Mart Cooley, Walt Lampson, Buck Milton, and a couple of ranchmen stood in this natural screen and took in the situation.

“Sheep must be up in that coulee,” said Walt.

“Sure,” Mart replied.  “They c’n wait.  That there house is sure in a good spot.  If it’d bin planned for a fort it couldn’t be better.”  He stood and silently regarded the house, his eyes narrowed more than usual.  “How many men d’ye s’pose they’ve got in there?” he asked finally.

“Reck’n they could scrape up ‘bout twenty-five, in th’ time they’ve had,” Walt answered.

“An’ some o’ ’em shepherds, an’ rotten shots, an’ they’s fifty o’ us,” Buck put in.  He was eager for action.

“Well, I come here t’ fight, an’ I’m paid for it,” said Mart Cooley.  “But if we go after ’em in th’ open an’ th’ daylight, they’ll get a lot of us.  We’ll wait till night.”

“Suits me,” said Walt Lampson.  “I don’t want no sheepman t’ get me.”

There was a puff of smoke from the house, and a bullet whined over the men’s heads.  They dropped to the ground.  The lynchers raised their rifles and emptied them, but not at the house.  Back of it and to the left was a raised water tank, and into the lower part of this the shots were directed.  As the men wormed their way back through the scrub, and around the hill, thin streams of water began to trickle from the tank.

“If we have t’ stick ’round awhile, we’ll leave ’em some thirsty, anyhow,” said Walt.

Volleys of harmless shots had followed their creeping course, for at five hundred yards it is hard to hit an object on the ground—­especially when it is protected by scrub.

Under cover of the steep hills the cattlemen waited for night.  There was no sign of attack from the hills.  Evidently the sheepmen were keeping their forces in the house during the daylight hours.  After a brief twilight the night fell, cloudy and very dark.  And Mart Cooley had formed another plan.

One of the men knew the lay of the canyon.  Its only practical outlet was that guarded by the sheepmen.  But a short way up the canyon there was a spring in the hills, which found its outlet in a narrow stream that ended in a small waterfall at the edge of a cliff.  Mart figured on his force entering the canyon, stampeding the sheep, and driving them over this waterfall.  It was as simple as it was cruel, but you may have noticed that it takes clever people to think of simple things, and Mart Cooley was proving almost as clever with his mind as he was with his guns.  For Mart also figured on the effect on the sheepmen’s nerve when they found their herds gone, and their water from the tank giving out.

Under cover of darkness Mart led about fifteen men around the hill, which they skirted, and, giving the ranch house a wide berth, made their way toward the mouth of the canyon.  There was only one thing to guide them on their course.  Where the western hills raised their heights toward the sky, their outline showed darker than the surrounding night.  From this wall of black, Mart’s force steered a diagonal course that would lead to the center of the canyon’s mouth.  Once in the canyon, out of range of the house and among the sheep, lanterns and fires would provide light enough for the men’s purpose.