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As Creede and Jim Clark crept up over the brow of the western ridge and looked down upon it they beheld a herd of forty or fifty wild horses, grazing contentedly along the opposite hillside; and far below, where the valley opened out into the redondo, they saw a band of their own tame horses feeding.
There was a shout as Creede dashed recklessly out into the open and the sand leapt up in showers behind him, but Bat Wings was running like the wind and the bullets went wide of their mark.
So at last they did, plunging in suddenly, while the man on the mule spurred in below in a vain effort to turn them back. That night by the camp fire Hardy mentioned the man on a black mule. "My old friend, Jasp Swope," explained Creede suavely, "brother of Jim, the feller I introduced you to. Sure, Jasp and I have had lo-ong talks together but he don't like me any more."
But say," he continued, "d'ye notice anything funny up on that cliff? Listen, now!" Hardy turned his head, and soon above the clamor of the sheep he made out the faint "Owwp! Owwwp!" of hounds. "It's Bill Johnson, isn't it?" he said, and Creede nodded significantly. "God help them pore sheepmen," he observed, "if Bill has got his thirty-thirty. Listen to 'em sing, will ye!
"Creede's cot is on the side of the tent opposite the tree. You won't have to go inside. Slit the canvas. It's a rotten old tent. Kill Creede with your knife.... Get his belt.... Be bold, cautious, swift! That's your job. Now what do you say?" "All right," responded Cleve, somberly, and with a heavy tread he left the room. After Jim had gone Joan still watched and listened.
Never in all his life, even in the magazine pictures of stage beauties which form a conspicuous mural decoration in those parts, had Creede seen a woman half so charming, but even in his love blindness he was modest. "We'll have to leave that to the judge," he said deferentially, "but they's horses for everybody."
Creede and Hardy passed up the weather, strapped on their six-shooters, and began to patrol the range, "talking reason" to the stray Mexicans who thought that, because their sheep were getting poor, they ought to move them to better feed.
He sighed, and filled his plate with beans. "Ever been in St. Louis?" he inquired casually. "No? They say it's a fine burg. Think I'll save up my dinero and try it a whirl some day." The supper table was cleared and Creede had lit his second cigarette before Hardy reverted to the matter of his mail.
For two days the grazing herd crept slowly along the mesquite-covered flat toward Lookout Point, and on the third morning they boiled up over the rocks and spewed down into the valley of the Alamo. "Well," observed Creede, as he watched the slow creeping of the flock, "here's where I have to quit you, Rufe.
Before Creede could turn to meet his enemy his partner leapt in between them and with a swift blow from the shoulder, struck the sheepman to the ground. It was a fearful blow, such as men deal in anger without measuring their strength or the cost, and it landed on his jaw.
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