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But the cows were tame, some of them being in milk, and we had not much trouble in keeping them near home. The bull would not wander far from the cows, and we drove them up and yarded them, with a good feed of fresh koraka, every now and then. Besides the cattle we introduced some pigs, fowls, and a dog or two.
"Why are there so few deer tracks now?" "Deer yarded for winter," replied the Indian; "no travel in deep snow." "We'll soon need another," said Rolf, which unfortunately was true. They could have killed many deer in early winter, when the venison was in fine condition, but they had no place to store it. Now they must get it as they could, and of course it was thinner and poorer every week.
A click of Five Bob's jaws and the dough was gone. "Clean into his liver!" said the old man with a faint smile. He washed up the tinware in the water the duff had been boiled in, and then, with the assistance of the dog, yarded the sheep. This accomplished, he took a pick and shovel and an old sack, and started out over the ridge, followed, of course, by his four-legged mate.
As for young Dick Tregarvis, he got four years for perjury; so they'll be jist about lettin' him out now, if he's got the good-conduct remission. "Beast changed?" suggested Thompson. "Yes. That was the idear. Some different dodge next time. Changed jist at dusk, an' shot the minit after. I had the station bullock all ready, before ever Tregarvis's one was yarded.
This meant that the trading was over, and that the trappers and hunters, white and red, were either getting ready to go or had gone northward into the wilderness, where might be had during the winter the skins of dangerous animals bears, wolves, catamounts, and lynx and where moose and deer could be chased and yarded over the crust, not to refer to smaller furred beasts to be taken in traps.
The moose 'yarded' there like hell last year, and for all we know they may be doin' it agin this year jest to spite us." Défago, keeping his eyes on the fire, said nothing by way of reply. He was still offended, possibly, about his interrupted story. "No one's been up that way this year, an' I'll lay my bottom dollar on that!" Hank added with emphasis, as though he had a reason for knowing.
And often there are miles and miles of this before the welcome clearing comes in view. What is the condition of a stockman after he has brought up his mob and yarded it for the night? He has walked and run and scrambled, perhaps, twenty or thirty miles during the day, and that not over a plain road, but through the rough and hilly forest. He is totally tired out and exhausted.
He would ramble on by the hour about the things around us; about the trees, the birds, and squirrels; of the way the muskrats lived by the sawmill dam, and their cleverness in avoiding his traps; about the deer that "yarded" back of Taft's Knob last winter, and their leanness in the spring.
The boys expected their drover friend to be as excited as they were, but he had seen cattle yarded so many hundreds of times that he took things very coolly. He first made sure that the troughs were full of water, and that the valves were working properly, and then fixed the stock-yard gates ready for receiving the cattle.
And when Joe stirred him up rattled a piece of rock on his jaw that nearly knocked his head off Dad took after Joe and chased him through the potatoes, and out into the grass-paddock, and across towards Anderson's; then returned and yarded the colt, and knocked a patch of skin off him with a rail because he would n't stand in a corner till he looked at his eye.
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