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For Dad Frazer was a loquacious sheepherder, an exception among the morose and silent men who follow that isolated calling upon the lonely range. He talked to the dogs when there was nobody by, to the sheep as he scattered them for an even chance between weak and strong over the grazing lands, and to himself when no other object presented.
"Strange what he was doing up there in the mountains with an automobile alone," the doctor remarked. "Oh, he might have wanted a day's fishing, or was taking a look at cattle or range, something like that," Johnson stated. "Mr. Weir said a sheepherder found him. Wasn't that it, sir?" The engineer turned to the rancher. "Wasn't that the way of it?" "Yes.
There arrived in town, obedient to the summons of Heart's Desire, the dusty buckboard driven by Willie the sheepherder. Upon the front seat with him was Mr. Ellsworth; on the back seat sat Porter Barkley and Constance. The chief actors in the impending drama were now upon the stage, and all Heart's Desire knew that action of some sort must presently follow.
The hand of Big Medicine jerked back to his hip; but, quick as he was, the Native Son plunged between him and the tent before he could take aim. "Steady, amigo," smiled Miguel. "You aren't a crazy sheepherder." "No, but I'm goin' to kill off one. Git outa my way!" Big Medicine was transformed into a cold-eyed, iron-jawed fighting machine. He dug the spurs in, meaning to ride ahead of Miguel.
They continued to gaze, silent, rigid, watchful, peering narrowly against the morning sunlight. Presently the figure reappeared, lower against the gray background, moving slowly as before, evidently crouching. Lower it came, quarter down the slope, half-way, then again disappeared. Johnson broke the tense silence. "Sheepherder!" he snapped, and turned savage eyes back upon Jim.
He, the trusted henchman, was bearing to her a missive regarding whose nature he now experienced sudden misgivings. Suppose Willie, the sheepherder, had not, after all, been able to meet the requirements of a situation so delicate and so important! Curly had known the plains and the mountains all his life.
"The main thing I remember in the transaction was the stone he set up between the old man and himself on the range. 'The Lord watch between thee and me, you know, it had on it. That's a mighty good motto yet for a sheepherder to front around where his boss can read it. A man's got to have somebody to keep an eye on a sheepman when his back's turned, even today."
Nippers and I had been separated he staying aft, while I took up my bunk forward. But the men on the boat, the few that stick in my memory as distinct personages: There was the bloated, fat Scotch boy, whom we called just Fatty, a sheepherder by calling. He had signed on for the trip, to take care of the sheep on the upper deck; There was a weak, pathetic cockney, who died of sun-stroke;
"The po-oo-or soul! Is there any way I could talk to him?" "I was hopin' you'd say that, but I didn't like to ask you, seein' as he's a sheepherder." "They're human beings, Clarence," reproved Mrs. Taylor.
The two sat, still watching Willie as he came rambling aimlessly up the street, staring from side to side in his vacant fashion. "A sheepherder, as you know, Curly," went on Tom, "has three stages in his game. For a while he's human. In a few years, settin' round on the hills in the sun, a-watchin' them damned woolly baa-baa's of his, he gets right nutty. He sees things.
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