p knows if he
plugs me when I'm unarmed it'll be a sure shot for the pen. The time
may come when guns is necessary, but I move that every man leave his
six-shooter in his bed and we'll go after 'em with our bare hands.
What d' ye say, Ben?"

Ben Reavis rose up on one elbow, rolled his eyes warily, and passed a
jet of tobacco juice into the hissing fire.

"Not f'r me," he said, with profane emphasis.

"No, ner f'r me, either," chimed in Charley Clark. "A man stays dead a
long time in this dry climate."

"Well, you fellers see how many of my steers you can ketch, then,"
said Creede, "and I'll move them sheep myself--leastways, me and
Rufe."

"All right," assented Reavis resignedly, "but you want to hurry up. I
saw a cloud o' dust halfway to Hidden Water this afternoon."

The next morning as the _rodeo_ outfit hustled out to pick up what
cattle they could before they were scattered by the sheep, Jim Clark,
tall, solemn-faced, and angular, rode by devious ways toward the
eastern shoulder of the Four Peaks, where a distant clamor told of the
great herds which mowed the mountain slopes like a thousand sickles.
Having seen him well on his way Creede and Hardy galloped down the
canyon, switched off along the hillside and, leaving their horses among
the rocks, climbed up on a rocky butte to spy out the land below. High
ridges and deep canyons, running down from the flanks of the Four
Peaks, lay to the east and north and west; and to the south they
merged into the broad expanse of Bronco Mesa.

There it lay, a wilderness of little hills and valleys, flat-topped
benches and sandy gulches threaded minutely with winding trails and
cow paths, green with the illusion of drought-proof giant cactus and
vivid desert bushes, one vast preserve of browse and grass from the
Peaks to the gorge of the Salagua. Here was the last battle-ground,
the last stand of the cowmen against the sheep, and then unless that
formless myth, "The Government," which no man had ever seen or known,
stepped in, there would be no more of the struggle; the green mesa
would be stripped of its evanescent glory and the sheep would wander
at will. But as long as there was still a chance and the cows had
young calves that would die, there was nothing for it but to fight on,
warily and desperately, to the end.

As Jefferson Creede looked out across that noble landscape which he
had struggled so resolutely to save and saw the dust clouds of the
sheep drifting ac