“By George! You’ve hit it, boss!” cried Sims, slapping his thigh. “Now, what do yuh say to do?”
For a long minute of silence Bud Larkin thought. Then he said:
“Here’s my chance to get those rustlers and at the same time benefit myself. There can’t be more than a dozen or fifteen of them at the outside. Ride back to the camp, Simmy, and get twenty men, the best gun-rollers in the outfit. Tell anybody that’s afraid of his hide to stay away, for the rustlers are top-notch gun-fighters.” 210
“But what’ll yuh do with a thousand cattle on yore hands?” demanded Hard-winter in amazement.
“I’ll tell you that if we get ’em,” was Bud’s reply. “As I see it, we can’t do without them.”
The plan of campaign was somewhat indefinite. The last intention in the world was to frighten away the cattle by a grand charge and a salvo of young artillery. With great caution the sheepmen approached near enough to discern the white cover of the cook-wagon, when it was seen that the whole herd was slowly moving toward the ford, the singing rustlers circling around it.
Bud told off a dozen of his riders and instructed each to pick a man and to ride as near in to him as possible without being seen. Then, at the signal of a coyote’s howl twice given, to close in and get the drop on the rustlers, after which the remainder of the body would come along and take the direction of things.
Sims was put in charge of this maneuver, and was at liberty to give the signal whenever he thought circumstances justified it. It was a strange procession that marched toward the ford of the Big Horn—first fifteen hundred head of calves and young steers, guarded by unsuspecting 211 rustlers; then the knot of sheepmen and the dozen riders closing in on their quarry, and, last of all three miles back, eight thousand sheep clattering through the dust.
For what seemed almost half an hour there was silence. Then suddenly came the far-off, long-drawn howl of a coyote, immediately followed by another. Bud set spurs into his horse, revolver in hand, the remaining eight men at his heels, and made directly for the cook-wagon, where he knew at least one or two of the outfit might be sleeping.
The drumming of the horse’s hoofs could now be plainly heard from all sides, and a moment later there was a stab of light in the dark and the first shot rang out.