“Well, it was mostly on account of his lingo. He wouldn’t talk United States, like other people. He wouldn’t ask for a job. He was wantin’ a ‘position’ or ‘employment,’ with a ‘future’ to it. And he wouldn’t say ‘wages’, but always asked about ‘remuneration’ and ‘emolument’ and the like. Some of the bosses didn’t know what the hell he was talkin’ about; some of ’em said he must be a rustler; and others said they wouldn’t hire a damn foreigner until he learned to talk United States, or at least Mex’can. “And so the pore feller had to hire himself to a damn sheep man. It nearly broke his heart. It makes me sorry for the pore fool every time I think of it. “And when Old Man Mason took him down to the sheep pens and turned out the _borregos_, and the pore greenhorn seen he was goin’ to have to walk, he jest naturally broke down and cried. He told Old Man Mason that his sweetheart back East had jest died and that he’d come out West to git over it. “Old Man Mason told him the first thing to do was to take them sheep out to graze. He told him to be shore to git ’em back by night, and to be damn shore to look after the lambs and git every one of ’em back in the pen. If he didn’t there’d be some tall hell-raisin’ in the camp. “Old Man Mason went back to his shack and set in the shade all day. Finally it was might nigh dark, and the herder hadn’t come in with the woollies. The Old Man waited a while longer, and still the herder didn’t show up. About nine o’clock he started out to the pens about three hundred yards from the house, to see if he could see anything of the critters. On the way out he met his new sheep-herder. “‘Did you have any trouble with the sheep?’ says he. “‘Not with the sheep,’ says the herder. ‘But,’ he says, ‘the lambs occasioned me considerable annoyance and perturbation.’ “Well, Old Man Mason didn’t know what the hell he meant, and he didn’t want to ask, for fear he’d appear ign’rant; so went on to the pens to see what was the matter with the lambs. “The moon was up, and he could see over the rock fence. The sheep was all huddled up in the middle of the pen, and the Old Man counted a hundred and seventy-five jack-rabbits runnin’ around and buttin’ the fence, doin’ their damndest to git out.” “I got up considerable speed once myself,” said Joe, “once when I was a good deal younger than I am now; but it wasn’t no rabbit that I was chasin’; it was a prairie-fire.” “You mean it was the prairie-fire chasing you, don’t you?” said Lanky. “Naw,” said Joe. “It was jest as I was sayin’. I was chasin’ the prairie-fire. It wasn’t the prairie-fire chasin’ me. “It was back in the early days one time when I was out huntin’ cattle on the plains. One day in August, I recken it was, I follered off some cow tracks and got lost from the outfit. I was out two days without nothin’ to eat. Finally I come on a little herd of buffalo. I shoots a good fat cow and cuts off a piece of tenderloin.