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 "What will your wife say when she hears you've run that band of sheep in here?"

"I'd like to hear," said Peck, comfortably.

"She'll raise the roof."

"Let her," said Peck, easy in his mind. "There won't be anybody but her for it to fall back on."

"Things are kind of uncertain in here, Peck, mighty uncertain, to tell you the truth. Darned if I know what you're going to do with that big band of sheep."

"I'm going to run 'em around in here and fatten 'em up, then I'll sell 'em and hit the breeze," Peck announced. "I had that all figgered out when I was shootin' 'em through that hole in the fence. The old lady she'll not bother me here, she's a-scairt to set her leg inside of that wire fence. And I tell you right now, Rawlins, I'd ruther stand up and fight seventeen men a day than live around where that woman can get at me."

"Darned if I know what you're going to do with them," Rawlins said, perplexed, apparently oblivious to Peck's vehement announcement of his readiness to fight.

"I'll have to hustle them stews out on the grass," Peck said, with proprietorial air. "I don't want 'em to run on you, Rawlins. Which way'll I head 'em?"

"Keep them on this side of the creek," Rawlins directed, "and you'll be all right with me. I've got a nice patch of hay over on the other side I want to cut."

"Sure," Peck agreed.

He sent his dog to turn the sheep away from the creek, and set up a whooping that could not have been