up in the round-up fry-pans in the
shape of mutton. Ponder as he would upon the problem no solution
offered itself to Hardy. He had no policy, even, beyond that of common
politeness; and as the menacing clamor of the sheep drifted up to them
from the river the diplomat who was to negotiate the great truce began
to wonder whether, after all, he was the man of the hour or merely
another college graduate gone wrong.

On the opposite side of the river in bands of two and three thousand
the cohorts of the sheep gathered to make the crossing--gathered and
waited, for the Salagua was still high. At the foot of the high
cliffs, from the cleft canyon of which water flowed forth as if some
rod had called it from the rock, the leaders of the sheepmen were
sitting in council, gazing at the powerful sweep of the level river,
and then at the distant sand bar where their charges must win the
shore or be swept into the whirlpool below. Ah, that whirlpool! Many a
frightened ewe and weakling lamb in years past had drifted helplessly
into its swirl and been sucked down, to come up below the point a
water-logged carcass. And for each stinking corpse that littered the
lower bar the boss sheep owner subtracted five dollars from the sum of
his hard-earned wealth. Already on the flats below them the willows
and burro bushes were trembling as eager teeth trimmed them of their
leaves--in a day, or two days, the river bottom would be fed bare; and
behind and behind, clear to the broad floor of the desert, band after
band was pressing on to the upper crossing of the Salagua.

As Hardy rode up over the rocky point against which the river threw
its full strength and then, flung inexorably back, turned upon itself
in a sullen whirlpool, he could see the sheep among the willows, the
herders standing impassive, leaning upon their guns as more rustic
shepherds lean upon their staves, and above, at the head of the
crossing, the group of men, sitting within the circle of their horses
in anxious conference. If any of them saw him, outlined like a
sentinel against the sky, they made no sign; but suddenly a man in a
high Texas hat leaped up from the group, sprang astride his mule and
spurred him into the cold water. For the first twenty feet the mule
waded, shaking his ears; then he slumped off the edge of a submerged
bench into deeper water and swam, heading across the stream but
drifting diagonally with the current until, striking bottom once more,
he s