Montoya laughed outright.  “You will become a good man with the sheep.  You will not waste the flour and the beans and the coffee and the sugar, like Pedro here.  You will count and not say—­’Oh, I think it’s so much’—­and because of that I will buy you two boxes of cartridges.”

“Two boxes—­a hundred a month?”

“Even so.  You will waste many until you learn.”

“Shake!” said Pete.  “That suits me!  And if any doggone ole brush-cats or lion or bear come pokin’ around this here camp, we’ll sure smoke ’em up.  And if any of them cow-chasers from the mountain or the Concho starts monkeyin’ with our sheep, there’s sure goin’ to be a cowboy funeral in these parts!  You done hired a good man when you hired me!”

“We shall see,” said Montoya, greatly amused.  “But there is much work to be done as well as the shooting.”

“I’ll be there!” exclaimed Pete.  “What makes them sheep keep a-moanin’ and a-bawlin’ and a-shufflin’ round?  Don’t they never git to sleep?”

“Si, but it is a new camp.  To-morrow night they will be quiet.  It is always so.”

“Well, they sure make enough noise.  When do we git goin’?”

“Pedro, he will leave manana.  In two days we will move the camp.”

“All right.  I don’t reckon Roth would be lookin’ for me in any sheep-camp anyhow.”  Young Pete was not afraid of the storekeeper, but the fact that he had taken the gun troubled him, even though he had left a note explaining that he took the gun in lieu of wages.  He shared Pedro’s blankets, but slept little.  The sheep milled and bawled most of the night.  Even before daybreak Pete was up and building a fire.  The sheep poured from the bedding-ground and pattered down to the canon stream.  Later they spread out across the wide canon-bottom and grazed, watched by the dogs.

Full-fed and happy, Young Pete helped Pedro clean the camp-utensils.  The morning sun, pushing up past the canon-rim, picked out the details of the camp one by one—­the smouldering fire of cedar wood, the packs, saddles and ropes, the water-cask, the lazy burros waiting for the sun to warm them to action, the blankets and sheepskin bedding, and farther down the canon a still figure standing on a slight rise of ground and gazing into space—­the figure of Jose de la Crux Montoya, the sheep-herder whom Roth had said feared no man and was a dead shot.

Pete knew Spanish—­he had heard little else spoken in Concho—­and he thought that “Joseph of the Cross” was a strange name for a recognized gunman.  “But Mexicans always stick crosses over graves,” soliloquized Pete.  “Mebby that’s why he’s got that fancy name.  Gee!  But this sure beats tendin’ store!”

CHAPTER VI

NEW VISTAS