first rain they had disappeared from the desert absolutely,
their tracks pointing toward the east. The drought had hit them hard,
and the cold of Winter; yet the ewes had lambed in the springtime,
and as if by magic the tender grass shot up to feed their little ones.
Surely, God was good to the sheep. They were ranging far, now that the
shearing was over, but though they fed to the topmost peaks of the
Superstitions, driving the crooked-horned mountain sheep from their
pastures, their destiny lay to the north, in the cool valleys of the
Sierra Blancas; and there in the end they would go, though they left
havoc in their wake. Once before the sheep had vanished in this same
way, mysteriously; and at last, travelling circuitous ways and dealing
misery to many Tonto cowmen, they had poured over the very summit of
the Four Peaks and down upon Bronco Mesa. And now, though they were
hidden, every man on the round-up felt their presence and knew that
the upper range was in jeopardy.

After amusing the ladies with inconsequential tales, the _rodeo_
outfit therefore rose up and was gone before the light, raking the
exposed lowland for its toll of half-fed steers; and even Rufus Hardy,
the parlor-broke friend and lover, slipped away before any of them
were stirring and rode far up along the river. What a river it was
now, this unbridled Salagua which had been their moat and rampart for
so many years! Its waters flowed thin and impotent over the rapids,
lying in clear pools against the base of the black cliffs, and the
current that had uprooted trees like feathers was turned aside by a
snag. Where before the sheep had hung upon its flank hoping at last to
swim at Hidden Water, the old ewes now strayed along its sandy bed,
browsing upon the willows. From the towering black buttes that walled
in Hell's Hip Pocket to the Rio Verde it was passable for a spring
lamb, and though the thin grass stood up fresh and green on the mesas
the river showed nothing but drought. Drought and the sheep, those
were the twin evils of the Four Peaks coun