illee.
"You're generally looking out for number one first of all. Well, if
you want to give your friends good advice, tell 'em to go back home and
start making _frijoles_ for a living. They'll never earn their salt
raising sheep--that is, not on this side of Spur Creek."

"That is to be seen, _Senor_ Billee," mocked Del Pinzo, still smiling.
"Once more I demand of you that we are permit to pass the stream and
let our so hungry sheep feed."

"And once more I tell you there's nothin' doin'!" snapped Billee.
"Your sheep can starve for all of me!"

"For the third time I ask and demand that you let us pass," called Del
Pinzo, who seemed to have more patience than Billee, whatever else
might be said in disfavor of the Greaser.

"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, _senor_," 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.

"I hope we've seen the last of that bunch," remarked Dick, tenderly
feeling of his wounded hand.

"No such good luck," declared Nort. "Do you really think they mean to
try and get pasturage here, Billee?" he asked.

"I sure do," replied the veteran. "They can't feed their sheep much
longer on the other side of the creek--they'll have to come here--if
they can."

"But we stopped 'em," said Snake.

"O