The Story of Wool Part 10

"Sandy is too proud to take everything for nothing, father."

"He is also too honest, son. Now go and get your camping traps together.

I expect by afternoon to have a telegram that will answer in place of permits until they can be mailed to us. As soon as they come you and Sandy can start off; and in case they do not come to-day I can send them after you by a mounted messenger. So I think you'd better set out anyway. Wear your tramping shoes and carry your sleeping-bag. You better ask Sandy if there is anything else he wants you to take."

Donald needed no second bidding.

He was in the highest of spirits.

An hour later and he had said good-bye to his father and Thornton, and was on his way to the range with Sandy McCulloch. At their backs a band of about two thousand sheep ambled along, the four dogs, Robin, Prince Charlie, Colin, and Hector, dashing in and out among them to keep the stragglers well in the path.

The trail Sandy was following led across the open fields and ascending gradually, made for the chain of low hills faintly outlined in the far-away blue haze. Beyond these hills loomed more distant mountains, their tops capped with snow. These mountains, Sandy told Donald, were the foot-hills of the Rockies.

It was quite evident that Sandy was now in his element. He swung along with slow but steady gait, carrying his pack easily and swinging his staff. His eye was alert for every movement of the flock. Now he would turn and draw some straying creature into place by putting his crook around one of its back legs. Sometimes he would motion the dogs to drive the herd along faster.

To an eastern-bred lad who had lived all his life in a city the scene was wonderfully novel. The great blue stretch of sky seemed endless. How still the country was! Had it not been for the m.u.f.fled tramp of hoofs, the low bleating of the herd, the flat-toned note of the sheep-bells, there would not have been a sound. The quiet of the day cast its spell everywhere. Sandy, who was usually chary enough of his words, preserved even a stricter silence. Although his lips were parted with a contented smile, only once did he venture to break the quiet and that was when he softly hummed a bar or two of "There Were Hundred Pipers"--a favorite song of his.

At last Donald, who was bubbling over with questions, could bear it no longer.

"Are you always so quiet, Sandy, when you go to the range?" he asked.

The Scotchman roused himself.

"Why, laddie, I was almost forgetting you were here! Aye, being with a flock is a quiet life. You have n.o.body to talk to on the range--n.o.body except the dogs; so you fall into the way of thinking a heap and saying but little. I like it. Some herders, though, find it a hard sort of existence. Many a man has sat alone day after day on the range, watching the sheep work their way in and out of the flock until in his sleep he could picture that sea of gray and white moving, moving, moving! It was always before him, sleeping or waking. It is a bad thing for a shepherd to get into that state of mind. We call it getting locoed."

"What does that mean?"

"You must know that on the hills grows a weed called loco-weed.

Sometimes the sheep find and eat it, and it makes them dull and stupid--you know how you feel when you take gas to have your teeth pulled. Yes? Well, it's like that. We never let the herd get it if we can help it, and if they do we drive them away from it. They will go right back again, too, and eat more if you do not watch them. That's what loco-weed is."

"And the shepherds?"

"When a man gets dull and stupid by being alone so much, and sees sheep all the time--even when his eyes are shut--the best thing he can do is to leave the range. Some folks can stand being alone, others can't. Why, I have known of herders being alone until they actually wouldn't talk--they couldn't. They didn't want to speak or be spoken to and were ready to shoot any one who came upon them on the range and disturbed them. Once I knew of a herder leaving a ranch because the boss said good-morning to him. He complained that things were getting too sociable."

"I should think the herders would like to see people when they are alone so much."

"Aye. Wouldn't you! But no. In Wyoming there is a law that no herder shall be sent out alone to tend flocks; men must go in pairs. More than that they must have little traveling libraries of a few books. The reason for that is to prevent them from sitting with their eyes fixed vacantly on the moving sheep all the time. It is a good law. Some time, likely, they will have it in all the states."

"I mean to tell father about it. We could do that at our ranch easily,"

said Donald. "Do you get lonely on the range, Sandy?"

"Nay, nay, laddie. It is many a year that I have been alone on the hills. I love it. There is always plenty to do. Sometimes I play tunes on my harmonica. Again I'll spend weeks carving flowers and figures on a staff. Then I have my dogs, and they are rare company. I sleep a good part of the day, you know, and watch the flock at night."

"But I should think you would sleep at night."

"I couldn't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because there is more danger to the sheep at night. It is then that the wild creatures steal down and attack the herds."

"Wild creatures?"

"Bears, bob-cats, cougars, and coyotes."

"On the range!" cried Donald.

"Where else?"

"But I never thought of such animals being on the range!" murmured the boy.

Sandy flashed him a smile.

"You're no in a city park here, laddie," he observed emphatically.

"There are all sorts of prowling creatures abroad at night. They are not after us--never fear. It is the poor, helpless sheep they are after."

"Do you suppose, Sandy, that I shall see a bear?" asked Donald, his eyes sparkling.

"Verra likely. For your sake I hope you may; for the sake of the herd I hope not. I have seen many on the range and have shot not a few. Down at the ranch I have a long chain made of bears' claws."

Donald's eyes opened wider and wider.

"I'd like to see a bear," cried he. "Just see him, you know--not have him hurt the sheep."

"Mayhap you'll get your wish."

Thus--now talking, now lapsing into big, silent pauses, Donald and Sandy jogged on. At sundown they stopped for the night near a water-hole and here the flock was refreshed by a draught from a clear mountain stream.

Then Sandy unpacked his saucepans, built a fire, and fried bacon which he laid--smoking hot--between two slices of bread. Was ever a meal so delicious, Donald wondered! Supper finished, the little portable tent was set up, more wood heaped on the fire, and the camp pitched for the night. Donald was tired out. After the sheep were bedded down around them, he crept only too gladly into his sleeping-bag and was soon oblivious of the range, the herd, and even Sandy himself.

When he awoke it was with a sense of being cramped within a small s.p.a.ce.

He opened his eyes. It took him a few moments to collect his wits and remember where he was. Ah, yes! Here was the little low tent over his head, and just outside blinked the embers of the fire where he and Sandy had cooked their supper.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY STOPPED FOR THE NIGHT]

He sat up softly and peered out into the night.

The country was flooded with moonlight in the brilliancy of which the ridges of the far-off hills stood out clearly; even the pool in the midst of the pasture caught the radiance and gleamed like a mirror. But amid all the beauty a subtle feeling of solitude oppressed him. It seemed as if he was the only being in the whole world.

Further out he leaned.

Then he started suddenly.

All that great sea of human creatures that had surrounded him when he went to sleep had vanished!

Not a sheep was to be seen.

Thoroughly alarmed, he turned.