The Story of Wool Part 6

Down, both of you!"

The collies crouched at his feet.

"I never can speak to one without speaking to the other," he went on.

"They are jealous as magpies."

"They are the finest dogs I ever saw, Sandy."

"I pride myself there are not many like them," agreed the herder. "I raised them from puppies and trained them myself. Now Colin, who also goes with me when I go to the hills, is a good dog, but he is not my own. He belongs to the ranch. So do Victor and Hector. You never feel the same toward them as you do with those you have brought up yourself.

Robin and Prince Charlie are not to be matched in the county. But to see them at their best you must see 'em on the range."

"I wish I could!"

"So it's to the range you'd be going, is it? Well, well--belike when the herds are made up and we set out your father will let you go up into the hills a piece with me."

"Oh, Sandy," cried the boy, "would you take me? Do you suppose father would let me go?"

"'Twill do no harm to ask him. I must wait, though, until I see the other herders off, and until Thornton is back from Glen City. The flocks must have a few days' rest after the dipping. Poor things! It is a sorry time they have being dipped in that hot bath just after they have lost their thick, warm coats; it makes them more chilly than ever.

Then, too, they sometimes get small cuts while they are being sheared and the lime and sulphur makes the bruises smart. I am always sorry for the beasties. Yet after all I comfort myself with thinking that it is better they should be wretched for a little while than to be sick for a long while. It is like sitting in a dark room when you have the measles--you do not like it but you know you will be worse off if you don't do it."

Sandy laughed and so did Donald.

"Then it will be several days before you start for the range, Sandy."

"Yes. I must wait for Thornton. I can't leave your father here alone. He might want me."

"You have been a great help to my father, Sandy."

"It's little enough I've done. I would do a good sight more if the need came. A McCulloch would do anything in his power for Crescent Ranch or its owners."

"I believe you, Sandy."

"You do well to believe me, lad, for I speak the living truth!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER IV

SANDY GIVES DONALD A LESSON

During the next few days preparations for the range went steadily forward.

Most of the herders had been so long at Crescent Ranch that they knew exactly what to do. It was an ancient story to men who had worked under Old Angus and Johnson.

To Donald, however, everything was new. From morning to night he trotted after Sandy until one day the young Scotchman remarked with a mischievous smile:

"You put me verra much in mind of one of my collies--I declare if you don't!"

The boy chuckled.

"It is all so different from anything I ever saw before, Sandy. I am finding out so many things! Why, until yesterday I thought sheep were just sheep--all of them the same kind. Father mentioned Merinos, and I supposed they were all Merinos."

"Well! Well! And so you have found out that they are not all the same kind? How many kinds have you learned about, pray?"

Donald took Sandy's banter in good part.

"You needn't laugh, Sandy," he said. "Lots and lots of our sheep are Merinos, aren't they?"

"Aye, laddie. Merinos are a good sheep for wool-growing. They are no so bonny--having a wrinkled skin and wool on their faces; they are small, too. But their coat is fine and long, and they are kindly. The American Merinos are the best range sheep we have, because they are so hardy and stay together so well. Some sheep scatter. It seems to be in their blood to wander about. Of course you can't take sheep like that on the range.

They would be all over the state."

"I should think it would be a great bother to cut the wool from a Merino when he is so wrinkly," suggested Donald thoughtfully.

"You show your wit--it is a bother. It takes much longer to clip them than it does a smooth-skinned sheep. Besides, their fleece is heavy, for it contains a great deal of oil--or as we call it, yolk. But have done with Merinos. What others did you learn about?"

"One of the herders told me about the Delaine Merinos and showed me the long parallel fibers in their wool; he also pointed out a French Merino, or--or--a----"

"Rambouillet!" laughed Sandy. "I was waiting to hear you twist your tongue around that word. It took me full a week to learn to say it, and even now I never say it in a hurry. We have many a French Merino here; they belong, though, to quite a different family from the other Merinos.

You will find them a much larger sheep, and their wool coa.r.s.e fibered.

They are great eaters, these French Merinos."

"Like me!" cried Donald.

"Verra like you!" agreed Sandy. "But it is no so easy filling them up.

Why, they will eat a whole hillside in no time. They can beat you, too, on staying out in all sorts of weather. Here in Idaho we generally have fairly mild winters, so our sheep can be out all the year round. We have a few shacks down in the valley where we can shelter them if we have cold rains during the season. They feed down there along the river, eating sage-brush and dried hay from fall until spring. It is often scant picking, but if it is too scant we give them grain, alfalfa hay, or sometimes pumpkins."

"Why, I never dreamed they stayed out all winter!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Donald, opening his eyes.

"In a state where it is as mild as this one they can. Then in the spring when the shearing, dipping, and all is done, we start for the range. We never go, though, until the sun has baked the gra.s.s a while, for if the herd crops too early the sheep pull at the new shoots that are just taking hold in the soil and up they come--roots and all. Then in future you will have no gra.s.s--just bare ground. Very early gra.s.s is bad for sheep, too."

"What do people do where there are no ranges, Sandy?"

"Their sheep are kept in great fenced-in pastures and fed from troughs or feeding racks. They have alfalfa hay, turnips, rape, kale, corn, pumpkins and grain. The range sheep are the hardiest, though. Sheep were made to climb and scramble over rocky places, and they are stronger and healthier for doing it."

"I'd rather be a range sheep!" declared Donald.

"And I!" agreed Sandy promptly. "But you're no through telling me about the sorts of sheep you learned about. Didn't anybody tell you about the Cotswolds?"

Donald shook his head.

"Oh, that's a sad pity. They are such big, grand fellows with their white faces and white legs. And dinna forget the Lincolns. You will have no trouble in knowing a Lincoln. They are the heaviest sheep we have, and their wool is long. A Lincoln is handsome as a painting; in fact I'd far rather have one than some of the paintings I've seen. You want to get sight of one when its fleece is full! We have a scattering, too, of Leicesters and Dorset Horns, but the Dorsets are such fighters that I dinna care much for them. They will even attack the dogs."

"I never heard of sheep doing that!"

"Now and again they will, but not often."