during a brief lull. "They could be up on the hill--"

"Hell, yes!" was Pink's forceful answer. "They could be on the
hill, but they ain't. Why, darn it, they're straggling into the
little pasture! I could see 'em from the stable. They--"

"Come and eat your breakfast first, boys, anyway." Weary had his
hand upon the door-knob. "A few minutes more won't make any
difference, one way or the other." He went out and over to the
mess-house to see if Patsy had the coffee ready; for this was a
good three-quarters of an hour earlier than the Flying U outfit
usually bestirred themselves on these days of preparation for
roundup and waiting for good grass.

"I'll be darned if I'd be as calm as he is," Cal Emmett muttered
while the door was being closed. "Good thing the Old Man ain't
here, now. He'd go straight up in the air. He wouldn't wait for
no breakfast."

"I betche there'll be a killin' yet, before we're through with
them sheep," gloomed Happy Jack. "When sheepherders starts in
once to be ornery, there ain't no way uh stoppin' 'em except by
killin' 'em off. And that'll mean the pen for a lot of us
fellers--"

"Well, by golly, it won't be me," Slim declared loudly. "Yuh
wouldn't ketch me goin' t' jail for no doggone sheepherder. They
oughta be a bounty on 'en by rights."

"Seems queer they'd be right back here this morning, after being