anything.
“Snap them wires down where they belong,” Weary commanded tersely.
The man hesitated a minute, then sullenly unhooked the barbs of the two lower strands, so that the wires, which had thus been lifted to permit the passing of the sheep, twanged apart and once more stretched straight from post to post.
“Now, just keep in mind the fact that fences are built for use. This is a private ranch, and sheep are just about as welcome as smallpox. Haze them stinking things as far north as they’ll travel before dark, and at daylight start ’em going again. Where’s your camp, anyhow?”
“None of your business,” mumbled the bugkiller sourly.
Weary scanned the undulating slope beyond the fence, saw no sign of a camp, and glanced uncertainly at his fellows. “Well, it don’t matter much where it is; you see to it you don’t sleep within five miles of here, or you’re liable to have bad dreams. Hit the trail, now!”
They waited inside the fence until the retreating sheep lost their individuality as blatting animals, ambling erratically here and there, while they moved toward the brow of the hill, and merged into a great, gray blotch against the faint green of the new grass—a blotch from which rose again that vibrant, sing-song humming of many voices mingled. Then they rode back down the coulee to their own work, taking it for granted that the trespassing was an incident which would not be repeated—by those particular sheep, at any rate.
It was, therefore, with something of a shock that the Happy Family awoke the next morning to hear Pink’s melodious treble shouting in the bunk-house at sunrise next morning:
“‘G’wa-a-y round’ ’em, Shep! Seven black ones in the coulee!” Men who know well the West are familiar with that facetious call.
“Ah, what’s the matter with yuh?” Irish raised a rumpled, brown head from his pillow, and blinked sleepily at him. “I’ve been dreaming I was a sheepherder, all night.”
“Well, you’ve got the swellest chance in the world to ‘make every dream cone true, dearie,’” Pink retorted. “The whole blamed coulee’s full uh sheep. I woke up a while ago and thought I just imagined I heard ’em again; so I went out to take a look—or a smell, it was—and they’re sure enough there!”
Weary swung one long leg out from under his blankets and reached for his clothes. He did not say anything, but his face portended trouble for the invaders.
“Say!” cried Big Medicine, coming out of his bunk as if it were afire, “I tell yuh right now then blattin’ human apes wouldn’t git gay around here if I was runnin’ this outfit. The way I’d have of puttin’ them sheep on the run wouldn’t be slow, by cripes! I’ll guarantee—”
By then the bunk-house was buzzing with voices, and there was none to give heed to Big Medicine s blatant boasting. Others there were who seemed rather inclined to give Weary good advice while they pulled on their boots and sought for their gloves and rolled early-morning cigarettes, and otherwise prepared themselves for what Fate might have waiting for then outside the door.
“Are you sure they’re in the coulee, Cadwalloper?” Weary asked, during a brief lull. “They could be up on the hill—”
“Hell, yes!” was Pink’s forceful answer. “They could be on the hill, but they ain’t. Why, darn it, they’re straggling into the little pasture! I could see ’em from the stable. They—”
“Come and eat your breakfast first, boys, anyway.” Weary had his hand upon the door-knob. “A few minutes more won’t make any difference, one way or the other.” He went out and over to the mess-house to see if Patsy had the coffee ready; for this was a good three-quarters of an hour earlier than the Flying U outfit usually bestirred themselves on these days of preparation for roundup and waiting for good grass.
“I’ll be darned if I’d be as calm as he is,” Cal Emmett muttered while the door was being closed. “Good thing the Old Man ain’t here, now. He’d go straight up in the air. He wouldn’t wait for no breakfast.”
“I betche there’ll be a killin’ yet, before we’re through with them sheep,” gloomed Happy Jack. “When sheepherders starts in once to be ornery, there ain’t no way uh stoppin’ ’em except by killin’ ’em off. And that’ll mean the pen for a lot of us fellers—”
“Well, by golly, it won’t be me,” Slim declared loudly. “Yuh wouldn’t ketch me goin’ t’ jail for no doggone sheepherder. They oughta be a bounty on ’em by rights.”
“Seems queer they’d be right back here this morning, after being hazed out yesterday afternoon,” said Andy Green thoughtfully. “Looks like they’re plumb anxious to build a lot of trouble for themselves.”
Patsy, thumping energetically the bottom of a tin pan, sent them trooping to the mess-house. There it was evident that the breakfast had been unduly hurried; there were no biscuits in sight, for one thing, though Patsy was lumbering about the stove frying hot-cakes. They were in too great a hurry to wait for them, however. They swallowed their coffee hurriedly, bolted a few mouthfuls of meat and fried eggs, and let it go at that.
Weary looked at then with a faint smile. “I’m going to give a few of you fellows a chance to herd sheep today,” he announced, cooling his coffee so that it would not actually scald his palate. “That’s why I wanted you to get some grub into you. Some of you fellows will have to take the trail up on the hill, and meet us outside the fence, so when we chase ’em through you can make a good job of it this time. I wonder—”
“You don’t need to call out the troops for that job; one man is enough to put the fear uh the Lord into then herders,” Andy remarked slightingly. “Once they’re on the move—”
“All right, my boy; we’ll let you be the man,” Weary told him promptly. “I was going to have a bunch of you take a packadero outfit down toward Boiler Bottom and comb the breaks along there for horses—and I sure do hate to spend the whole day chasing sheepherders around over the country. So we’ll haze ’em through the fence again, and, seeing you feel that way about it, I’ll let you go around and keep ’em going. And, if you locate their camp, kinda impress it on the tender, if you can round him up, that the Flying U ain’t pasturing sheep this spring. No matter what kinda talk he puts up, you put the run on ’em till you see ’em across One-Man coulee. Better have Patsy put you up a lunch—unless you’re fond of mutton.”
Andy twisted his mouth disgustedly. “Say, I’m going to quit handing out any valuable advice to you, Weary,” he expostulated.
“Haw-haw-haw-w-w!” laughed Big Medicine, and slapped Andy on the shoulder so that his face almost came in contact with his plate. “Yuh will try to work some innercent man into sheepherdin’, will yuh? Haw-haw-haw-w! You’ll come in tonight blattin’—if yuh don’t stay out on the range tryin’ t’ eat grass, by cripes! Andy had a little lamb that follered him around—”
“Better let Bud take that herdin’ job, Weary,” Andy suggested. “It won’t hurt him—he’s blattin’ already.”
“If you think you’re liable to need somebody along,” Weary began, soft-heartedly relenting, “why, I guess—”
“If I can’t handle two crazy sheepherders without any help, by gracious, I’ll get me a job holdin’ yarn in an old ladies’ hone,” Andy cut in hastily, and got up from the table. “Being a truthful man, I can’t say I’m stuck on the job; but I’m game for it. And I’ll promise you there won’t be no more sheep of that brand lickin’ our doorsteps. What darned outfit is it, anyway? I never bumped into any Dot sheep before, to my knowledge.”
“It’s a new one on me,” Weary testified, heading the procession down to the stable. “If they belonged anywhere in this part of the country, though, they wouldn’t be acting the way they are. They’d be wise to the fact that it ain’t healthy.”
Even while he spoke his eyes were fixed with cold intensity upon