On the morning of the first day we turned out at four o'clock, and, while we were getting a dew-bite of crackers and a sip of coffee, _el capitan_ circulated among the recumbent figures that had dotted the prairie over-night: with a shake and a pull of the big hat by way of toilet, they proceeded in twos and threes toward the shearing-shed, their shears in their hands and all their personal property in weapons dangling about them. The burrers, too, Mexicans hired in the neighborhood, put in an appearance and ranged themselves behind their tables, A flock had been penned at the shed over-night, and, while a fraction of it was being driven through the movable panels into the space behind the shearing--table, the shearers were ranged along it by the captain: they hung up their rifles and revolvers to the posts, some their hats and jackets, and fell to chattering, lighting their cigarettes, and sharpening their shears. When the supply of sheep was in and the panels closed, the captain gave the shrill cry, "_Vaminos__" and all hands rushed in among the frightened animals and dragged out their chosen victims by the leg. They showed great shrewdness in selecting the small, the light-woolled, the easy-to-be-shorn. "The loud clapping of the shears" at once filled the shed, and it was not five minutes before a light fleece was tossed upon the burring-table, and a grinning fellow came running up to the ranchman seated in a chair thereon, the better to supervise affairs, and called out, "Check-e!" amid _vivas_ for the first sheep shorn. He received a tin token, which he thrust into his pocket, and plunged over the low platform after another sheep. Calls of "_Cole_!" "_Colero_" "_Cole, muchacho, echale_" began to ring out, and, with an answering call of "_Onde?_" ("Where?"), two little, laughing Mexican boys, with tumbled, curly black wigs, and cheeks like bronzed peaches, darted about with boxes of powdered charcoal, and clapped a pinch of it on the cut made by careless shears. The burrers threw out the fleeces smooth upon the table, and, one on either side, patted them over with their hands to discover the cockle-burrs entangled in the wool; these removed, they folded and rolled the fleeces up with care and handed them to a man who, with the aid of a small, square box, tied them tightly with two strings, and tossed them out of the shed, where they were received by the ranchman who was grading the wool and supervising the packing. The packing was done in two frames, seven feet high, in which an iron ring held the sacks open. To a man on one of these frames the fleeces in their compact little bundles were tossed up, and he trod them down, packing them in the sack. Then the sack was let down, sewed up, rolled to the scales and weighed, marked with the ranch-mark, the weight, the grade, and was ready for the freighters and a market. About ten thousand pounds of wool were sheared, burred, packed, marked, and perhaps shipped, in a day.