Chapter XXI: A Legal Contest

Holding the flag of truce above his head with both hands, the better to indicate that he was unarmed, the man, a bearded Mexican to all appearances, rode his horse half way across the stream. He was then within easy talking distance of the cowboys and Old Billee called:

"That's far enough, Greaser! Stay right where you are and speak your little piece. Keep him covered, boys," he went on in a low voice to those around him.

"Oh, he's covered all right," replied Bud. And, indeed, half a dozen guns were trained, more or less conspicuously, on the bearer of the flag of truce.

"Well, say what you've got to say," ordered Billee grimly.

"_Señors_, we have had enough of fight--for the time," came from the herald.

And at the sound of his voice the boy ranchers, with one accord, exclaimed:

"Del Pinzo!"

"At your service, _señors_," came the mocking retort, and Del Pinzo, for he it was, smiled, showing his white teeth through his black, curling beard. It was the beard which had prevented his recognition up to now. Though there was something vaguely familiar about the actions of the leader of the sheep men. And he who bore the flag of truce--Del Pinzo no less--had been the leader in the attempts to cross the creek.

"Well, what do you want?" demanded Billee. "We might have known it was some of your dirty work, though I must say you've got a pretty good false face on with all them whiskers. What do you want?"

"To cross the creek, of course, _Señor_ Billee, and pasture our sheep on that land which belongs to us."

"Belongs to you! How do you make that out?" demanded Bud, unable to keep still longer.

"Ah, the young _señor_ speaks," mocked Del Pinzo, smilingly. "Then he should know that this land has been thrown open to all who may wish to graze sheep on it."

"This land was never intended for sheep, Del Pinzo, and you know it!" cried Billee. "Even if it was, it belongs to Mr. Merkel, though you'll never see the day he raises sheep--the stinking critters!"

"You say the land belongs to _Señor_ Merkel?" asked Del Pinzo, lowering his hands and the flag of truce, perhaps unconsciously.

"Keep 'em up!" snarled Snake Purdee, and the flag went up again in a trice.

"You know this land belongs to Mr. Merkel," went on Billee.

"Doubtless, then, he can prove it in a court of law," mocked the half-breed Greaser.

"Sure he can!" asserted the old cowboy earnestly and with conviction, though he knew in his heart this was not so. But, as he said afterward, he wasn't going to let Del Pinzo do all the "bluffing."

"Then we shall go to law about it," said the Mexican leader. "And we shall have action against you for shooting at us when we peaceably tried to cross and pasture our flocks on the open range land that is given away by the so grand government of the United States."

"They wouldn't give any to _you_!" cried Billee. "All the land you'll ever own in the good old U.S.A. will be six feet to hold you after somebody shoots your head off, as ought to be done long ago. You're not a citizen and you know it, and you can't claim a foot of land, even if Mr. Merkel didn't own it!"

"I claim it not for myself--but for my friends, the so poor sheep herders," said Del Pinzo, in what he meant for a humble voice. "I but act as their leader and adviser. I seek nothing for myself."

"First time I've ever known _that_ to happen!" chuckled Billee. "You're generally looking out for number one first of all. Well, if you want to give your friends good advice, tell 'em to go back home and start making _frijoles_ for a living. They'll never earn their salt raising sheep--that is, not on this side of Spur Creek."

"That is to be seen, _Señor_ Billee," mocked Del Pinzo, still smiling. "Once more I demand of you that we are permit to pass the stream and let our so hungry sheep feed."

"And once more I tell you there's nothin' doin'!" snapped Billee. "Your sheep can starve for all of me!"

"For the third time I ask and demand that you let us pass," called Del Pinzo, who seemed to have more patience than Billee, whatever else might be said in disfavor of the Greaser.

"And for the third and last time I tell you to take your gang and your sheep back where they came from!" cried Billee. "Now what are you going to do--fight?"

"Yes, _señor_," was the calm answer. "I shall fight, but not no longer with guns. I fight you in the courts. My friends, they are of citizens of the United States. They have of a rights to the land and of their rights I shall see that they get. _Adios!_"

He bowed courteously--he was a polite villain, I'll say that for him--and, lowering the flag of truce, he rode back to join his comrades on the other bank.

For a time there was silence amid the boy ranchers and their friends, and then, as movements among the sheep men indicated that they were getting ready to depart, Bud asked:

"What do you think is up, Billee?"

"Wa'al, I think, just as Del Pinzo said, he and those with him have had enough of powder and lead. Now they'll try the courts. I'm afraid your father is in for a legal battle, Bud."