"Did you hear that?" he asked, still listening. "There! Didn't you
hear that gun go off? Well, I did--and it was a thirty-thirty, too,
over there toward the Pocket."

"Those herders are always shooting away their ammunition," said Hardy
peevishly. "Come on, let's get back to camp."

"They don't shoot in the night-time, though," grumbled Creede, leading
off again. "I'll bet ye some of them Greasers has seen a ghost. Say,"
he cried, "the boys may be out doin' some night ridin'!"

But when they rode into camp every man was in his blankets.

"Hey, what's all that shootin' goin' on over there?" he called, waking
up the entire outfit in his excitement.

"Sheepmen," responded some sleeper briefly.

"Cleanin' their guns, mebbe," suggested another, yawning. "Did you
move 'em, Jeff?"

"You betcher neck!" replied Creede promptly, "and I'm goin' back in
the mornin', too."

The morning turned black, and flushed rosy, and fell black again, but
for once the merciless driver of men slept on, for he was over-weary.
It was a noise, far away, plaintive, insistent, which finally brought
him to his feet--the bleating of ewes to lambs, of lambs to mothers,
of wethers to their fellows, beautiful in itself as the great
elemental sounds of the earth, the abysmal roarings of winds and waves
and waterfalls, but to the cowman hateful as the clamors of hell. As
Creede stood in his blankets, the salt sweat of yesterday still in his
eyes, and that accursed blat in his ears, his nerves gave way
suddenly, and he began to rave. As the discordant babel drew nearer
and nearer his passion rose up like a storm that has been long
brewing, his eyes burned, his dirty face turned ghastly. Grabbing up
his six-shooter he stood like a prophet of destruction calling down
the wrath of God Himself, if there was a God, upon the head of every
sheepman. But even as he cursed the first dirty brown wave spewed in
over the ridge and swept down upon their valley. Then in a moment his
madness overcame him and, raising his heavy pistol, he emptied it
against them defiantly, while the resounding cliffs took up his wrath
and hurled it back. A herder with his rifle leapt up on a distant rock
and looked toward their camp, and at the sight the black anger of
Jeff's father came upon him, filling him with the lust to kill.

He rushed into the house and came out with a high-power rifle.
"You _will_ stand up there and laugh at me, will you?" he said,
deliberately raising th