Over this problem California John puzzled a long time.

“We ain’t doing any good playing hide and coop,” he told Ross; “it’s just using up our time.  We got to get at it different.  I wish those regulations was worded just the least mite different!”

He produced the worn Blue Book and his own instructions and thumbed them over for the hundredth time.

“‘Employ only necessary force,’” he muttered; “’remove them beyond the confines of the reserve.’” He bit savagely at his pipe.  Suddenly his tension relaxed and his wonted shrewdly humorous expression returned to his brown and lean old face.  “Ross,” said he, “this is going to be plumb amusing.  Do you guess we-all can track up with any sheep?”

“Jim Hutchins’s herders must have sneaked back over by Iron Mountain,” suggested Fletcher.

“Jim Hutchins,” mused California John; “where is he now?  Know?”

“I heard tell he was at Stockton.”

“Well, that’s all right then.  If Jim was around, he might start a shootin’ row, and we don’t want any of that.”

“Well, I don’t know as I’m afraid of Jim Hutchins,” said Ross Fletcher.

“Neither am I, sonny,” replied California John; “but this is a grand-stand play, and we got to bring her off without complications.  You get the boys organized.  We start to-morrow.”

“What you got up your sleeve?” asked Ross.

“Never you mind.”

“Who’s going to have charge of the office?”

“Nobody,” stated California John positively; “we tackle one thing to a time.”

Next day the six rangers under command of their supervisor disappeared in the wilderness.  When they reached the trackless country of the granite and snow and the lost short-hair meadows, they began scouting.  Sign of sheep they found in plenty, but no sheep.  Signal smokes over distant ranges rose straight up, and died; but never could they discover where the fire had been burned.  Sheepmen of the old type are the best of mountaineers, and their skill has been so often tested that they are as full of tricks as so many foxes.  The fires they burned left no ash.  The smokes they sent up warned all for two hundred miles.

Nevertheless, by the end of three days young Tom Carroll and Charley Morton trailed down a band of three thousand head.  They came upon the flock grazing peacefully over blind hillsides in the torment of splintered granite.  The herders grinned, as the rangers came in sight.  They had been “tagged” in this “game of hide and coop.”  As a matter of course they began to pack their camp on the two burros that grazed among the sheep; they ordered the dogs to round up the flock.  For two weeks they had grazed unmolested, and they were perfectly satisfied to pay the inconvenience of a day’s journey over to the Inyo line.

“’llo boys,” said their leader, flashing his teeth at them. “’Wan start now?”

“These Jim Hutchins’s sheep?” inquired Carroll.