they compose admirably about the long
aisle, with here and there a dagger of sharp light thrust into the
shade, and without, the luminous clouds of dust. The shearer puts one
foot on the low table, the neck of the sheep resting over his knee, and
its fleece rolling off like a robe; his broad chest is thrown out, his
head back, his nostrils vent smoke like an angry god's, and his glancing
white teeth, disclosed in a broad smile, tightly grip a cigarette. He is
chattering, laughing, smoking: incidentally he is shearing.

The presence of the shearers at the ranch causes a flutter in
surrounding Mexican society. They are known to be keen hands, _viveurs_,
jolly good fellows withal, and, moreover, men who can wrestle with
wethers ten hours a day (no light task on the muscles) and yet have
spirit to dance and play all night. So, at evening, the _jacals_--the
little farms and settlements on the creek--are likely to send forth a
contingent bound for the cook-house and a night of it. A harp and an
accordion are found, and to the sharply-marked music produced by this
combination an impromptu _baile_ forms itself. The swarthy sombreros
clutch each other, and hop about, their spurs gleaming and jangling,
their pistols sticking out behind like incipient tails; and soon the
_baile_ overflows the kitchen, and the glowing cigarette-tips circle
like fire-flies to the music in the dark night-air without. In a corner,
against the salt-house, by the light of a fire, a group is gathered
round a blanket spread on the ground, with little piles of silver before
them, over the always-absorbing _monte_; and other groups are very
harmlessly singing. By midnight the music dies away and the dancing
ceases, but the sombreros bend over the _monte_ blanket and the silver
clinks on it till morning.

About two weeks with days and nights of this character sufficed, with
slight interruptions occasioned by bad weather, to get one hundred
thousand pounds of wool off the backs of the sheep. On Sunday the
shearers would not work: the day was sacred--to pleasure. The store was
thronged with purchasers, the cook-house became the temple of _monte_,
the road a race-track. The ranch had the air of a _fete_. The races were
short rushes with horses started with a jab of the spur or thwack of the
_cuerta_, to see who first should cross a line scratched in the dust, at
either end of which a throng kneeled and craned forward and held out
silver dollars and called bets