Inside and out, seventy men were at work about the shed: the fleeces rapidly piled up on the burring-tables; tied and tossed out, they grew into little mountains, and around the scales for a wide space the packed sacks cumbered the ground. The ranchmen moved about to see that coal was used where needed, and that it was not needed too frequently, that fleeces were not broken, and were thoroughly burred and nicely tied; and the Mexicans, ceaselessly chattering, singing, laughing, calling jokes to each other, crying, "Viva Rito!" "Viva Encarnacion!" ran for their checks, dashed in for their sheep, and kept the shears clashing, while the perplexed ewe, with an uproar perhaps more distinctly justifiable, called to the lamb she had left in the pen, and the lamb answered cry for cry. All this went on in a strong south wind heavy with dust and the acrid sheep smell. It was the liveliest possible spectacle of organized confusion, and the accompanying noise was calculated to split the ears of the groundlings. As the number unshorn of the installment of sheep in the pen dwindled toward zero, little groups of unoccupied shearers gathered round the posts near the low tables, lit fresh cigarettes, whipped out cards, and started a little game of _monte_ for the checks they had in their pockets, continuing till the captain's _revenons à nos moutons_ once more started their shears. The sun crept up in the sky, a fitting cessation occurred, and, a ranchman having given the signal, a tide set in for the cook-house and breakfast. In Mr. Hardy's story, just mentioned, his hero performs rather a feat in shearing three and a half pounds of washed wool in twenty-three and one-half minutes, A Mexican would have to take a reef in his big hat if he could not do better than that. His tin check is worth four and a half cents to him, and a fair hand ought to have at least fifty in his pocket at sunset, in return for as many seven-pound unwashed fleeces,--always provided he has not sacrificed them to _monte_ during the day. A first-rate man will have seventy, and, if called upon to show what he is made of, will shear a heavy-woolled wether in six minutes. At evening each shearer turns in his checks, and receives in return a signed paper with his name and their number.