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You had to band together in a pack, like a flock of sheep, with Carlsen for sheepherder. I'm talking," he went on in a tone that suddenly leaped to thunder. "None of you have got the brains of Carlsen, becoz he had to put this scheme inter yore noddles.
It proclaimed this travel-stained sheepherder in his faded overalls and peak-crowned limp-brimmed hat another of the incongruities of the far west. The sagebrush plains and mountains have held the secrets of many Mysteries locked in their silent breasts, for, since the coming of the White Man, they have been a haven for civilization's Mistakes, Failures and Misfits.
Here you are, wearin' a pearl handle on your gun, just like a cheap Nebraska sheepherder with social ambitions. I thought you was a real cowman. The court fines you " "It ain't my fault," said Curly, blushing. "The girl the little woman that's my wife she done that last Christmas. She allowed it was fine and it goes."
Then he stood outside, his hat in hand, violently mopping his brow. As he caught sight of the two laggards he beckoned them peremptorily. "O Lord!" moaned Tom Osby; "now here's what that sheepherder done to us, with his missive and his signet ring." Constance Ellsworth had grown deadly pale as she approached the dwelling. The open door let in upon a darkened interior.
"This is sure a sarcastic layout; dope enough here to cure all the sickness in Montana if a fellow knew enough to use it battering a hole in my leg you could throw a yearling calf into, and me wandering wild over the hills like a locoed sheepherder!
"No good reason then is there to keep me out?" "Except," darkly, "this climate isn't healthy for sheep." "Perhaps," gently, "I'm the best judge of that." "You'll keep on going, if you follow my advice." The tone was a threat. "I hardly ever take advice that's given unasked." "Well you'd better take this." The sheepherder looked at him speculatively, with no trace of resentment in his mild eyes.
"Anyhow, he shot up two of the boys and killed a horse for us before we got at him. We was out of ammunition I told you we didn't have enough. After we killed the woollies, and run off them two herders, we rid up the cañon. There was him, a-settin' in the door of his ole Kentucky home, with a Winchester that'd go off which it stands to reason couldn't have happened if he was a real sheepherder.
The fellow lounged down to the spring for a pan of water and lounged back to the house; the eternal Mexican cigaret in his lips sent its floating ribbon of smoke behind him. Ten minutes later the same man came out, this time to lie down on the ground under a tree. "Just one hombre," decided Kendric. "A lazy devil of a sheepherder.
He's seen a swimmin' picture of hand-painted palaces, and noble jukes, and stately dames out on the Nogal flats every day for eight years. That ain't lyin' that's imagination. "Now this feller's imagination is just about ripe. Usual, at the end of about seven years, a sheepherder goes plumb dotty, and we either have to shoot him, or send him to Leavenworth.
Kate's voice broke the short silence, "He said 'water, Mother." She spoke sharply, and with a curt inclination of her head to the sheepherder added, "The water barrel's at the back door, Mister. Come with me." Apparently this made his decision for him, for he followed the girl at once, while Jezebel with a shrug walked on with the horse.
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