Directly before the front of these earthworks were the pits and chevaux de frise of sharp stakes that had been reported to Bud. The intention was to stampede the animals if possible, and run 272 them into the pits and upon the stakes while a force of men, protected by the trenches, poured a withering and continuous fire into the on-surging mass. Meanwhile the greater force on horseback would be engaging the sheepmen.
That the cowboys knew the location of the flocks goes without saying, for had they not had spies on the lookout, the telltale pillar of dust that ever floated above the marching thousands would have betrayed their exact position.
The sun had just dropped below the horizon, when a man in the cowpunchers’ camp discerned a weary horse bearing a hump-shouldered rider disconsolately in the direction of the ford. The man, bore strange-looking paraphernalia, and could be classified as neither fish, flesh, nor fowl—that is, cowboy, sheepman, or granger.
Without pausing the man urged his horse into the water at the ford, where it drank deeply. The man flung himself off the saddle and, scooping the water in his hands, imitated the horse’s eagerness. When he had apparently satisfied an inordinate thirst he looked up at the man across the river and said:
“Say, could I git some grub in yore camp?”
“Yuh better move on, pardner. This here’s resky territory,” replied the other, his Winchester 273 swinging idly back and forth across the stranger’s middle.
“I’m hungry enough to take a chance,” was the reply as Lester walked his mount deliberately across the stream. “Besides, I want to do business with yuh.”
Another man, hearing the controversy, came up and ordered the newcomer away. Lester asked him who he was.
“My name’s Bissell,” snorted the man.
Lester advanced the rest of the way to shore his hand outstretched.