ALL WOOL By W. C. Tuttle Author of “A Bull Movement in Yellow Horse,” “Psychology and Copper,” etc. Zeb Whitney laid the ace of diamonds down on the rock and grinned at Ricky Saunders. “Go on, Ricky. Play that li’l ol’ jack. I got high, low, and that jack will jist put me out. That’ll make fifty thousand yuh owe me and——” Ricky laid his cards on the rock and peered over Zeb’s shoulder. “Look at that sheep, Zeb! What do yuh reckon ails him?” “Never mind th’ sheep,” replied Zeb. “Yuh can’t git me to turn around so yuh can eat that jack. Go on, play it.” “I tell yuh somethin’s wrong,” insisted Ricky. “That sheep jist turned uh flip-flop and he ain’t got up since.” “Mebby that’s th’ way sheeps do,” remarked Zeb. “Yuh see me and you ain’t been nursin’ sheep but uh short time and we ain’t hep to all their proclivities.” Ricky sat down and picked up his cards. “I’d shore like to know what hit that sheep. Honest, he jist——” _Sping!_ A bullet ricocheted off the rock they were using for a card-table and whined off down across the foothills. “Duck!” yelled Zeb, as he went crabwise down the opposite side of the rock and slid around behind the stunted pine tree which had shaded their seven-up game. “Come down here, yuh blamed mutt!” he stormed at Ricky, who sat there looking at the scratch on the rock where the bullet had glanced. “Ain’t yuh got no sense a tall?” “What was it, Zeb?” inquired Ricky innocently, as he slid down beside Zeb and pulled out his papers and tobacco. “Somebody was shootin’ at us,” stated Zeb. “And danged good shootin’ too if anybody should ask yuh.” Ricky shaped his cigaret and fumbled for a match. “Say, Zeb, I wonder if them same jaspers didn’t hit that sheep? By golly! I’ll bet that was it. Mebby—aw say, Zeb, if that was uh rifle-bullet why don’t we hear th’ report?” Zeb smiled patronizingly and relieved Ricky of his tobacco. “Ricky, them high-power rifles kin shoot three miles, and they don’t make much noise a-tall. At this distance yuh wouldn’t hear it a tall, _sabe_?” Ricky got up and climbed back on the rock. He gazed off in the direction from which the bullet had come and then sat down and began dealing the cards. “Come on up, Zeb,” he urged. “Three miles is uh long ways to see uh target and th’ man who can hit me at that distance is plumb welcome to cut uh notch on his gunstock, and besides it’s too danged hot out there in th’ sun.” Zeb climbed back and sat down against the tree. “Ricky, I plumb wish we hadn’t taken this job.” “Unha,” agreed Ricky, intent on his solitaire layout. “Yes, sir, I am,” continued Zeb. “I knowed something was wrong when Jim Watts offers us uh hundred apiece uh month to dry nurse these darn animated wool gardens. Ricky, uh hundred dollars uh month is too much money to pay uh sheep-herder. Didn’t yuh ever notice it?” Ricky laid down the cards and laughed.