Occasionally one of the leaders leaped over the two dead sheep and
disappeared down the trail. But the first force of their stampede was
checked. Dropping his gun, Pete jumped up and footed it for the notch,
waving his hat as he ran. Bleating and bawling, the band turned slowly
and swung parallel to the cañon-rim. The dogs, realizing that they
could now turn the sheep back, joined forces, and running a ticklish
race along the very edge of the cañon, headed the band toward the safe
ground to the west. Pete, as he said later, "cussed 'em a plenty."
When he took up his station between the band and the cañon, wondering
what Montoya would say when he returned.

When the old Mexican, hazing the burros across the mesa, saw Pete wave
his hat, he knew that something unusual had happened. Montoya shrugged
his shoulders as Pete told of the stampede.

"So it is with the sheep," said Montoya casually. "These we will take
away, for the sheep will smell the blood and not go down the trail."
And he pointed to the ram and the ewe that Pete had shot. "I will go
to the camp and unpack. You have killed two good sheep, but you have
saved many."

Pete said nothing about the battle of the ants. He knew that he had
been remiss, but he thought that in eventually turning the sheep he had
made up for it.

And because Pete was energetic, self-reliant, and steady, capable of
taking the burros into town and packing back provisions promptly--for
Pete, unlike most boys, did not care to loaf about town--the old herder
became exceedingly fond of him, although he seldom showed it in a
direct way. Rather, he taught Pete Mexican--colloquialisms and idioms