Cowboys -- Fiction; Montana -- Fiction; Ranch life -- Fiction; Western stories
Weary looked at then with a faint smile. “I'm going to give a few of you
fellows a chance to herd sheep to-day,” he announced, cooling his coffee
so that it would not actually scald his palate. “That's why I wanted
you to get some grub into you. Some of you fellows will have to take the
trail up on the hill, and meet us outside the fence, so when we chase
'em through you can make a good job of it this time. I wonder--”
“You don't need to call out the troops for that job; one man is
enough to put the fear uh the Lord into then herders,” Andy remarked
slightingly. “Once they're on the move--”
“All right, my boy; we'll let you be the man,” Weary told him promptly.
“I was going to have a bunch of you take a packadero outfit down toward
Boiler Bottom and comb the breaks along there for horses--and I sure
do hate to spend the whole day chasing sheepherders around over the
country. So we'll haze 'em through the fence again, and, seeing you feel
that way about it, I'll let you go around and keep 'em going. And, if
you locate their camp, kinda impress it on the tender, if you can round
him up, that the Flying U ain't pasturing sheep this spring. No matter
what kinda talk he puts up, you put the run on 'em till you see 'em
across One-Man coulee. Better have Patsy put you up a lunch--unless
you're fond of mutton.”
Andy twisted his mouth disgustedly. “Say, I'm going to quit handing out
any valuable advice to you, Weary,” he expostulated.
“Haw-haw-haw-w-w!” laughed Big Medicine, and slapped Andy on the
shoulder so that his face almost came in contact with his plate.
“Yuh will try to work some innercent man into sheepherdin', will yuh?
Haw-haw-haw-w! You'll come in tonight blattin'--if yuh don't stay out
on the range tryin' t' eat grass, by cripes! Andy had a little lamb that
follered him around--”
“Better let Bud take that herdin' job, Weary,” Andy suggested. “It won't
hurt him--he's blattin' already.”
“If you think you're liable to need somebody along,” Weary began,
soft-heartedly relenting, “why, I guess--”
“If I can't handle two crazy sheepherders without any help, by gracious,
I'll get me a job holdin' yarn in an old ladies' hone,” Andy cut in
hastily, and got up from the table. “Being a truthful man, I can't say
I'm stuck on the job; but I'm game for it. And I'll promise you there
won't be no more sheep of that brand lickin' our doorsteps. What darned
outfit is it, anyway? I never bumped into any Dot sheep before, to my
knowledge.”
“It's a new one on me,” Weary testified, heading the procession down
to the stable. “If they belonged anywhere in this part of the country,
though, they wouldn't be acting the way they are. They'd be wise to the
fact that it ain't healthy.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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