Red Mesa by Warren H. Miller — Read

As the Mexican rifles whipped and sang in the crags sheep after sheep staggered and fell. Hano's eyes blazed with indignation. At least six of these white-clad Mexicanos were up there and three of the sheep were killed, a noble ram and two ewes, but still the slaughter went on unceasingly. That band of big horns and a few others like it around Pinacate were almost the sole meat supply of Hano's tribe. A few each year had been plenty to keep them all in meat. _One_ ram would have been more than enough to feed all this band of white men all they could carry away, yet nothing less than the slaughter of them all -- brutal, thoughtless, insensate killing for the mere pleasure of shooting seemed their purpose. Higher and higher the Mexican hunters climbed, following the doomed sheep up to the ridges. Once over them and -- --

With a great bitter cry of rage at the sickening insatiate greed of it, Hano rose to his feet, snatched Niltci's rifle from his hands and emptied it in rapid shots. He sent bullets whistling among the hunters up in the crags, then shot down horses among that group closely packed in the Pass below them. Dashing down the empty weapon with a curse of rage, he bounded down through the mesquite and was lost to sight. Niltci, himself overwhelmed with indignant sympathy over this useless slaughter of wild life, had not interfered with Hano and he now picked up the rifle and reloaded it.