“I wish I could sit on a pillow, that’s all,” said Ted, frankly.
“You’ll be used to it in a few days, and not notice it at all. Polly, how are you? Is Jinks behaving himself now?”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” cried Polly, looking back over her shoulder. “It was the deer frightened him. Girls, did I tell you, I saw a real deer back at the bridge. Brown, with a regular Molly Cottontail like a rabbit. You know what I mean, Miss Jean.”
“There are lots of them in the foothills around here. We don’t see them near home except when father finds his early vegetables nipped, but I often find their hoof prints down by the creek where they go to drink at night. Now comes a good level stretch, girls. Try and let the ponies out a little.”
“They don’t go a bit like the horses down East, do they?” Sue said. “I mean at home the horses on the river drive seem to either trot or buckle under, and their feet look bunched.”
“It’s because they have a shorter stride, and seem to go quicker,” Jean replied. “Now then, hang on, girls, and hold with your knees for your first gallop.”
Ginger, Jean’s pony, took the lead, and as he went by, the other ponies took his tracks. Before them spread the tableland in long sweeps of undulating range. The gray green of sage brush blended into distant waves of purple distance.
“See that line of hills yonder,” said Peggie, as they drew rein at last. She leaned forward in the saddle, and pointed to the hazy distances northwest, where the clouds seemed to trail their gray shadows along the hilltops. “From here the ground gets higher and more broken, doesn’t it, Jeanie? That’s Bear Lodge yonder. It looks as if it were part of the sky. The sheep are just about a mile from here. We can soon see the camp now.”
“Why is it so far from the ranch?” asked Polly.
“They travel about hunting the best feed. One spot lasts only a little while, and they keep traveling. Father says some herders will start their flocks in the spring, clear from the coast, and drive through the summer as far east as Idaho and Wyoming. They feed and fatten, and by the time they reach the market they are fat and ready to shear or kill. I like the sheep raising better than the cattle.”