"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, a swarthy herder leapt into the midst and tumbled them, sheep and goats alike, into the water. Like plummets they went down into the slow-moving depths, some headfirst, some falling awkwardly on their backs or slipping like beavers on a slide; there was a prolonged and mighty splash and then, one by one the heads bobbed up and floated away until, led by the high-horned goats, they struck out for the opposite shore. Below, yelling and throwing stones to frighten them, a line of Mexicans danced up and down along the rocky shore, and to keep them from drifting into the whirlpool Jasper Swope plunged boldly into the water on his mule.