"No? Really?" asked Dick with a playful attempt at sarcasm.
"Sure I have," Bud went on. "What we want to do is to drive them back, isn't if?"
"That's it," said Billee. "We not only want to drive 'em back, but we want to discourage 'em from coming over again."
"Then I think I know what will do the trick!" went on Bud. "It won't be powder and bullets, either," he added. "We won't have to kill anything or anybody."
"How you going to do it?" asked Snake, a bit skeptical.
"I'll show you," said Bud. "Wait until I make one."
His companions wondered what his scheme might be. The older cowboys were great believers in the efficacy of the .45, and they had their guns ready.
But Bud busied himself with some things he took from a bundle he carried on his saddle. Dick and Nort saw their cousin had some strong rubber bands, bits of cord, squares of leather and a Y-shaped branch he cut from a cottonwood tree.
"Say, are you making a sling shot?" asked Dick.
"That's just what I'm making," answered Bud. "If we each have a slingshot, and a supply of stones, I think we can turn the Greasers and their horses, as well as the sheep back without killing any of 'em!"