Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/101

 nobody knows nobody else if it comes to a court case. Now"

The band split; one half splashed across the ford and bore away from the stream; the other segment followed on up the course of the hidden water.

Miguez, the Basque herder, and Tony, a thirteen-year-old waif of the sheep range, had long since finished their suppers before the fire and the man had gone to his bunk in the sheep wagon, leaving the boy with the sheep dog to keep watch over the band of eight hundred bedded down in a cup of the hills below the wagon. The boy was nodding, head on knees; the dog, curled at his feet, twitched and whimpered over the high places in a doggy dream.

Suddenly the dog's head jerked up and he gave a single short bark. Somewhere out in the darkness there was a swift spit of red flame, and the dog sank, twitching and slavering blood. The boy, in a folly of terror, turned and was climbing the short flight of steps giving on to the rear door in the bulky-sided sheep wagon when there was a swift patter of hoofs behind him; a hand bore down and snatched him up to a saddle.

"Keep your mouth shut or you 'll be