y bien_," said the overbearing Grande, "and where is your
_padron_?"

"_Quien sabe!_" replied the herders, hiking up their shoulders and
showing the palms of their hands, and "Who knows" it was to the end.
There was wise counsel in the camp of the sheepmen; they never had
trouble if they could avoid it, and then only to gain a point. But it
was this same far-seeing policy which, even in a good year when there
was feed everywhere, would not permit them to spare the upper range.
For two seasons with great toil and danger they had fought their way
up onto Bronco Mesa and established their right to graze there--to go
around now would be to lose all that had been gained.

But for once the cowmen of the Four Peaks were equal to the situation.
There were no cattle to gather, no day herds to hold, no calves to
brand in the pens--every man was riding and riding hard. There was
wood on every peak for signal fires and the main camp was established
on the high ridge of the Juate, looking north and south and west. When
that signal rose up against the sky--whether it was a smoke by day or
a fire by night--every man was to quit his post and ride to harry the
first herd. Wherever or however it came in, that herd was to be
destroyed, not by violence nor by any overt act, but by the sheepmen's
own methods--strategy and stealth.

For once there was no loose joint in the cordon of the cowmen's
defence. From the rim of the Mogollons to the borders of Bronco Mesa
the broad trail of the sheep was marked and noted; their shiftings and
doublings were followed and observed; the bitterness of Tonto cowmen,
crazy over their wrongs, was poured into ears that had already
listened to the woes of Pleasant Valley. When at last Jasper Swope's
boss herder, Juan Alvarez, the same man-killing Mexican that Jeff
Creede had fought two years before, turned suddenly aside and struck
into the old Shep Thomas trail that comes out into the deep crotch
between the Peaks, a horseman in _chaparejos_ rode on before him,
spurring madly to light the signal fires. That night a fire blazed up
from the shoulder of the western mountain and was answered from the
Juate. At dawn ten men were in the saddle, riding swiftly, with
Jefferson Creede at their head.

It was like an open book to the cowmen now, that gathering of the
sheep along the Alamo--a ruse, a feint to draw them away from the
Peaks while the blow was struck from behind. Only one man was left to
guard that thr