Part 16 (1/2)

”But the sheep, Jim?” and the woman looked anxiously out on the range.

”We can't leave them all alone, you better let me make the ride by myself and you stay here, for I can get through all right.”

Stanley shook his head. ”Not for all the sheep in the world would I let you go alone.” He kissed her cheeks.

”But Jim,” she pleaded, ”it's too much to risk and I'll make it without a bit of trouble.”

The boy was just turning the point of a little hill near camp driving before him the two horses hobbled out the night before. Stanley pointed to him. ”Dummy can turn the trick all right enough, he's the best herder in this whole range for his age, and he'll get 'em through if any one can. He's only a boy, but he has a lot of good horse-sense and if the weather holds out he'll work the herd from here to the winter range and not lose a sheep.”

”But we'll take the team with us; how can he move camp?” and she glanced at the big roomy camp wagon.

”That saddle pony of mine will carry all the grub and bedding he'll need and the wagon can stand right here till some of us can get back and haul it away.”

The man hung a nose bag full of oats on each horse, saddling them as they ate, and while he was getting out the pack outfit, food, and other supplies for the boy, she was writing his instructions on the slate, supplemented by many signs and motions which he read as easily as the written words. He was to stay in this camp two or three days longer, then pack the pony with his camp outfit and drift the sheep slowly toward the winter range seventy-five miles below.

”Take plenty of food,” she wrote, ”for it may be ten days before some one gets out to relieve you. You know the way, don't you?”

Dummy nodded eagerly. He had come up with the sheep in the spring and knew every camp and bed-ground on the trail.

”Don't you worry about him,” Stanley told his wife, when she again spoke of the danger of leaving the boy all alone. ”He's short two good ears, that's sure, but he more than makes up for them in gumption and common-sense. If it don't come on to storm, he'll make it through all right and by the time he gets there I'll have a man ready to relieve him, if I'm not there myself.”

”And if it does storm,” he continued, ”he'll probably do just about as well as any one else, for out here, if it comes on a blizzard, all the best man in the world could do would be to let the sheep drift before it till they strike shelter.”

Fifteen minutes later, the boy watched them ride out of sight, over a ridge near camp. As the two figures were lost to view he turned toward the wagon and took a short survey of his surroundings. Out on the range twelve hundred ewes were peacefully grazing with no hand but his to guide and protect them; what a chance to show the stuff in him! Deep down in his heart he hoped that the man who was to come out from the railroad to relieve him would be delayed for many days. It would give him a chance to make good and show his worth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”_Out on the range 1200 ewes were grazing_”]

For three days Dummy led an uneventful life. The dog was recovering from his wounds, the sheep were doing well, and he had shot another rascally coyote that came skulking about the camp one evening.

On the fourth day the sky was overcast with heavy clouds that seemed threatening and, as the feed near camp was about gone, he decided it was time to be moving. In two hours he was off, the dog limping along by his side, the herd slowly grazing their way across the range.

As a precautionary measure he led the pack horse lest old ”Slippers”

take it into his head to desert him. That night Dummy made camp under the lee of some small hills where a few scattered cedars offered fire-wood and shelter. The sun had set in an angry sky, there was a strange feeling in the air, and the sheep seemed to sense an approaching storm.

He bedded them down in the most sheltered spot he could find, set up his little miner's tent close to a cedar and, after cooking his supper, took the dog into the tent, tied the flaps and slept as only a tired boy of his age can sleep.

The tent was lit with the dim gray of early dawn, when the dog's cold nose on his face awoke him, and he was soon outside, opening up the fire hole he had carefully covered the night before. The wind was blowing a gale while overhead the sky was that dull leaden color that in the range country means snow.

Late that afternoon he worked the sheep toward a line of low cliffs that cut across the prairie and bedded them down in their lee, finding for himself a snug overhanging shelf of rock, under which he placed his camp outfit, and cooked his first meal since daylight.

Dummy dared not hobble out his horse in such a night, but after giving him a small feed of grain he had brought from the wagon, staked the animal in a little gra.s.sy wash near camp.

By dark the snow began to fall heavily and he knew that for him and his woolly companions the morrow would be full of new troubles.

Lost to all sounds of the storm, the lad sat before the little campfire under the overhanging rock and watched the snow drive before the wind.

With the confidence of one born and raised amid such conditions, Dummy rather enjoyed the prospect of a struggle against the elements. His parents were Basques from the Spanish Pyrenees, a st.u.r.dy dependable race that for centuries have been sheepherders in their own land. Every winter, from the open ranges of the West, come tales of ”basco”

sheepherders facing death in the storms, rather than desert their herds.

Their devotion to their woolly charges, good judgment in handling them and loyalty to their employers' interests, even unto death, is recognized all over the western range country, until the name ”basco”

stands for the best in sheepherders.