and I bet you I'll take fifteen hundred back."

The dogs had drawn off, each set behind their respective masters,
panting, eyeing each other with hostility, one rising now and then
with growls, threatening to open the battle again. The sheep drifted
about in confusion, so thoroughly mingled now that it would be past
human power to separate them again and apportion each respective head
to its rightful owner.

"Seven hundred, at the outside," Mackenzie said again. "And keep them
off of my grass when you get 'em."

Carlson stood where he had stopped, ten feet or more distant, his arms
bare, shirt open on his breast in his way of picturesque freedom.
Mackenzie waited for him to proceed in whatever way he had planned,
knowing there could be no compromise, no settlement in peace. He would
either have to yield entirely and allow Carlson to drive off seven or
eight hundred of Sullivan's sheep, or fight. There didn't seem to be
much question on how it would come out in the latter event, for
Carlson was not armed, and Mackenzie's pistol was that moment under
his hand.

"You got a gun on you," said Swan, in casual, disinterested tone. "I
ain't got no gun on me, but I'm a better man without no gun than you
are with one. I'm goin' to take my fifteen hundred sheep home with me,
and you ain't man enough to stop me."

Carlson's two dogs were sitting close behind him, one of them a gaunt
gray beast that seemed almost a purebred wolf. Its jaws were bloody
from its late encounter; flecks of blood were on its gray coat. It sat
panting and alert, indifferent to Mackenzie's presence, watching the
sheep as if following its own with its savage eyes. Suddenly Carlson
spoke an explosive word, clapping his great hands, stamping his foot
toward Mackenzie.

Mackenzie fired as the wolf-dog sprang, staggering back from the
weight of its lank body hurled against his breast, and fired again as
he felt the beast's vile breath in his face as it snapped close to his
throat.

Mackenzie emptied his pistol in quick, but what seemed ineffectual,
shots at the other dog as it came leaping at Carlson's command. In an
instant he was involved in a confusion of man and dog, the body of the
wolfish collie impeding his feet as he fought.

Carlson and the other dog pressed the attack so quickly that Mackenzie
had no time to slip even another cartridge into his weapon. Carlson
laughed as he clasped him in his great arms, the dog clinging to
Mackenzie's pisto