"

"Who is he?" asked Nort.

"Anybody we know?" Dick inquired.

"Never saw him before, to my knowledge," remarked Bud. "He's a Mexican
or a Greaser, I take it." These terms were almost synonymous, except
that a Mexican was a little higher class than a Greaser half-breed, as
the term, was sometimes applied.

"Let me take a look," suggested Yellin' Kid. "I know most of the class
on the other side of the Rio Grande."

Long and earnestly the cowboy gazed through the glasses at the lone
figure on the other side of Spur Creek--a gaze that was returned with
interest, so to speak.

"He's Mex all right," said Yellin' Kid, handing the glasses to Billee,
"but what his game is I don't know."

"Looks like he just came to size us up," observed Billee, after an
observation, at the conclusion of which the stranger turned his horse
and rode slowly off in the direction whence he had come.

"That's right," assented Bud.

"Do you think he's a sheep herder?" asked Nort.

"Might be. Looks mean enough," said Yellin' Kid. The cattle men could
say nothing too strong against this despised class of breeders and
their innocent charges. Sheep herders were the scum of the earth to
the ranchmen, and to say that a man has "gone in for sheep" was to
utter the last word against him, though he might be a decent member of
society for all that, and with as kind and human instincts as his more
affluent neighbor raising cattle or horses.

"Well, he knows we're here and on the job, at any rate," commented Bud
as the horseman slowly disappeared from sight in the distance.

"Yes, and he'll very likely tell his band and we'll have them buzzing
about our ears before we know it," remarked Billee.

"Then we'll fight!" cried Bud.

"That's right!" chimed in Nort and Dick.

"I wish my leg was in better shape," complained Yellin' Kid. "But I
can make a shift to ride if I have to."

However, the next two days passed with no signs of any activities on
the part of the enemy. No sheep were sighted being driven up through
the pass to the lands that were now, by government proclamation, open
to whoever wanted to claim them, barring only those already having
large holdings of grazing range.

"But this is only the calm before the storm," declared Bud, when he and
his chums talked it over. "We'll have a fight yet."

And it was very likely that this would happen. While waiting, though,
every opportunity was taken to better fortify that part of Sp