He flashed his eyes at Sharps and galloped over to his camp, leaving the Bassetts with something more to think about.
Why indeed had they brought in this barbarian, with his Mexicans and his sheep, when with a little more nerve they could have taken on the Scarboroughs and run them out of the country themselves? But it was too late now to ask that question, for Grimes and his sheep were there; and on the other hand it was too early to give way to despair, for the battle had just begun. The Scarboroughs might be cowards but, even then, they were cowmen; and a cowardly cowman will rise up and fight sheep when he would never fight anything else. No, the battle was not over, it had not yet begun; and before he had finished the self-satisfied Mr. Grimes might find himself hollering for help. But help he would never get, not from the Bassetts and their clan, for they had seen his raw work and he had tipped his own hand—he was there to sheep them all out!
They waited in sullen silence as the sheep began to move and the herders followed after them from the bedding ground; for that was the way these besotted sheepmen worked, they made themselves the slaves of their sheep. And the memory of that grass, so rich and sweet, had roused the sheep up early from their dreams; they set off in single file, each group behind its leader, and the leaders all heading for the plain. A single herder followed, his gun across his arm, his eyes on the distant hills; and from a knoll near their camp the extra herders watched him, for they knew he took his life in his hands. What they feared they could not say, more than the treachery of the cowmen who had disappeared so mysteriously into the hills, but they watched him nevertheless, and as they followed his squat form suddenly he staggered and dropped down in the grass. And then the answer came, a single shot in the silence, and the sheep broke into a run.
There was a volley then, from the rolling plain in front of them; and from a thin line of willows which marked the course of a dry stream the smoke rose up in white puffs. The sheep, which had rushed one way, now turned and rushed another; and as they went down in sudden rows the survivors stampeded, running frantically away from the smoke. The heavy bang of cowmen's rifles, shooting ninety grains of powder, added the final touch of panic to their flight, and as they scooted across the plain the big, forty-five caliber bullets plowed through them until they dropped by scores. It was the vengeance of the Scarboroughs for the invading of their range, but the Bassetts did not rush for their guns. They looked on in stony silence, for it was no quarrel of theirs—and Grimes had tipped his hand too soon.
THE SHEEP-WAR
If Grimes had thought to win a bloodless victory and take over Maverick Basin for his sheep he was brought back to earth by that first rifle-shot, which had struck down his boldest caporal. And the fusillade which followed, killing his sheep by the hundreds and scattering them across the plain, showed the presence of an enemy as ruthless as himself and as determined to play a bold hand. No, it was too rich a prize to be given up lightly and the Scarboroughs were fighting to win. For an hour, while Grimes raged about in the distance and cursed his cowering herders, the rifle-shots continued and the sorely harried sheep went down until there were no more to kill. It was a slaughter of the innocents, but each sheep that went down sent a pang through Grimes' hard heart.
The position of the Scarboroughs, behind the bank of the low creek-bed which meandered across the plain, was impregnable from every side; and even after dark Grimes was afraid to venture out, lest he walk into yet another ambush. They were playing his own game—the way he had often played it when rash cowboys had charged down on his camp—and after gathering a few strays he was compelled to retreat, taking his much-vaunted Mexicans with him. Out of three thousand sheep he did not have fifty left; and his fighting caporal lay dead on the plain, shot down by a cowman's bullet.