Your usual Western shepherd is not a fighting man and cases have occurred in the bitter range wars where a herder has been shot down in cold blood unable to make a defense because of the grass growing out of his rifle.
Years alone in the brooding silence of the Sierra slopes or the obscure valleys of the northern Rockies take the virulence out of a man and make him placid and at one with nature. Into his soul there sinks something of the grandeur of cloud-hooded peaks, the majesty of limitless horizons and the colors of sky-blue water and greensward. With him strife is an unknown thing except for the strife of wits with another herder who would attempt to share a succulent mountain meadow.
Common report has it, and such writers as Emerson 206 Hough put it in their books, that a sheep-herder can scarcely follow his calling for seven years without going mad. On the other hand, those who have lived for years among the sheep declare that they have never seen a sheep-herder even mentally unbalanced.
Probably both are right, as is usual to a degree in all discussion; but the fact remained that, sane or insane, the herder was not a fighting man—something had gone out of him. Therefore in bringing men other than herders south with him, Jimmie Welsh had shown his cleverness. To fight riders he had brought riders, and these men now helped to direct the river of animals that flowed along over the dry plain.
There were two cook outfits to feed the men, one of which contained the incomparable Ah Sin, who had amply revenged himself on the herders for his warm reception at the camp.
That first night they marched ten miles, and, as before, found the water-holes polluted by the cattle which take delight in standing in the mud, and thus in a dry country work their own destruction by filling the springs.
The next day the sheep cropped fairly well, although the sun was terrific and no more water was discovered. Nightfall found them becoming 207 nervous and uneasy. They milled a long while before they bedded, and more of them than usual stood up to watch.
Not a rider had been seen all day. Through the baking glare there had moved a cloud of suffocating dust, and under it the thirsting, snorting, blethering sheep, with the dogs on the edges and the men farther out at regular intervals along the line.
After supper some of the men slept, for it was not planned to start the sheep until midnight, as they needed the rest, being footsore with long traveling. It was calculated also that they would reach the ford at the Big Horn by shortly before dawn.
But the sheep would have none of it, and moved and milled uneasily until, in order to save the lambs that were being crushed in the narrowing circle, Sims gave the order to resume the march.