The rush and thunder of cow ponies as they hammered over the trail and
plunged down through the rocks and trees had hardly lost its echoes in
the cliffs when, with a flash of color and a dainty pattering of
hoofs, Chapuli came flying over the top of Lookout Point and dashed up
the river after them. The cowmen had left their horses in the deep
ravine at the end of the _malpai_ bluffs and were already crouched
behind the rampart of the rim rocks as close as Indian fighters, each
by some loophole in the blackened _malpai_, with a rifle in his hand.
As Hardy crept in from behind, Jeff Creede motioned him to a place at
his side greeting him at the same time with a broad grin.

"Hello, sport," he said, "couldn't keep out of it, eh? Well, we need
ye, all right. Here, you can hold straighter than I can; take my gun
and shoot rainbows around the leaders when they start to come
across."

"Not much," answered Hardy, waving the gun away, "I just came down to
keep you out of trouble."

"Ye-es!" jeered Creede, "first thing I know you'll be down there
fightin' 'em back with rocks. But say," he continued, "d'ye notice
anything funny up on that cliff? Listen, now!"

Hardy turned his head, and soon above the clamor of the sheep he made
out the faint "_Owwp! Owwwp!_" of hounds.

"It's Bill Johnson, isn't it?" he said, and Creede nodded significantly.

"God help them pore sheepmen," he observed, "if Bill has got his
thirty-thirty. Listen to 'em sing, will ye! Ain't they happy, though?
And they don't give a dam' for us--ump-um--they're comin' across
anyway. Well, that's what keeps hell crowded--let 'er go!"

There was a glitter of carbines against the opposite cliffs where the
spare herders had taken to cover, but out on the rocky point where the
chute led into the river a gang of Mexicans and two Americans were
leading their wagon cover around a fresh cut of goats and sheep. On
the sand bar far below the stragglers from the first cut, turned back
in the initial rush, were wandering aimlessly about or plodding back
to the herd, but the sheepmen with bullheaded persistence were
preparing to try again. Chief among them towered the boss, Jasper
Swope, wet to the waist from swimming across the river; and as he
motioned to the herders to go ahead he ran back and mounted his mule
again. With a barbaric shout the Mexicans surged forward on the
tarpaulin, sweeping their cut to the very edge; then, as the goats set
their feet and held back