The sheep were becoming more hopelessly mingled through this commotion on their flank. Mackenzie was beating the enraged dogs apart when Swan Carlson came running around the point of the hill. Swan immediately took part in the mêlée of gnashing, rolling, rearing dogs, laying about among them with impartial hand, quickly subduing them to obedience. He stood looking stonily at Mackenzie, unmoved by anger, unflushed by exertion. In that way he stood silent a little while, his face untroubled by any passion that rolled in his breast. "You're runnin' your sheep over on my grass--what?" said Swan. "You're a mile over my range," Mackenzie accused. "You've been crowdin' over on me for a month," Swan said, "and I didn't say nothing. But when a man tries to run his sheep over amongst mine and drive 'em off, I take a hand." "If anybody's tryin' such a game as that, it's you," Mackenzie told him. "Get 'em out of here, and keep 'em out." "I got fifteen hundred in that band--you'll have to help me cut 'em out," said Swan. "You had about seven hundred," Mackenzie returned, dispassionately, although it broke on him suddenly what the big flockmaster was trying to put through. Counting on Mackenzie's greenness, and perhaps on the simplicity of his nature as they had read it in the sheep country, Swan had prepared this trap days ahead. He had run a small band of the same breed as Sullivan's sheep--for that matter but one breed was extensively grown on the range--over to the border of Tim's lease with the intention of mingling them and driving home more than he had brought. Mackenzie never had heard of the trick being worked on a green herder, but he realized now how simply it could be done, opportunity such as this presenting. But it was one thing to bring the sheep over and another thing to take them away. One thing Mackenzie was sure of, and that was the judgment of his eyes in numbering sheep. That had been Dad Frazer's first lesson, and the old man had kept him at it until he could come within a few head among hundreds at a glance. "I'll help you cut out as many as you had," Mackenzie said, running his eyes over the mingled flocks, "they're all alike, one as good as another, I guess. It looks like you got your stock from this ranch, anyhow, but you'll not take more than seven hundred this trip." "My dogs can cut mine out, they know 'em by the smell," Swan said. "I had fifteen hundred, and I bet you I'll take fifteen hundred back." The dogs had drawn off, each set behind their respective masters, panting, eyeing each other with hostility, one rising now and then with growls, threatening to open the battle again. The sheep drifted about in confusion, so thoroughly mingled now that it would be past human power to separate them again and apportion each respective head to its rightful owner. "Seven hundred, at the outside," Mackenzie said again. "And keep them off of my grass when you get 'em."