The Free Range

by Francis William Sullivan

  CHAPTER IV

  THE SIX PISTOL SHOTS

  The next morning, after breakfast, which shortly followed the rising ofthe sun, Bissell called Bud Larkin aside just as that young man had headedfor the corral to rope and saddle Pinte.

  Gone was any hint of the man of the night before. His red face was sober,and his brown eyes looked into Bud's steel-gray ones with a piercing,almost menacing, intensity.

  "I hope any friend of Julie's will continue to be my friend," was all hesaid, but the glance and manner attending this delicate hint left no doubtas to his meaning. His whole attitude spelled "sheep!"

  "That depends entirely upon you, Mr. Bissell," was Larkin's rejoinder.

  The cowman turned away without any further words, and Bud continued on tothe corral. At the enclosure he found Stelton roping a wiry and viciouscalico pony, and when he had finally cinched the saddle on Pinte, heturned to see Julie at his side.

  "You had better invite me to ride a little way with you," she said,laughing, "because I am coming anyhow."

  "Bless you! What a treat!" cried Bud happily, and helped to cinch up thecalico, who squealed at every tug.

  Stelton, his dark face flushed to the color of mahogany, sullenly left himthe privilege and walked away.

  Presently they mounted, and Bud, with a loud "So-long" and a wave of thehand to some of the punchers, turned south. Julie, loping beside him,looked up curiously at this.

  "I thought you were going north, Bud," she cried.

  "Changed my plans overnight," he replied non-committally, and she did notpress the subject further, feeling, with a woman's intuition, that war wasin the air.

  Ten miles south, at the ford of the southern branch of Grass Creek, shedrew up her horse as the signal for their separation, and faced north.Bud, still headed southward, put Pinte alongside of her and took herhand.

  "It's been a blessing to see you, you're so civilized," she said,half-seriously. "Do come again."

  "Then you do sometimes miss the things you have been educated to?"

  "Yes, Bud, I do, but not often. Seeing you has brought back a flood ofmemories that I am happier without."

  "And that is what you have done for me, dear girl," he said in a low toneas he pressed her hand. The next moment, with a nonchalant "So-long," theparting of the plains, he had dug the spurs into his horse and riddenaway.

  For a minute the girl sat looking after this one link between her desolateexistence and the luxury and society he still represented in her eyes.

  "His manners have changed for the worse," she thought, recalling hisabrupt departure, "but I think he has changed for the better."

  Which remark proves that her sense of relative masculine values was stillsound.

  Larkin continued on directly south-east for twenty miles, until he crossedthe Big Horn at what is now the town of Kirby. Thence his course lay southrather than east until he should raise the white dust of his first flock.

  With regard to his sheep, Larkin, in all disputed cases, took the adviceof his chief herder, Hard-winter Sims, the laziest man on the range, andyet one who seemed to divine the numbed sheep intelligence in a mannerlittle short of marvelous.

  Sims he had picked up in Montana, when that individual, unable to performthe arduous duties of a cowboy, had applied for a job as asheep-herder--not so much because he liked the sheep, but because he hadto eat and clothe himself. By one of those rare accidents of luck Sims atlast found his _metier_, and Larkin the prince of sheepmen.

  When Bud had determined to "walk" ten thousand animals north, Sims hadaccompanied him to help in the buying, and was now superintending the longdrive.

  On his advice the drive had been divided into five herds of two thousand,he contending that it was dangerous, as well as injurious to the sheep, tokeep more than that number together. The others were following atintervals of a few days. Larkin had left the leaders just north of thehills that formed the hooked southern end of the Big Horn Mountains, andexpected that in two days' time they would have come north almost to thejunction of Kirby Creek and the Big Horn, near where it was calculated tocross them.

  After grazing his horse for an hour at noon, and taking a bite to eathimself, Larkin pushed on, and, in a short time, made out a faint, whitishmist rising against the horizon of hills. It was the dust of his leaders.Presently, in the far distance, a man appeared on horseback making towardhim, and Bud wondered if anything had happened.

  His fears were partially justified when he discovered the horseman to beSims, and were entirely confirmed when he had conversed with the herder.

  "We've sure got to get them sheep to water, and that mighty quick," wasthe latter's laconic announcement.

  "Nonsense! There's plenty of water. What's the matter with 'em?"

  "Ten miles out of the hills we found a water-hole, but the cattle had beenthere first, and the sheep wouldn't look at it. At the camp last nightthere was another hole, but some imp had deviled the herd an' they layalongside the water, dyin' of thirst, but they wouldn't drink. We pushed'em in an' they swam around; we half-drowned some of 'em, but still theywouldn't drink.

  "So we made a night march without finding water, and we haven't found anyto-day. They're gettin' frantic now."

  Bud quirted the tired Pinte into a gallop, and they approached the herd,about which the dark, slim figures of the dogs were running. From thedistance the first sound was the ceaseless blethering of the flock thatproclaimed its misery. The next was the musical tinkling of the bells theleaders wore.

  "Reckon they've found another hole," said Sims. "Thought I seen one when Iwas ridin' out."

  On nearer approach it was seen that the herd was "milling," that is,revolving in a great circle, with a number of inner circles, halfsmothered in the dust they raised, without aim or knowledge of what theydid, or why. About the herd at various points stood the half-dozenshepherds, their long crooks in their hands. Whenever a blatting animalmade a dash for liberty the dogs drove it into the press, barking andnipping.

  Larkin rode to a tall, dark-skinned shepherd, a Basque from the Californiaherding.

  "What is it, Pedro?" he asked. "What is the matter with them?"

  "Only the good God can tell. The leaders they take fright at something, Ido not know, and we 'mill' them before any damage is done."

  Larkin rode around the trampling, bawling mass to the rear, where were thecook wagon and a couple of spare horses. He at once dismounted and changedhis uncomfortable riding-boots for the brogans of the herder. Pinte herelegated to the string, for the use of a horse with sheep is ludicrous,since the dogs are the real herders, and obey the orders given by theuplifted arms of the men.

  When he rejoined Sims, the sheep had become calmer. The flock-mind,localized in the leaders, had come to the conclusion that, after all,there was nothing to fear, and the circling motion was gradually becomingslower and slower. In a quarter of an hour comparative quiet had beenrestored, and Sims gave the order to get the flock under way. Since theyhad not come upon water at this place, as the herder had hoped, it wasnecessary to continue the merciless drive until they found it.

  Immediately the dogs cut into the dirty-white revolving mass (the smell ofwhich is like no other in the world), and headed the leaders north. Butthe leaders and tail-enders were inextricably mixed, and for a long timethere was great confusion.

  Sheep on the march have one invariable position, either among the leaders,middlers or tailers, and until each animal has found his exact post,nothing whatever can be done with him.

  Until night fell the animals fed on the dry bunch-grass, and then, underthe trotting of the dogs, took position on the brow of a rising hill, asthough bedding down for the night. But all did not rest, for perhaps fiftyremained standing in the perpetual flock-watch.

  In an hour these would lie down and others take their places, but allthrough the night, and at any time when the flock rested, this hereditaryprotection would become operative--seemingly a survival of a day whenneither man nor dog had assumed this d
uty.

  The cook dug his trench, built his fire and set his folding table outunder the pale sky that was just commencing to show brilliant stars. Afterthe last cup of steaming coffee had been downed and pipes lighted, Simsgave the order to march. The herd was nearly still now, and roused withmuch complaining, but the dogs were inexorable, and presently the twothousand were shuffling on, feeding now and then, but making goodprogress.

  There was but one thing left to do in the present instance--find runningwater, for it was certain that all the springs on the plain would havebeen visited by cattle, and that, therefore, the sheep would stand by andidly perish of thirst.

  Sims knew his country, and directed the flock toward a shallow, rocky fordof the Big Horn, some five miles distant. In the meantime Bud Larkin wasfacing two alternatives, either one disastrous. The crossing of the BigHorn meant a declaration of war to the Bar T ranch, for in the loosedivision of the free country, the Bar T range extended south to theriver.

  On the other hand, should he turn the herds east along the bank of the BigHorn, it would be impossible to continue the march long in that direction,since the higher mountains were directly ahead, and the way through themwas devious, and attended with many difficulties and dangers. On such adrive the losses to him in time and strayed sheep would be disastrous.

  Larkin had no desire to clash with the cattlemen unless it were absolutelynecessary, but he decided that his sheep should go through, since the freerange was his as well as another's. On that long night march, when the menwere behind the sheep, driving them, contrary to the usual custom, he toldSims of his interview with Beef Bissell, and the herder cracked hisknuckles with rage at the position taken by the cowman.

  "Send 'em through, Mr. Larkin," he advised, "and if the Bar T outfit startanything I allow we'll return 'em as good as they give."

  It was within an hour of dawn when the leaders of the flock lifted theirheads and gazed curiously at the line of trees that loomed before themalong the banks of the river. The next instant they had started forward ona run, blethering the news of water back along the dim, heaving line. Thedust beneath their sharp feet rose up into a pall that hid the sky as thewhole flock got into motion.

  Then dogs and men leaped forward, for now the blind singleness of purposethat pervaded the animals was more disastrous than when they refused todrink. Working madly, the dogs spread out the following herd so that allshould not crowd upon the same point of the river and drown the leaders.

  It was unavoidable that some should be lost by being pushed into thedeeper waters north or south of the ford, but for the most part thewatering was successfully accomplished, and at the first glow of dawn theanimals were contentedly cropping the rich grasses in the low bottoms nearthe river.

  But the work was not yet finished.

  When it had become light enough to see, the leaders were rounded up at theford, and, nipped into frenzy by the dogs, began the passage across theshallow bar. With the leaders safely over it was only a matter of timeuntil the rest had followed, and by the time it was full day the last ofthe tailers were feeding in the opposite bottoms.

  For Bud Larkin this was a very serious dawn. He had cast the die for warand led the invasion into the enemy's country. Any hope that the act mightremain unknown was shattered before the sheep had fairly forded thestream. Against the brightening sky, on a distant rise of ground, hadappeared the silent figure of a horse and man, one of the Bar T rangeriders.

  Six distant, warning pistol shots had rung out, and then the horse andrider had disappeared across the plain at a headlong gallop.