"And for the third and last time I tell you to take your gang and your sheep back where they came from!" cried Billee. "Now what are you going to do—fight?"
"Yes, señor," was the calm answer. "I shall fight, but not no longer with guns. I fight you in the courts. My friends, they are of citizens of the United States. They have of a rights to the land and of their rights I shall see that they get. Adios!"
He bowed courteously—he was a polite villain, I'll say that for him—and, lowering the flag of truce, he rode back to join his comrades on the other bank.
For a time there was silence amid the boy ranchers and their friends, and then, as movements among the sheep men indicated that they were getting ready to depart, Bud asked:
"What do you think is up, Billee?"
"Wa'al, I think, just as Del Pinzo said, he and those with him have had enough of powder and lead. Now they'll try the courts. I'm afraid your father is in for a legal battle, Bud."
CHAPTER XXII
NORT'S PLAN
Silently the cowboys from Diamond X ranch watched the sheep herders and their innocent, though undesirable, charges fade away to the south. The Greasers took their wounded with them, and several spare horses they had brought along made up for those that regretfully were shot by the cowboys.