"They may not fight you that way," suggested Winchester amiably, but the rest of the Bassetts said nothing. The sight of the sheep actually cropping off the grass which they had depended upon to pasture their horses, had brought up a sober second thought, and Sharps and Bill were furious. "What d'ye think you're going to do?" demanded Bill rebelliously, "bed your sheep down right in front of the door? We'd like a little feed where we can stake out our horses, without walking plumb over to the Scarboroughs." "Oh, you would, hey?" returned Grimes, but there he stopped and swallowed his scathing retort. "Well, I'll speak to my herders," he said at last. "We've got to be neighborly, of course. But when I git through with 'em you can walk to the Scarboroughs' without dodging any forty-five ninetys. I see they've gathered all their cattle and drove 'em off west--and their gunmen are over there, too--but the first danged man that takes a shot at my sheep will find I've got a forty-five, too. I've seen that tried before--riding out at my herders and jumping my sheep off some bluff--but I've got a way to stop it that's never failed yet, I jest give 'em a taste of this!" He patted the stock of a forty-five ninety rifle that stuck up from under his knee and Sharps broke his day-long silence. "You're bad, ain't ye?" he rumbled, and Grimes saw that his new partners had already repented of their bargain. "Yes, I'm _bad_," he said, "and I don't care who knows it. Anything more you'd like to say?" "Nope," answered Sharps, and regarded him morosely at which Grimes wheeled his mule to go. "Well, so long," he said, "can't be chatting here all day. But if you think you're so _bravo_, why didn't you clean them Scarboroughs yourself, without calling for help on _me_?" He flashed his eyes at Sharps and galloped over to his camp, leaving the Bassetts with something more to think about. Why indeed had they brought in this barbarian, with his Mexicans and his sheep, when with a little more nerve they could have taken on the Scarboroughs and run them out of the country themselves? But it was too late now to ask that question, for Grimes and his sheep were there; and on the other hand it was too early to give way to despair, for the battle had just begun. The Scarboroughs might be cowards but, even then, they were cowmen; and a cowardly cowman will rise up and fight sheep when he would never fight anything else. No, the battle was not over, it had not yet begun; and before he had finished the self-satisfied Mr. Grimes might find himself hollering for help. But help he would never get, not from the Bassetts and their clan, for they had seen his raw work and he had tipped his own hand--he was there to sheep them all out!