s own, down in
Coconino County, Arizona.

But as they passed the detested animals, thankful that the trail
permitted them to ride by at a distance sufficient to blur the most
unsavory details, even Big Medicine gave over his deliberate boastings
and relapsed into silence.

He had begun his fantastic vauntings from an instinctive impulse
to leaven with humor a situation which, at the moment, could not be
bettered. Just as they had, when came the news of the Old Man's dire
plight, sought to push the tragedy of it into the background and cling
to their creed of optimism, they had avoided openly facing the sheep
complication squarely with mutual admissions of all it might mean to the
Flying U.

Until Weary had unburdened his heart of worry on the ride home that day,
they had not said much about it, beyond a general vilification of the
sheep industry as a whole, of Dunk as the chief of the encroaching Dots,
and of the herders personally.

But there were times when they could not well avoid thinking rather
deeply upon the subject, even if they did refuse to put their
forebodings into speech. They were not children; neither were they to
any degree lacking in intelligence. Swearing, about herders and at them,
was all very well; bluffing, threatening, pummeling even with willing
fists, tearing down tents and binding men with ropes might serve to
relieve the emotions upon occasion. But there was the grim economic
problem which faced squarely the Flying U as a "cow outfit"--the problem
of range and water; the Happy Family did not call it by name, but they
realized to the full what it meant to the Old Man to have sheep just
over his boundary line always. They realized, too, what it meant to have
the Old Man absent at this time--worse, to have him lying in a
hospital, likely to die at any moment; what it meant to have the whole
responsibility shifted to their shoulders, willing though they might be
to bear the burden; what it meant to have the general of an army gone
when the enemy was approaching in overwhelming numbers.

Pink, when they were descending the first slope of the bluff which was
the southern rim of Flying U coulee, turned and glared vindictively back
at the wavering, gray blanket out there to the west. When he faced to
the front his face had the look it wore when he was fighting.

"So help me, Josephine!" he gritted desperately, "we've got to clean the
range of them Dots before the Old Man comes back, or--" He s