"I'm huggin' love of sheep none," said the cowboy, "an' my mental picter of the lower regions is a place what smells strong of sheep. But I sure miss my throw on any idee as to how they could do up a forest of big trees."
"They do, just the same."
"How? Open her up, pard, an' explain. I'm listenin' mighty attentive."
"This way," began the boy, remembering some of the talks he had heard at the Ranger School. "When a dry year comes, if the sheep are allowed into the forest, the grass, which is poor because of the dryness, soon gets eaten down. Then the sheep begin to browse on the young shoots and seedlings, and even will eat the leaves off the young saplings that they can reach, thus destroying all the baby trees and checking the growth of those that are a little more advanced. When this goes on for two or three seasons all the young growth is gone. Since there are no saplings, no young shoots, and no seedlings, the forest never recovers, but becomes more like a park with stretches of grass between clumps of trees. Then, when these trees die, there are no others to take their place and the forest is at an end."
"How about cattle?"
"They're not nearly as bad. Cattle won't eat leaves unless they have to. And they don't browse so close, nor pack down the ground as hard with their hoofs. If there's grass enough to go round, cattle won't injure a forest much, but, of course, the grazing has got to be restricted or else the same sort of thing will happen that goes on when sheep are let in."
"Never knew before," said the boy's companion, "why I ought ter hate sheep. Jest naterally they're pizen to me, but I never rightly figured out why I allers threw them in the discard. Now I know. There's a heap of satisfaction in that. It's like findin' that a man you sure disagreed with in an argyment is a thunderin' sight more useful to the community dead than he was alive. It don't alter your feelin's none, but it helps out strong on the ensooin' explanations."
"Are there many sheep out here?"
"There's a tidy few. But it's nothin' like Montana. You ought ter get Rifle-Eye Bill to tell you of the old days o' the sheep an' cattle war. The debates were considerable fervent an' plenty frequent, an' a Winchester or two made it seem emphatic a whole lot."
"Was Rifle-Eye mixed up in it?"