The Story of Wool Part 16

"What a funny idea!" Donald said.

"Yes, isn't it? You see sheep recognize their young merely by scent. The power of smell is remarkably keen in all sheep. They can tell their babies no other way. We do not want any of the ewes grieving because they have no lamb--they do grieve, poor things--so we have to fool them a little. It is a fair thing to do because the ewes with twins do not need two. They are just as happy with one," explained Sandy.

"And now you will have a big, big flock to take care of, won't you, Sandy?"

"Aye! There is much more to do now. I am glad you have come back, Don, for I can put you to work."

"You must put me to work also, Sandy," Mr. Clark observed, smiling.

Sandy shook his head.

"Well, I reckon not. It would be a fine thing for me to be asking a gentleman like you to put your hand to anything, now wouldn't it!"

Evidently the idea amused the herder.

"Why not?" Mr. Clark asked seriously. "I am used to putting my hand to much hard work when I am at home. Everybody in this world works one way or another. Some of us work with our heads, some with our hands; but so long as it is all honest, helpful work and we do it the best we can, we are all on equal footing, Sandy. Now if you were in my office in Boston I might be teaching you kinds of work that would be new to you; here you can teach me. Try and forget everything, and just consider me a person who is interested in sheep and wants to learn about them. Let me join Donald in helping all I can."

"I'll take you at your word then, sir, since you urge me. I'm no denying it will make matters simpler. There is enough to do--more than enough, and extra help will be welcome. Luigi will be going down with the ponies, I suppose, sir."

"Yes, he is to take them back, and stay and aid Thornton at the ranch."

"Then you will have a place to fill right away, Mr. Clark. Some of the men who have been helping have gone down already, but I have kept Tobin and a couple of the Mexicans. Still it is no so easy to protect so many lambs from the coyotes. Lambing time is their great feasting season. A coyote is a mean creature, sir. Yet despise 'em as you may you cannot help admiring their cunning. There is no smarter animal alive than a coyote!"

"Tell us about them."

Sandy dropped down on a rock beside Mr. Clark and Donald.

"A coyote, as of course you know, is a wee bit wolf, about the size of a fox, and there is no feed he enjoys so well as a young lamb. Coyotes seem to know when the lambs come and they make ready to raid the flocks.

You'd think folks would be bright enough to catch 'em, but there ain't wit enough in the world to get ahead of them. They're the cutest! The tricks a coyote will invent, sir, pa.s.s belief. In spite of the fact this pasture is fenced with coyote-proof wire the creatures manage to get in--goodness only knows how."

"Have they bothered you much, Sandy?"

"Have they! Haven't we built fires round the herd every night and patrolled the whole distance, back and forth, until light? Luigi, Bernardo, Carlos, and I have been on our feet from twilight until sunrise, tramping like sentinels; yet with all our care we have lost six lambs already. Six is not many when you consider the numbers some herders lose, still it is just six too many. So you see if Luigi goes down over the trail to-day with the ponies we can find work for you and Donald to-night."

"Oh, I think it will be great fun to patrol!" cried Donald.

"Think you so? Well, mayhap you will find it sport, since you haven't been doing it night after night for two weeks, lad."

Donald regarded him good-naturedly.

"There will be plenty of work waiting you by day, too," Sandy went on.

"Just now we are busy inserting the flock mark in the ear of each lamb--a metal b.u.t.ton with a crescent on it. The next ranch to ours is Anchor Ranch, and their herd is marked with an anchor, while down beyond lies Star Ranch. It behooves us to keep close track of our herds and mark them carefully. Then in addition to the marking we must dock the tails of the lambs lest they become foul; and we must record every lamb.

We have a book where we enter the number of the mother and opposite it the number of her lamb. That is the way we keep track of the breeds."

"Why, I had no idea you had so many things to do, Sandy," said Donald.

"It is almost as bad as taking the census."

"It is, and it all has to be done correctly, too. You can look up in the books the history of every sheep we have at Crescent Ranch. The pure breed lambs have to be registered with the Breed Secretary, you know."

"Sheep-raising seems to lead from one thing into another," reflected Donald. "In the East none of us ever think of all that the wool goes through before it is made into clothes for us."

"It is better than any story," was Sandy's reply. "Herders get tired of it sometimes, but I never do. Sheeping is in my blood, I reckon. What with herding and trailing the flock, what with bears, and bob-cats, and cougars, and coyotes--I dinna see how it would ever be dull."

"That is because you love your work, Sandy," said Mr. Clark.

"I do. Take me from the ranch, sir, and blindfold me even, and I verily believe I'd find my way back again. Now a bit more about the coyotes. If you are to be of help you must hear all I can tell you so that you will know the better how to fight 'em. Sometimes they'll yelp like a dog and trick you into thinking your own collies are in trouble; but do not trust them. 'Twill be no collies but themselves that are barking. Again they will cheat you into believing that they are far away, so gentle will be their cry; that is to throw you off the track. Or they will bark in two keys as if there were twice as many of them as there really are.

They are the canny ones! Then when you pick up your gun and go where you think they are, they will no be there; 'twill be at a different spot they are at work."

"Well, Don," said Mr. Clark, "I do not see but you and I have something ahead of us. I am afraid we shall be of very little help, Sandy. Why, one ought to be an expert to catch such a gamester as a coyote!"

"Then you're no grudging us the loss of six lambs, Mr. Clark."

"I do not see how you did so well--to lose only six in a great flock like this!"

"But even so, sir, I was that wrathful when I found I had been outwitted I could have cried. You see six or seven coyotes put their heads together, as they have a way of doing, and cut a group of lambs off from the herd--got between them and the flock. It took the dogs to drive 'em away. Robin and the Prince are great fighters, and Colin is not far behind. Before we got rid of them, though, we had lost three lambs. The next time they tried a different trick: part of them barked and drew the dogs to a corner of the pasture, and then the rest came down on the unprotected end of the fold and carried away three more lambs."

"Is there nothing that will stop them?" asked Donald.

"We have tried many things. Some herders put strychnine in the carca.s.ses of dead lambs and poison a few of the coyotes; most of them are too clever to be caught that way, though. The government has also killed many. Perhaps to-night, Don, you may have a share in the good work. But I warn you do not send a bullet through one of my dogs, thinking his barking is the yelp of one of these range thieves."

"Indeed I'll be careful," Donald promised, as he sprang up and ran to the edge of the rimrock to wave a good-bye to Luigi, who was disappearing round a curve of the trail.

"The lad is happy as a king here on the range, Sandy," Mr. Clark remarked.

"He takes to it as if he had been bred on the hills, sir."

"I wish he might like the work well enough to go into the business with me some time."

"There is no telling. He is but young yet. When he is old as I, mayhap he may choose to settle down and be a wool-grower."

"How old are you, Sandy?"

"I should be near thirty, sir, I'm thinking, though I haven't always had a birthday cake out here on the hills," was the whimsical reply.

"Thirty! A rare age for such a level head as yours!"

"I dinna ken about the head, Mr. Clark. My father used to say it was the heart that counted most. Now what say you to a basin of hot lentil soup?" inquired the Scotchman, changing the subject. "You and Donald must be hungry."

"I believe we are. Let us go down to the tent. I see Donald there already, building the fire."

After having eaten a hearty meal they left the flock which was resting or grazing near by in charge of the dogs, and Mr. Clark, Donald, and the men turned in to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours' sleep in antic.i.p.ation of the long watch before them.

It was deep twilight when they awoke.

Sandy shook Donald by the shoulder.

"We must be up and away, laddie," he said, as the boy turned drowsily.

"It's a man's work--real work you're doing here; you are no playing sheep-raiser. Rouse your father, s.n.a.t.c.h a bit of bread, and come and help me set the watch-fires. See, the Mexicans are already ahead of us."