Treve noted his own success in deflecting the rush. Blithely he fled from before his bellowing foes. But he fled at an increasing angle from the direction in which first they had been going. The steers hammered on in his wake. He kept scarcely five feet of space between himself and their front rank. Head high, plumed tail flying, he galloped merrily along, barking impudent insult over his shoulder; and leading the chase noisily down the field. Treve was having a beautiful time. Nearly a mile farther on, he tired of the sport. His ruse had succeeded. Putting on all speed, he drew away easily from the wearying cattle; made a wide detour and trotted back to his master. The winded steers had had quite enough. Finding at length that the dog had swiftness they could not hope to equal, they shambled to a halt. One by one they stopped staring sulkily after their tormentor; and fell to cropping grass. Steers are philosophers, in their way. Treve found Joel and Hibben standing with the herdsmen at the fence gap. They were waiting only for his return to lift the broken-posted panel to place again, as best they could. “If you’re still honin’ to shoot him, Mister Hibben--” began Fenno, sourly, as Treve came up. “I--I left my gun back yonder,” muttered Hibben, in reply, his tall body still shaking as with a chill. “And, anyhow-- Say, put a price on that collie of yours! Don’t haggle! Put a price on him. If I c’n help it, no such grand dog is going to have to live with a passel of sheepmen, no longer. He--” “This here’s only a dog,” gravely interrupted Fenno, “a no-’count dog, for the most part. But we-all don’t aim to humiliate him by makin’ him ’sociate with cowboys an’ steers and suchlike trash. He ain’t wuthless enough for that. So long, neighbor! We’ll be on our way, now. Any time you want to reform an’ buy a nice bunch of sheep, jes’ give us a call. C’m’on Trevy!” CHAPTER IX: HIS MATE When Treve saved Chris Hibben from a peculiarly hideous death under the hoofs of Chris’s own Triple Bar steers, he did more to patch up a truce between the Dos Hermanos and the Triple Bar outfits than could a score of peace conferences. From the beginning, throughout the West, sheepmen and cattlemen have been mortal enemies. Seldom has this eternal feud blazed hotter than between Chris Hibben’s cattle ranch and the nearby Dos Hermanos sheep ranch of Joel Fenno and Royce Mack. Ever there had been a grim understanding that a sheep or sheepdog straying over the line into the Triple Bar range was a sheep or sheepdog killed. More than once this understanding had been justified. Then, too, a year before, a bunch of six yearling beef cattle had strayed through a fence gap and down the coulée into Number Six camp of the Dos Hermanos. There all trace of them was wiped out;--except that Toni and the other Dos Hermanos herdsmen varied their dreary fare of tinned goods and tough mutton by a prolonged fresh-beef debauch.