y be said to be in the
saddle. His note-book is in constant use. It contains a record of each
day's births and deaths, of the twins (which are tagged or marked alike
for easy identification) and the still-born, that each bereft mother may
be provided with a foster-child, and the daily count of the
daily-changing flocks.

The first lamb born starts the refrain, to be taken up as the season
waxes by thousands of others scattered over the range, and swollen into
a roaring, shrieking chorus, as though an enormous public school had
just turned its urchins into the play-ground. A listener standing in the
hall of the Stock Exchange gets some faint idea of it when there has
been a serious break in Lake Shore, say, or when C.C.C.&I. has "gone
off" a considerable number of points. Out of these thousands of voices,
not to be differentiated by the human ear, the ewe knows the note of her
little one with very remarkable certainty, and the lamb the answering
cry of its dam. With this sound ringing in his ears, and daily becoming
more and more insufferable from monotony and increase, the sheep-man
rides out in the morning among his Mexicans, and returns to camp at
night aweary, with haply a couple of little ones abandoned by their
mothers in his arms, to be brought up on that _pis-aller_ of
infancy,--and, alas! occasionally of age,--the bottle.

V.

When the prickly pear had made a golden garden of the prairie and the
heart of _Cereus phoeniceus_ was warm with the intention of lighting its
gorgeous crimson torch on the divides; when the arroyo, but lately a
pretty streamlet, had told wellnigh all its beads to the sun-god, and
had but here and there in its parched length an isolated pool; when the
flock at noon no longer flushed the last teal from the creek, because
that lingering bird had finally winged its way toward Manitoba or some
other favorite retreat northerly,--at this time the constant wind,
gentle but never-failing, and almost always from the south, was
overweighted with a roar of multitudinous bleating and befouled with
dust; for shearing was going on at the ranch. It is a very picturesque
occupation, but it soils the most delightful season of the year, the
fresh month of May, with a fortnight of dusty toil, anticipating the
sun, and not halting promptly on his setting.

The shearing-shed lay somewhat apart from the other ranch buildings,
with a system of pens at its back, with chutes and swinging wickets for
"