Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway

by Effie Price Gladding

As we came into Rawlins we saw Elk Mountain rising nobly on the horizon beyond us. When we left Rawlins and traveled toward it, it grew more imposing.

Instead of going on to Arlington, directly under the shadow of Elk Mountain, we elected to turn off to Medicine Bow, made famous by Owen Wister's book, "The Virginian." Elk Mountain rises 12000 feet, and Medicine Bow is 6500 feet, above sea level. It is only a railroad station, a tiny cluster of saloons, a still smaller cluster of shops, a big shearing shed, and a substantial stone hotel called The Virginian.

The landlady of The Virginian told us that their hotel is always full of guests.

It is a busy place. Here the woolmen come to trade and to export their wool, here the sheepmen bring their sheep for the annual shearing. Nearly sixty thousand sheep are shorn annually in the shearing shed, a few minutes' walk from the hotel. Here the plainsmen come from time to time to throw away in a few hours of drinking and gambling the money earned in months spent in the open.

We had an excellent substantial lunch at the hotel and then went over to see the shearing. How hot and uncomfortable the poor sheep looked in the waiting pen, with their heavy fleeces weighing them down! They stood panting in the sun, their broad backs making a thick rug, so tightly were they wedged in together. And how half ashamed they looked when they came out from the shearing, thin and bare!

In this establishment the shearing is all done by machinery. It takes a skillful man to run these rapidly clicking shears over the animal's body and make no serious wound. The overseer told us that in the case of an inexperienced man the sheep would "fight him all over the pen." The shearer reaches out his right hand and grasps one of the three or four sheep that have been pushed into a little compartment from the main pens. The beasts stand stupidly huddled together. The shearer takes one by its left hind leg, and by a skillful twist he throws it on its back and pulls it toward him. Then he yanks it into a sitting position with its back against his knees. Bending over it he takes off first the thick coat of wool on its under-body from throat to tail. It looks very easy, but only skill can guide the shears through that thick mass of wool, taking it off so cleanly and thoroughly, and yet leaving the pink skin unbroken.

Next come the fore legs, then the hind legs, then the wool is trimmed from around the eyes and from the top of the head. The workman moves very carefully here. Then the sheep is righted and the wool is cut from its back and sides. It is interesting to see how quietly the animal submits to it all. Quickly it is all over and an attendant pushes the sheep through another aperture back into an outer pen. The men work very rapidly and a good shearer can easily handle one hundred sheep a day. Some expert shearers can handle nearly two hundred. These men are paid nine cents a head for their work.

It was a picturesque sight in the long, airy shed. Six men were handling their sheep, the clicking shears moving rapidly over the big animals. A boy gathered up the wool as fast as it dropped from the sheep. Later it would be sorted into its different grades. An important, happy sheep dog ran wildly about, eyes shining, tail wagging, his sharp nose lifted to his master's face. He seemed to be saying, "This is fine, master, but isn't there something that I could do at this moment?" The overseer stood at the end of the shed looking down the row of busy workers.

From Medicine Bow we came to Laramie, reaching there on the eve of the Fourth of July. Laramie boasts a good hotel which was crowded with people. Ranchmen had brought their families for the festivities of the Fourth. Tall cowboys lounged about, wearing their most ornamental tall boots, their best silk shirts, and brightest neckties. The streets in the evening were full of people, some on horseback, some walking. Confetti, those noise-makers known as "cluckers," and the miniature feather dusters called "ticklers," were all in evidence. Everybody was in good humour and in a mood of expectation.