The face of the Mexican was suddenly crafty. “I suppose wantin’ to see the fun hasn’t anything to do with your goin’?” he suggested.
Fargo laughed again. “I’m not sayin’ it won’t be worth watching,” he agreed. “But you know I can always round ’em up with my whistle. José—tonight will see the end of the sheep business for time to come.”
They went about their preparations. They ate their breakfast in the unsavory kitchen, then José rode off to the ranch where Newt Hillguard kept his little flock of thirty Shropshires. There was no particular good in making full explanation to Newt. He was a cattleman surely, his little flock was just a diversion with him, but he might not take fondly to any plan that would make sheep killers out of Fargo’s pack of dogs. Some night they might escape from their yard and visit his own little flock. “The boys say they’re tired of beef and want a mutton blowout,” José explained, “and I’m sent over here to supply it. Will you sell me one of them sheep of yours?”
“Seems funny to me,” Newt returned, “that gang of Fargo’s wantin’ mutton. But I suppose I can sell you one.”
“Any old ewe’ll do,” José went on. “We don’t want ’em to like it so well they’ll want it often. The one you can sell me cheapest. We’ll want it alive, too, ’cause we ain’t goin’ to have him for a day or two. And once I’ve got to pack him on the horse, maybe I’d better take a lamb.”
The money changed hands, Newt gave in exchange a few pounds of living flesh that blatted feebly and struggled in José’s arms—with a strange, frantic terror—as if in premonition of its doom. The lips of the man set in a straight, cruel line, and he rode with an unjustified swiftness back to Fargo’s house.
There was only one element of mercy in the unmentionable scene that followed in the little, tightly fenced enclosure behind Fargo’s house. None whatever dwelt in the drawn faces of the men, or in the savage, white-fanged creatures that leaped so fiercely at the picket fence as the men approached. But the time, at least, was swift. It went almost too fast for Fargo’s liking.
There was only a single second of strange and dreadful clamor within the enclosure, a glimpse of white in the ravening circle of browns and blacks, a smear of red and a faint cry that the men strained to hear but which was lost in the baying of the dogs. The pack had been given its lesson. Fargo foresaw in their glaring eyes—as they came rushing back to the palings again—the success of his plan.
“Get inside the house and shut the door,” he commanded. “I can’t answer for this bloodthirsty crowd. And do it quick.”
For Fargo knew that the sooner he got started the more successful would be his undertaking. He didn’t want their wild excitement to have a chance to die down. The great hounds saw his gun in his arms, a pungent stain of red was still upon their fangs, and they seemed to know that rapturous events were in store for them. The Mexican withdrew, Fargo unlatched the gate of the enclosure, and the animals leaped forth around him. In a moment he had swung on his horse; and followed by the crying pack galloped up the trail.
He rather hoped he would meet no pedestrian on the trail. He had never seen his dogs in such a savage mood, and he began to doubt his own ability to control them. There could be no doubt about the effectiveness of the medicine he had administered. The hunting lust was upon them as never before. And perhaps his eager spirit, his own madness went into them, and excited them all the more.
It was a long, hard ride before he came to that pine-clad heart of Smoky Land which Crowson had rented for a sheep range. He had been able to lope only a small part of the way: the trails were too narrow and steep. The dogs ran more silently now; yet with noticeable eagerness. During the long, still afternoon they were grimly patient, and they skulked like wolfine ghosts through the growing shadows of the twilight.
But their excitement began to return to them as the dark came down. It was the hunting hour: everywhere through the forests the beasts of prey were emerging from their lairs. The hounds were domestic animals, but some of the old wilderness madness revived when the wind came whispering its breathless messages through the trees. Their blood seemed to turn to fire. Time and time again Fargo had to utter the shrill whistle that called them to heel—a signal that he had laboriously taught them and which they now seemed to be forgetting.
Fargo knew these mountains end to end, and he did not often mistake the trails. But soon after nightfall the conviction grew upon him that he was taking much too long to reach the sheep camp. Besides, the mountains didn’t lie in just their proper places. The tall top of Grizzly Peak was too far to the right to suit him. He knew perfectly that he was within a very few miles of the camp, yet he chafed under the delay. And the darkness steadily deepened, dimming the landmarks by which he kept his directions.
He headed on, at first irritated, then apprehensive, finally wrathful and savage. He began to fear that possibly he would have to wait until dawn for the work. The dogs, however, were growing constantly more excited and harder to control.
The last grayness faded into the gloom, and Fargo could hardly see the trail. But he was a mountain man, and he knew what to
