It was perhaps noon of the day following Larkin’s capture by the rustlers, when from a point directly east of the ranch house a cowboy appeared, riding at a hard gallop. Contrary to most fictions, cowboys rarely ever urge their ponies beyond a trot, the only occasions being the round-up, 94 the stampede, the drive, or when something serious has occurred.
Mike Stelton saw the puncher from a distance and walked to the corral to meet him. Jerking his pony back on his haunches, the rider leaped from his back before the animal had fairly come to a stop.
“Mike, we’ve been tricked!” he cried. “That whole two thousand head of sheep are tracking north as fast as they can go far over east on the range, beyond the hills.”
“What!” cried the foreman, hardly able to credit his ears. “The boys down on watch at the Big Horn swore they had scattered the flock last night when Larkin started to run them north on the range.”
“Well, they swore wrong, then, for I’ve just come from where I seen ’em. I was over back of them hogbacks and buttes lookin’ for strays and mavericks when along come them muttons in a cloud of dust that would choke a cow. I allow that darned sheepman has made us look like a lot of tenderfeet, Mike.”
Stelton at this intelligence fairly gagged on his own fury. Larkin had scored on him again. The two were joined at this moment by Bissell 95 who had noted the excitement at the corral. When apprised of what had happened, the cowman’s face went as dark with anger as that of his foreman.
Beef Bissell was not accustomed to the sensation of being outwitted in anything, and the knowledge that the sheep were nearly half-way up the range put him almost beside himself.
For a few moments the trio looked at one another speechless. Then Bissell voiced the determination of them all.
“By the devil’s mare!” he swore. “I won’t be beaten by any sheepman that ever walked. Stelton, how many men will be in to-night?”
“Fifteen.”