Some distance beyond the flock, or where the flock had been, for the sheep were now rushing across the plain, was a two-horse, canvas-topped wagon, with a stove-pipe protruding through the top at the back.  For your sheepherder does not sleep on the ground like the cowboy, but prefers a sheltering wagon.  When the men reached this shelter, there was no one in sight.  As they reined in, one of the leaders called, “Come out of there, you black-hearted dog!”

There was no response.  Twenty guns were drawn from their holsters.  There was a moment’s pause, and the guns were raised.  But the curtains of the wagon were drawn, and a figure appeared and descended to the ground.  The guns were held suspended in the hands of their surprised owners—­for they faced a woman.

The lynching party drew the line at killing the woman—­though she did not know that—­but they did not draw the line at making her talk.  She was a half-breed, and she spoke English very badly, but with a gun thrust in her face, she spoke enough.

And from what the frightened creature gasped out, and from what Mart Cooley figured in his mind, this is what was learned:  Knowing that the cattlemen would seek revenge, but would first round up their scattered herd, the sheepmen had had time to act.  They had driven almost all their sheep to the home ranch of the big owners, thinking they could be protected better there.  They had gathered all the men available, and these were at the ranch, awaiting an attack.  The woman’s flock was too far away to be driven in, and she had been left in charge because the sheepmen had thought that the cowmen would not harm her.

With this knowledge gained, the party wasted no more time on the woman or on her scattered sheep, but started off for the bigger game.  When Injun and Whitey arrived on the spot, the woman had nothing more to say.  She possibly felt that she had talked enough.  Besides, she was busy smoking a pipe and waiting for the clever dogs to gather the scattered flock.  But the ground was like the page of a book to Injun, and he read there, much better than the woman could have told him, that the sheep had been scattered, and the direction in which the men had gone.

Donald Spellman, the manager of the sheep ranch, was a clever, daring, and resourceful man.  His ranch house was situated at the head of a narrow canyon, or coulee, that led up into steep, barren hills down which no horse could go.  Into this pocket he had the sheep driven by thousands.  Across the narrow entrance his men had built a heavy barbed-wire fence that was not visible from the foothills.  In the daytime the pass could be defended from the ranch house.  At night, with the sheepmen stationed in the hills, an attempt to break through that wire fence would be more than dangerous.  And this was the situation against which Mart Cooley led his determined band.

It was at the end of a hard day’s ride, and, late afternoon, when the cattlemen arrived in sight of the enemies’ stronghold.  They had circled the plains to the west, and ridden down in the shelter of the hills, to avoid coming within rifle range of the house.  These western hills were rocky, and at their end a growth of firs, scrub oak, and brush gave the lynchers shelter.  They were four or five hundred yards from the house, which was in plain view.