The outfit was huddled about the fire eating greedily after the long day, when Creede, furtively watching his partner, saw his eyes fixed curiously upon some object in the outer darkness. He followed the glance and beheld a hound--gaunt, lame, beseeching--limping about among the mesquite trees which lined the edge of the flat.
"There's one of Bill's dogs," he remarked sociably, speaking to the crowd in general. "Must've got sore-footed and come back. Here, Rock! Here, Rye! Here, Ring!" he called, trying the most likely names. "Here, puppy--come on, boy!" And he scraped a plate in that inviting way which is supposed to suggest feed to a dog. But Hardy rose up quietly from his place and went out to the dog. A moment later he called to Jeff and, after a hurried conference, the two of them brought the wanderer up to the fire.
"Hey!" called Bill Lightfoot, "that ain't one of Bill's pack--that's old Turco, his home dog."
"Don't you think I know Bill's dogs yet?" inquired Creede scathingly. "Now if you'll jest kindly keep your face shet a minute, I'll see what's the matter with this leg."
He clamped Turco between his knees and picked up his fore leg, while the old dog whined and licked his hands anxiously. There was a stain of blood from the shoulder down, and above it, cut neatly through the muscles, a gaping wound.
"That was a thirty-thirty," said Creede grimly, and every man looked up. Thirty-thirty was a sinister number on the range--it was the calibre of a sheep-herder's carbine.
"Aw, go on," scoffed Bill Lightfoot, rushing over to examine the wound. "Who could have shot him--away over in Hell's Hip Pocket?"
"Um--that's it," observed Creede significantly. "What you goin' to do, Rufe?"
"I'm going over there," answered Hardy, throwing the saddle on his horse. He looked over his shoulder as he heaved on the cinch. "That's where that dust was," he said, and as the outfit stood gaping he swung up and was off into the darkness.
"Hey, take my gun!" yelled Jeff, but the clatter of hoofs never faltered--he was going it blind and unarmed. Late that night another horseman on a flea-bitten gray dashed madly after him over the Pocket trail. It was Old Bill Johnson, crazed with apprehension; and behind him straggled his hounds, worn from their long chase after the lion, but following dutifully on their master's scent. The rest of the outfit rode over in the morning--the punchers with their pistols thrust into the legs of their shaps; Creede black and staring with anger; the judge asking a thousand unanswered questions and protesting against any resort to violence; the women tagging along helplessly, simply because they could not be left alone. And there, pouring forth from the mouth of Hell's Hip Pocket, came the sheep, a solid phalanx, urged on by plunging herders and spreading out over the broad mesa like an invading army. Upon the peaks and ridges round about stood groups of men, like skirmishers--camp rustlers with their packs and burros; herders, whose sheep had already passed through--every man with his gun in his hand. The solid earth of the trail was worn down and stamped to dust beneath the myriad feet, rising in a cloud above them as they scrambled through the pass; and above all other sounds there rose the high, sustained tremolo of the sheep: