eparture, "but I bet you money no bunch of Chihuahua
Greasers can hide twenty thousand sheep in my back yard and me not
know it. And I'll bet you further that I can find every one of them
sheep and have 'em movin' before twelve o'clock, noon."

Having crystallized his convictions into this sporting proposition the
_rodeo_ boss left the wilderness of tracks and headed due south,
riding fast until he was clear of sheep signs.

"Now here's where I cut all seven trails," he remarked to his
partner. "I happen to know where this sheep outfit is headin' for."
With which enigmatic remark he jerked a thumb toward Hidden Water and
circled to the west and north. Not half an hour later he picked up a
fresh trail, a broad path stamped hard by thousands of feet, and
spurring recklessly along it until he sighted the herd he plunged
helter-skelter into their midst, where they were packed like sardines
in the broad pocket of a dry wash.

"Hey there! _Whoopee--hep--hep!_" he yelled, ploughing his way into
the pack; and Hardy swinging quickly around the flank, rushed the ruck
of them forward in his wake. Upon the brow of the hill the boss herder
and his helpers brandished their carbines and shouted, but their words
were drowned in the blare and bray which rose from below. Shoot they
dared not, for it meant the beginning of a bloody feud, and their
warnings were unheeded in the _melee_. The herd was far up the wash
and galloping wildly toward the north before the frantic Mexicans
could catch up with it on foot, and even then they could do nothing
but run along the wings to save themselves from a "cut." More than
once, in the night-time, the outraged cowmen of the Four Peaks country
had thus dashed through their bands, scattering them to the wolves and
the coyotes, destroying a year's increase in a night, while the
herders, with visions of shap lessons before them, fired perfunctory
rifle shots at the moon. It was a form of reprisal that they liked
least of all, for it meant a cut, and a cut meant sheep wandering
aimlessly without a master until they became coyote bait--at the rate
of five dollars a head.

The _padron_ was a kind man and called them _compadres_, when he was
pleased, but if one of them suffered a cut he cursed, and fired him,
and made him walk back to town. Hence when Chico and Grande suddenly
gave over their drive and rode away to the northwest the Mexican
herders devoted all their attention to keeping the herd together