This information came as a knockdown. The two men questioned their informant closely, unable to credit their ears, but the man described the ranch-owners so accurately that there was no room left for doubt. "Then what's become o' Jimmie Welsh and his nine men?" asked Sims wonderingly. "Mebbe they're captured; but I couldn't see anythin' of 'em." "Nope," said Bud slowly, "they aren't captured. They're dead. I know Jimmie and his men, and I picked them for that job because I knew how they would act. Poor boys! If I get through here alive I'll put a monument where they died." He ceased speaking, and a sudden silence descended on all the company, for the other men had been listening to this report. Each man's thoughts in that one instant were with Jimmie and his nine men in their last extremity at Welsh's Butte, although the site of the tragedy was as yet unknown to them. "What about the lay of the country?" Sims finally asked of the scout. "Dead ahead is the big ford, but that is what the punchers have protected. I could see that either up or down from the ford the water's deep, because there ain't no bottoms there--the bank's right on top of the river." "Where is the next nearest ford?" "Ten miles northeast, this season of the year," was the reply. "Thunderation, boss, what'll we do?" inquired Sims petulantly. "Call Lester, and we three will talk it over," said Bud, a half-formed plan already in his mind. Presently the three were alone and discussing the situation. Bud proposed his scheme and outlined it clearly. For perhaps a quarter of an hour he talked, interrupted by the eager, enthusiastic exclamations of Lester. When he had finished, Sims lay back on his two elbows and regarded his employer. "If yuh keep on this-a-way, boss," he remarked, "I allow we might let yuh herd a few lambs next spring, seein' yuh _will_ learn the sheep business." Bud grinned at the other's compliment and noted Lester's enthusiasm. Then they plunged into the details. "Better ride your horse around by way of the ford ten miles away," were the instructions as Lester saddled up. "Then you can come at 'em by the rear." No word of young Larkin's intention had passed about the camp, and the sheepmen watched with considerable wonder the departure of the boy, placing it to Bud's fear of his receiving an injury in the trouble that was almost surely bound to happen that night. At three o'clock in the afternoon, or thereabouts, Lester, with his outfit strapped on his dejected horse, rode slowly away from the sheepmen's camp. Meanwhile, behind the various defenses that had been erected against the coming of Bud Larkin and his animals, the cowmen and their punchers were making ready for their night's battle. The chief actor in these fevered preparations was Beef Bissell, whose hatred of Larkin was something to frighten babies with at night.