Ike Crittenden was the first to renew the feud—he came across an old ICU cow and branded her to ICU2. One of Upton's range riders picked her up after the branding and Upton promptly altered the brand on an IC cow, to break even. Then came the grand _coup_ for which Crittenden had long been preparing. On the morning after Upton took his revenge, the whole IC outfit—forty cowboys and every man armed—went galloping over the Carrizo trail to Lost Dog Cañon. By noon they had gathered every animal in the valley; at night they camped with the herd at Carrizo Springs; and the next day every Monkey-wrench cow was safe in the Verde corrals with her Monkey-wrench burnt to a Spectacle ([Illustration: [++] Cattle brand in the shape of eyeglasses.]) and her ears chopped down to her head. The ear-marks having been altered once already there was nothing for it but to make the new marks deeper and more inclusive—swallow-fork the left and crop the right. The swallow-fork was deep in the left, to take in an underbit that Pecos had cut, and Old Funny-face, who had returned home with the herd, lost the fancy Mexican window and _anzuelo_ in her right ear altogether, along with all other signs of a former ownership. But even then the artistic knife-work of José Garcia was not allowed to perish from the earth. As Funny-face rose up from this last indignity and menaced the perspiring cowboys with her horns, the little Garcia children, hanging over the fence, dashed out through the dust and turmoil and rescued the close-cropped ears. Already, in spite of threats and admonitions, they had gathered quite a collection of variegated crops and swallow-forks to serve as play-cows in their toy corral; but when Marcelina came upon this last bloody evidence of the despite that was shown her lover she snatched the ears away and hid them in the thatched roof. Old Funny-face was Pecos's cow—she knew that as well as she knew the red-spotted, dun-colored ears that had adorned her speckled head. Pecos had bought Funny-face and her calf from her father for thirty dollars, to keep around his camp to milk, and now there was nothing to show for his ownership but the ears. But perhaps Pecos would be glad even for them, if ever he came back. In a letter to Babe he had said he was coming back, now that the sheriff was his friend. But Crit—ha-ah, Ol' Creet—he was stealing all of Pecos's cows, and the sheriff did not care! She stood by a post of the brush _ramada_ and scowled at him as he raged about on his horse, cursing and shouting and waving his arms and hurrying his men along. He was a bad man—ahr, how she hated him—and now he was such a thief!