United States or Ireland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He had seen the long rough scars on the backs of sheep-herders, stripped to the waist for the hot work of shearing. And he wondered how he would explain these strange scars to Julia. He imagined her discovering them with her long dainty hands, her round white arms. A great longing surged up in him that seemed to weaken the very tissues of his body.
Beasley 'll get plugged sooner or later. Thet won't help us any. Chasin' sheep-herders out of the country an' stealin' sheep thet ain't stealin' gurls by a long sight. Beasley 'll blame that on us, an' be greaser enough to send some of his men out to hunt us. For Pine an' Show Down won't stand thet long. There's them Mormons. They'll be hell when they wake up.
Several sheep-herders, who had arrived late to dip into the vanishing diversions of Comanche, and a few railroad men to whom pay-day had just supplied a little more fuel to waste in its fires, were in Hun Shanklin's tent when Dr. Slavens and his backer arrived. Shanklin was running off about the same old line of talk, for he was more voluble than inventive, and never varied it much.
If one struck a fence around a quarter-section here or there he either got out and cut the wire in two, or drove around the corner of the fence, depending upon how he felt about fences being in the way. No wonder sheep-herders went crazy, we thought, swallowed up by that sea of brown, dry grass, by the endless monotony of space.
It ran back into the range almost to the top of the main divide, forming a sort of natural pathway through the rugged mountains, a pathway much followed by the sheep-herders in driving their flocks from winter to summer range. There was no road, properly speaking.
"Don't lose your nerve; mebbe this ends the reign of terror." "Nothing will end the moral shiftlessness of this country but the death of the freebooter. You can't put new wine into old bottles. These cattle-men, deep in their hearts, sympathize with the wiping-out of those sheep-herders.
Whatever its basis may have been, Leander sustained the rôle of doubter with passionate zeal, wearing himself to tatters of rage and hoarseness over arguments maliciously contrived beforehand by cow-punchers and sheep-herders in need of amusement; and yet he never saw the traps, going out of his way, apparently, to fall into them, tumbling headlong into the identical pits time after time.
When the queer old wooden clock announced two we went to bed. I left quite early the next morning with my head full of Christmas plans. You may not know, but cattle-men and sheep-men cordially hate each other. Mr. Stewart is a cattle-man, and so I didn't mention my Christmas plans to him. I saved all the butter I could spare for the sheep-herders; they never have any.
For a long time the ranger sat on his horse, peering down into those ashes until at last it became evident to his eyes that at least two sheep-herders had been sacrificed on the cattle-man's altar of hate and greed. All about on the sod the story was written, all too plain. Two men, possibly three, had been murdered cut to pieces and burned not many hours before.
The Navajoes, who number about 22,000 and are in a fairly primitive state, having few schools or missionaries among them, are thrifty and successful sheep-herders and entirely self-supporting. The value of crops raised by Indians during the last fiscal year is estimated at more than four millions. In a word, the typical red man of to-day is a rancher on a large or small scale.
Word Of The Day