"She don't like that man Grimes," he explained shamefacedly, "but it's too late now for sech talk. All the same, boys, this sheep-war ain't no concern of ours so we'll stay right close to the house. I'm shore sorry now that I said what I did; because if he wins, boys, he'll sheep us out, too. But it was that or knuckle down to them dastardly Scarboroughs, and I shore can't stummick that!" He maundered on, arguing it over with himself, seeking vainly to justify his acts; and all the while the braying of the sheep grew louder as the herds drifted down through the pass. For weeks they had been struggling through scrub oaks and pines, and dense thickets of manzanita and buckthorn; and when at last they burst into the open the leaders advanced on the run. The first band was made up of big, sturdy wethers, their fleeces torn and tattered from trailing through the brush, but strong and active as bucks. They came on in a line which quickly spread out like the front of an advancing flood, and as the last of the herd came clear of the creek-bed the clangor of their baaing ceased. They fed along slowly, the leaders lingering to eat, the drag drifting past them to the front; and in the silence that followed a Mexican herder stepped out and looked down across the waving plain. The grass was knee high and still green from winter rains, and it flowed away before them like a billowing field, for the sheep had never been there before. Yet this silence, this emptiness, this absence of man or beast, had its sinister side as well; and, after a long look, the herder disappeared and came out further down the creek. He kept under the bank, only showing among the shadows as he kept cover beneath the towering cottonwoods; but as his sheep drifted away towards the grassy western hills he rushed out and turned them back with his dogs. Still the silence, the great emptiness, and as other herders came up they stepped out boldly into the open. Each man carried a gun and had his face to the hills, but no gun roared out its loud challenge. They drifted on slowly, down the broadening valley yet keeping close in to the creek, and at noon they had edged away from the menacing western ridges and gained the open Basin at last. But now the fat wethers had eaten their full, and as the heat came on they took shelter in the river-bottom, drowsing peacefully in the shade of the willows. The camp-rustlers came up with their burros and kyacks, a fire was soon going at their camp; and as his burros, and Mexicans took their afternoon siesta Dave Grimes ambled over to the house. He rode up on a black mule, gaudy with martingale and fancy trimmings, and greeted the Bassetts at the gate. "Well," he challenged, "didn't I tell ye I could do it? They see my men was armed--and I had others to do the flanking--and nobody fired a shot. Now I'm out in the open, where they can't sneak up on me; and I can fight 'em man to man!"