CHAPTER VIII
The sheep, having several times broken the silence of the dawn, were growing impatient to be let out. Now that the sun had appeared and the bars were not let down, there was unanimous expression of opinion in the corral, an old wether stamping his foot sternly and leading the chorus with a doleful note. It was very much as if he had put the question and they had all voted "aye." What was the matter with the man who was running this part of the world?
Steve Brown was otherwise engaged. He was sitting on the ground behind the storm-shed with a lamb in his lap. He was trying to remove from its back the pelt of another lamb which had been neatly fitted on over its own. This was a trick on the mother of the dead lamb intended to get her to care for the present lamb, who was an orphan; which is to say, the extra pelt was the lamb's meal-ticket, and she had given him several meals on the evidence of smell. The deception had worked all the more readily because she had not had time to become familiar with her own lamb's voice; and now that a sort of vocal relationship had been established between the two, things promised to go along naturally, with probably a little insistence upon the lamb's part.
In accordance with the usual practice in such cases, the pelt, with head and legs removed, had been fastened on by means of holes cut at the corners, through which the live one's legs were inserted, care being taken to leave on the tail, which part, when a lamb is nursing, is most convenient to smell.
As Steve Brown was not used to this sort of tailoring, he had made rather too close a fit of it, and now that it was dried up at the edges and slightly shrunk, he found difficulty in removing it. Seeing, upon further effort, that he could not get it off without risk of straining the lamb's anatomy, he laid the problem across his knees again and searched his pockets for his knife. He had felt for it, not very thoroughly, before. The knife seemed to be lost.
Janet, awakened by the clamor in the pen, arose from the bunk and set to work arranging her hair. Rather drowsily she moved about through the rifts of sunshine which beamed from the cracks; then, as she realized what a golden day the sun was weaving, she put her eye to a crack and looked out. In her elongated picture of things there were several miles of prairie, the sun just edge-to-edge with the horizon, and any amount of blue sky above. In the sky were some birds soaring at a great height. Smaller birds went skimming over the prairie,—now a golden meadowlark, then a darker scissortail snipping the air off behind it in swift flight. Suddenly, and rather precipitately, there came from around the corner of the storm-shed a lamb in full action. Its gait was as effective as it was erratic; it looked very much as if the legs were running away with it.
From the corner of the shed it made a joyous gambol in the direction of the fire and the steaming kettle, from which point it made for the down-slope of the knoll. Steve Brown, whose legs were none too long for the race, came running after. A moment later the dog arrived on the scene; he made a sudden dash and performed his part in a most creditable manner, overtaking the lamb and upsetting it with a poke of his nose. The lamb, not at all disconcerted by the tumble, which was only a variation of its method of progress, came over on its knees and rose at once to go ahead; but the delay had been sufficient. Steve caught up; and the next instant, the truant, feeling the ground removed from under it, hung helpless across the hand of its captor.
"Je-e-emima!" Steve remarked. "You 're feeling awful glad this morning."
Janet, who could not see the end of this performance, but only that part of it which came within range of the crack, stepped back in surprise. As who would not be surprised to see a black lamb with a white head and white legs, and two tails. Such being the result of her prying upon the world, she turned her attention to her toilet again and made haste to go out and see whether her eyes had deceived her.
In the mean time Steve, not being able to find the knife, stood with the lamb in his arms and bent the whole force of his mind upon the problem of its whereabouts. Suddenly he remembered that he had last used it in front of the shack to put the pelt on the lamb. Naturally, it was still there. Having it again, he sat down near the fire-hole, where he could keep an eye on the kettle, placed the lamb on his lap and opened the blade. He had just got to work on one of the legs when the door opened and his guest made her appearance. He rose at once to pay his respects, the lamb in one hand and his hat in the other.
"Good-morning, Miss Janet."
"Good-morning, Mr. Brown. It is a very beautiful day, is n't it?"
"First-class," he replied. "I 'm just doing a little work on this lamb. I guess you know him; he 's the one you saw when you first came."
"What! The one that stepped in the sugar bowl?"
"Yes, that's him. He doesn't look exactly natural, does he? I had to make some changes in him. You see his mother did n't think she wanted any lamb. But another sheep had one that died and I could see she wanted a lamb, so that was an opening for this fellow. And I had to fix him up so that she 'd take him."
"What a funny thing to do," said Janet.
"Is n't it! Do you wonder that sheep-herders go crazy? Just wait a minute, Miss Janet, and I 'll have this off of him."
He sat down again with the lamb in his lap. Turning it over on its back he set to work on the hind legs. Janet, becoming interested, stooped down beside him. She patted the infant on its high forehead.
"And did n't the other sheep want to adopt him?" she asked.
"Oh, no. Sheep don't believe in charity."
"And won't even have their own sometimes! Is n't that strange!"
"Some of them seem to be built that way, especially if it is their first one. But that sheep did n't have much milk anyway, and maybe she thought he might as well die. If it had n't been for that I would have tried to make her take him. But I saw the other sheep could do better by him."
"There is really a great deal to think of, is n't there?" said Janet, lending a hand to the operation by catching hold of a too active hind leg. "But I don't see how you could fool her that way. Could n't she see that this lamb had a white head? And white legs? And an extra tail?"
"Oh, they don't go by looks," he explained. "They go by smell. And later on by voice, too. Appearances don't count."
"The idea! You seem to know all about them."
"Not much," he said. "I 'm no sheep-man."
"But anyway, you do get along with them."
"If they were my sheep," he answered, "and I was n't responsible for them, I would n't be so particular. Especially with this one; he has been a lot of trouble. As far as money goes—he is n't worth over fifty cents—I would have let him die."
"Oh, no-o-o-o!" protested Janet, lending further assistance with the pelt.
"But after I had carried him around with me all day I got to feeling responsible for him."
"A person naturally would," said Janet.
"And besides," he added, holding the lamb upright while she, with her more skillful fingers, removed the fore legs from the armholes of the pelt, "a fellow sort of hates to lose the first one, you know."
Janet, finding the lambskin left on her hands, examined it curiously, running her fingers over the soft black wool.
"What shall I do with this, Mr. Brown?"
"Oh, just throw it away. But no," he added, upon second thought, "I guess you had better keep that. It would be good for you to sit on."
Following this suggestion she took it to her "place" on the prairie and spread it down. Then, as he seemed to be waiting for her, she returned.
"Miss Janet, I guess you 'll want to wash up. The best I can offer you is the place down below the spring. You 'll find some soap down there in a cigar-box. The bank is a little steep for you to climb down, so I guess you had better go round and get in the front way. On your way around you 'll find a towel on a bush; it is pretty clean,—I washed it last night. And you 'd better take the lambskin along to kneel on."
Steve carried the lamb away to its breakfast. Janet took the pelt and followed his instructions, going down the slope and skirting round the base of the knoll till she came to where the stream issued forth.
The little gully was hardly more than a deep grass-grown ditch made by the spring as it won its way out of the heart of the knoll; or rather it was a green hallway, overtopped with a frieze of mesquite, leading in privately to the source of the stream. Janet, as she entered the house-like cosiness of this diminutive valley, felt very much as if she had just stepped in out of the universe. On a prairie there is such an insistent stare of space, so great a lack of stopping-place for the mind, that this little piece of outdoors, with the sun shining in at its eastern end, was a veritable snug-harbor in an ocean of land. As she turned and looked out of its sunny portal, she told herself that if she had to live in the shack this place would be her front yard.
Just below the spring was a grassy bank against which the water ran invitingly; she spread the lambskin here, rolled up her sleeves, took off her collar, and conformed to the customs of the place. The cool water was so invigorating, and there was something so intimate in the live push of the current against her hand, that she lathered her arms an unnecessary number of times and kept rinsing them off. It was a brisk little stream and so bent upon its business that she could almost feel its impatience when she obstructed it,—for which reason, probably, she interfered with it the more; and finally, being done, she made a little heap of foam in her palm and reached it down just to see the water run away with it.
As she came round to the sheep-path again, she met Steve, who had been standing on the side of the knoll and started down the moment he saw her. Evidently he had been waiting his turn.
"Breakfast is all ready," he announced as he passed. "I 'll be up in a minute."
By the time she reached the shack there was a great spluttering and splashing and blowing of water down below. It was Mr. Brown "washing up." In little more than the minute he was back again. Finding her seated upon the lambskin, he took his place opposite her and passed the hot bread.
"I saw you chasing that lamb this morning," she said, quite directly. "I was looking out of a crack to find what the weather was like."
"Did you? Did you see the dog throw him?"
"No; I couldn't see it all. But I saw how he had learned to use his legs. Why, it does n't seem possible."
"Oh, that's nothing. He's an old hand now—this is his third day on earth."
"Yes; but is n't he unusually smart?"
"Oh, no. They 've got to catch on pretty quick, you know, or they could n't keep up with the procession. He's just about like the rest of them. They all learn fast."
"But it hardly seems possible that such a helpless little thing as he was could learn so much. Why, when I first saw him he was just able to stand up."
"They're animals," replied Steve, spreading a thick coat of molasses on a large piece of hot bread. "It only takes them a few minutes to learn standing up?"
"But they do have to learn, don't they?"
"Oh, yes. They don't always get it right the first time. Lambs make mistakes the same as anybody else. But if they get started out right, with a good meal the first thing, and a warm sleep, they go ahead surprisingly. The trouble with them at first is that they are a little weak."
"I don't suppose, then, that a lamb can get right up and follow the flock?" she queried.
"Oh, no. That would be expecting too much. They can toddle around pretty well in a few hours; but they could n't really travel till they've had time to grow strong."
Janet paused in her questioning. She spent a few moments reflecting upon the information gained thus far.
"Then I can't understand, Mr. Brown, how you can herd those sheep and take care of the lambs too. You surely can't carry them all?"
"That 's just what the trouble is," he answered. "I guess that Harding must be drunk. If he doesn't get back soon and bring help it's likely to get serious."
"And what will you do?"
"You see, Miss Janet," he said, laying down knife and fork for a formal statement of the difficulty, "when you 're grazing a bunch of sheep and one of them drops a lamb she stays right there with it. That is, she does if she is one of the natural kind. Pretty soon the flock has gone on and she is left behind. After a while another has a lamb and she drops out and is left behind. And so on. So there ought to be somebody to take them back to the corral. But of course the lambs can't travel. They 've got to be carried."
"How long do you suppose that man will take—at the farthest?"
"He ought to be back now. He may come any time. If I only knew he was coming before night I would know how to manage. I would go right along and leave the wet-lambs and their mothers stringing along behind; then when he came with help he could get them in for the night. They would be all right to stay out on the prairie for a while—all except those whose mothers did n't care for them. But I would do that; and those whose mothers did n't stick to them would have to die."
"Oh, that would be such a shame!" Janet's eyes opened wide as she contemplated this state of affairs. "And how about the ones who had mothers? Would it be all right if they had to stay out on the prairie till the next day?"
"No-o-o-o—it would hardly do to leave lambs scattered around on the prairie all night even if their mothers were with them. Coyotes would get them."
"Oh, dear! Don't you think, Mr. Brown, that that man is quite certain to get back sometime to-day?"
"I don't see how he can stay away much longer. He knows mighty well he has my horse, too. He might come along any time."
For a while they ate in silence.
"Miss Janet," he said suddenly, "I don't think you had better start out alone again. When he gets back with my horse and I am free of this place, I can show you the road and see that you are all right. I would feel more satisfied that way."
"Well, then, couldn't I be of some assistance—if I stay?"
"Oh, that is n't necessary. I 'll get along somehow. I don't suppose, though, that you 'd care to sit here alone at the shack; so maybe you 'd better come along with me. And if you want to drop behind once in a while and help a lamb out, why, of course you can. You seem to be pretty handy with them."
This plan was adopted. When breakfast was over he let down the bars; the sheep poured forth; Shep sprang to life and barked orders right and left. The crowding multitude spread out on the prairie in grazing order, and when Shep had executed certain commands necessary to get them headed in the right direction, the trio of caretakers began their slow progress through the day. Shep, subject to orders, followed at Steve's heels; Janet walked at his right hand; thus they wandered along in the desultory manner of the sheep-herder, standing a while, sitting down a while, advancing now and then as the flock grazed farther away.
"There's number one," Steve remarked casually.
