"But it's up to us to make 'em," said Bud fiercely. "If they get over it will be all up with us, for they're twice as many as we are."
"They shan't get over!" declared Nort. And it was with the same spirit that the intrepid Frenchman muttered:
"They shall not pass!"
If the boy ranchers and their comrades hoped to escape scathless they were painfully disappointed. For though the sheep herders were under the handicap of having to cross the stream, manage their frantic horses and shoot—all at the same time—they managed to do enough of the latter to wound several of the cowboys, one seriously, as developed later.
And, just as Dick was reloading his gun, he gave a cry and the weapon dropped from his hands.
"Hit?" cried Bud.
"A little," Dick answered, and he tried to smile, though it was not a very good attempt.
"Get back under cover," advised Nort, for there was cover, of a sort, behind where the cowboys were fighting, a range of low hills that would effectually screen the bullets of the Greasers.
"Oh, it doesn't amount to anything," Dick insisted, holding his left hand over his right, for it was the latter that was hit. "It's only a scratch."
"Well, get a bandage on it and come back in the game—if you can, boy," advised Billee, who had ridden up on hearing Dick's cry. "We'll look after it later—when we drive these skunks back where they belong."