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 'en 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—”