Farrel jogged away with Pablo at his heels.  Half an hour later he had located the sheep camp and ridden to it to accost the four bewhiskered Basque shepherds who, surrounded by their dogs, sullenly watched his approach.

“Who is the foreman?” Don Mike demanded in English as he rode.

“I am, you ——­ ——­ ——­,” one of the Basques replied, briskly.  “I don’t have for ask who are you.  I know.”

“Mebbeso some day, you forget,” Pablo cried.  “I will give you something for make you remember, pig.”  The old majordomo was riding the black mare.  A touch of the spur, a bound, and she was beside Loustalot’s foreman, with Pablo cutting the fellow furiously over the head and face with his heavy quirt.  The other three sheepmen ran for the tent, but Don Mike spurred the gray in between them and their objective, at the same time drawing his carbine.

There was no further argument.  The sheepherders’ effects were soon transferred to the backs of three burros and, driving the little animals ahead of them, the Basques moved out.  Farrel and Don Nicolas followed them to the boundaries of the ranch and shooed them out through a break in the fence.

“Regarding that stranger who camped last night in the valley, Don Miguel.  Would it not be well to look into his case?”

Don Mike nodded.  “We will ride up the valley, Pablo, as if we seek cattle; if we find this fellow we will ask him to explain.”

“That is well,” the old Indian agreed, and dropped back to his respectful position in his master’s rear.  As they topped the ridge that formed the northern buttress of the San Gregorio, Pablo rode to the left and started down the hill through a draw covered with a thick growth of laurel, purple lilac, a few madone trees and an occasional oak.  He knew that a big, five-point buck had its habitat here and it was Pablo’s desire to jump this buck out and thus afford his master a glimpse of the trophy that awaited him later in the year.

From the valley below a rifle cracked.  Pablo slid out of his saddle with the ease of a youth and lay flat on the ground beside the trail.  But no bullet whined up the draw or struck near him, wherefore he knew that he was not the object of an attack; yet there was wild pounding of his heart when the rifle spoke again and again.

The thud of hoofs smote his ear sharply, so close was he to the ground.  Slowly Pablo raised his head.  Over the hog’s back which separated the draw in which Pablo lay concealed from the draw down which Don Miguel had ridden, the gray horse came galloping—­riderless—­and Pablo saw the stock of the rifle projecting from the scabbard.  The runaway plunged into the draw some fifteen yards in front of Pablo, found a cow-trail leading down it and disappeared into the valley.

Pablo’s heart swelled with agony.  “It has happened!” he murmured.  “Ah, Mother of God!  It has happened!”

Two more shots in rapid succession sounded from the valley.  “He makes certain of his kill,” thought Pablo.  After a while he addressed the off front foot of the black mare.  “I will do likewise.”