r of the dollar end of it. He's tickled to death to
get a whack at the outfit. And I hate to see him get away with it; but I
guess we'll have to stand for it."

That sentiment did not please Pink; nor, when Weary repeated it later
that evening in the bunk-house, did it please the Happy Family. The less
pleasing it was because it was perfectly true and every man of them knew
it. Beyond keeping the sheep off Flying U land, there was nothing they
could do without stepping over the line into lawlessness--and, while
they were not in any sense a meek Happy Family, they were far more
law-abiding than their conversation that night made them appear.

CHAPTER IX. More Sheep

The next week was a time of harassment for the Flying U; a week
filled to overflowing with petty irritations, traceable, directly or
indirectly, to their new neighbors, the Dot sheepmen. The band in charge
of the bug-chaser and that other unlovable man from Wyoming fed just as
close to the Flying U boundary as their guardians dared let them feed; a
great deal closer than was good for the tempers of the Happy Family, who
rode fretfully here and there upon their own business and at the same
time tried to keep an eye upon their unsavory neighbors--a proceeding as
nerve-racking as it was futile.

The Native Son, riding home in jingling haste from Dry Lake, whither
he had hurried one afternoon in the hope of cheering news from Chicago,
reported another trainload of Dots on the wide level beyond Antelope
coulee. There were, he said, four men in charge of the band, and he
believed they carried guns, though he was not positive of that. They
were moving slowly, and he thought they would not attempt to cross
Flying U coulee before the next day; though, from the course they were
taking, he was sure they meant to cross.

Coupled with that bit of ill-tidings, the brief note from Chip, saying
very little about the Old Man, but implying a good deal by its very
omissions, would have been enough to send the Happy Family to sleepless
beds that night if they had been the kind to endure with silent
fortitude their troubles.

"If you fellers would back me up," brooded Big Medicine down by the
corral after supper, "I'd see to it them sheep never gits across the
coulee, by cripes! I'd send 'em so far the other way they'd git plumb
turned around and forgit they ever wanted to go south."

"It's all Dunk's devilishness," Jack Bates declared. "He could take them
in the othe