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 a 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.

The interior of the shed when shearing is at its height commends itself
very forcibly to the attention of the artist. The heaps of fleeces,
mellow masses of gray, yellow, and white, the throng of anxious sheep,
watching with painful interest their companions struggling in the
swarthy arms of the stalwart, bare-chested shearers, saddles, broad
sombreros, whips, and weapons grouped in so many pendent escutcheons of
the great Mexican vagabond family, the flitting _coleritos_, the scarfed
shearers themselves, all are so many veritable "bits." But it is not
only that the details are good: