lliams," Delmar began with sinister formality, "your men have
been shooting my herders."

"Not by my orders, Mr. Delmar; I never sanction----"

"See here, Williams, you are responsible for your cowboys, just as I am
for my Mexicans. It's low-down business for you to shoot my men who are
working for me at fifteen dollars a month. I'm the responsible
party--I'm the man to kill. I want to say right here that I hold you
accountable, and if your men maim one of my herders or open fire on 'em
again I'll hunt you down and kill you like a wolf. Now ride on, and if
you look back before you top that divide I'll put a bullet through you.
Good-day."

Williams rode away furiously and was not curious at all; he topped the
divide without stopping. Delmar smiled grimly as he wheeled his horse
and started homeward.

On the same day, as Mose was lying on the point of a grassy mesa,
watching the sheep swarming about a water hole in the valley below, he
saw a cloud of dust rising far up to the north. While he wondered, he
heard a wild, rumbling, trampling sound. Could it be a herd of buffalo?
His blood thrilled with the hope of it. His sheep were forgotten as the
roar increased and wild yells came faintly to his ears. As he jerked
his revolver from its holder, around the end of the mesa a herd of wild
horses swept, swift as antelope, with tails streaming, with eyes
flashing, and behind them, urging them on, whooping, yelling, shooting,
came a band of cowboys, their arms flopping, their kerchiefs streaming.

A gasping shout arose from below. "The sheep! the sheep!" Mose turned
and saw the other herders rushing for their horses. He realized then the
danger to the flock. The horses were sweeping like a railway train
straight down upon the gray, dusty, hot river of woolly flesh. Mose
shuddered with horror and pity--a moment later and the drove, led by a
powerful and vicious brown mare, drove like a wedge straight into the
helpless herd, and, leaping, plunging, kicking, stumbling, the powerful
and swift little bronchos crossed, careering on down the valley, leaving
hundreds of dead, wounded, and mangled sheep in their path. The cowboys
swept on after them with exultant whooping, firing their revolvers at
the Mexican herders, who stood in a daze over their torn and mangled
herd.

When Mose recovered from his stupefaction, his own horse was galloping
in circles, his picket rope dragging, and the boss herder was swearing
with a belated mali