's two of you, and--"

"And you're afraid," put in Creede promptly. He stood gazing at the
downcast sheepman, his lip curling contemptuously.

"I've never seen a sheepman yet," he said, "that would fight. You've
listened to that blat until it's a part of ye; you've run with them
Mexicans until you're kin to 'em; you're a coward, Jasp Swope, and I
always knowed it." He paused again, his eyes glowing with the hatred
that had overmastered his being. "My God," he said, "if I could only
git you to fight to-day I'd give everything I've got left!"

The sheepman's gaze was becoming furtive as he watched them. He
glanced sidewise, edging away from the door; then, pricking his mule
with his spurs, he galloped madly away, ducking his head at every jump
as if he feared a shot.

"Look at the cowardly dastard!" sneered Creede bitterly. "D'ye know
what he would do if that was me? He'd shoot me in the back. Ah, God
A'mighty, and that dog of his got Tommy before I could pull a gun!
Rufe, I could kill every sheepman in the Four Peaks for this--every
dam' one of 'em--and the first dog that comes in sight of this ranch
will stop a thirty-thirty." He stopped and turned away, cursing and
muttering to himself.

"God A'mighty," he moaned, "I can't keep _nothin'_!" And stumbling
back into the house he slammed the door behind him.

A gloom settled down over the place, a gloom that lasted for days. The
cowboys came back from driving the town herd and, going up on the
mesa, they gathered a few head more. Then the heat set in before its
time and the work stopped short. For the steer that is roped and
busted in the hot weather dies suddenly at the water; the flies buzz
about the ears of the new-marked calves and poison them, and the
mother cows grow gaunt and thin from overheating. Not until the long
Summer had passed could the riding continue; the steers must be left
to feed down the sheeped-out range; the little calves must run for
sleepers until the fall _rodeo_. Sheep and the drought had come
together, and the round-up was a failure. Likewise the cowmen were
broke.

As they gathered about the fire on that last night it was a silent
company--the _rodeo_ boss the gloomiest of them all. Not since the
death of Tommy had his eyes twinkled with the old mischief; he had no
bets to offer, no news to volunteer; a dull, sombre abstraction lay
upon him like a pall. Only when Bill Lightfoot spoke did he look up,
and then with a set sneer, growing d