e herder reluctantly. "I was sure I
c'd lick yuh, or I'd 'a' turned 'em before." He sent the dog racing down
the south line of the band.

Andy got thoughtfully back upon his horse, and sat looking hard at the
herder. "Say, you're grade above the general run uh lamb-hickers," he
observed, after a minute. "Who are you working for, and what's your
object in throwing sheep on Flying U land? There's plenty of range to
the north."

"I'm workin'," said the herder, "for the Dot outfit. I thought you could
read brands."

"Don't get sassy--I've got a punch or two I haven't used yet. Who owns
these woollies?"

"Well--Whittaker and Oleson, if yuh want to know."

"I do." Andy was keeping pace with him around the band, which edged
off from then and the dogs. "And what makes you so crazy about Flying U
grass?" he pursued.

"We've got to cross that coulee to git to where we're headed for; we got
a right to, and we're going to do it." The herder paused and glanced up
at Andy sourly. "We knowed you was a mean outfit; the boss told us so.
And he told us you was blank ca'tridges and we needn't back up just
'cause you raised up on your hind legs and howled a little. I've had
truck with you cowmen before. I've herded sheep in Wyoming." He walked a
few steps with his head down, considering.

"I better go over and talk some sense into the other fellow," he said,
looking up at Andy as if all his antagonism had oozed in the fight. "You
ride along this edge, so they won't scatter--we ought to be grazin' 'em
along, by rights; only you seem to be in such an all-fired rush--"

"You go on and tell that loco son-of-a-gun over there what he's up
against," Andy urged. "Blank cartridges--I sure do like that! If you
only knew it, high power dum-dums would be a lot closer to our brand.
Run along--I am in a kinda hurry, this morning."

Andy, riding slowly upon the outskirts of the grazing, blatting band,
watched the two confer earnestly together a hundred yards or so
away. They seemed to be having some sort of argument; the bug-killer
gesticulated with the long stick he carried, and the sheep, while
the herders talked, scattered irresponsibly. Andy wondered what made
sheepmen so "ornery," particularly herders. He wondered why the fellow
he had thrashed was so insultingly defiant at first, and, after
the thrashing, so unresentful and communicative, and so amenable to
authority withal. He felt his nose, and decided that it was, all
things consider