h of his words, preserved
even a stricter silence. Although his lips were parted with a contented
smile, only once did he venture to break the quiet and that was when he
softly hummed a bar or two of "There Were Hundred Pipers"--a favorite
song of his.

At last Donald, who was bubbling over with questions, could bear it no
longer.

"Are you always so quiet, Sandy, when you go to the range?" he asked.

The Scotchman roused himself.

"Why, laddie, I was almost forgetting you were here! Aye, being with a
flock is a quiet life. You have nobody to talk to on the range--nobody
except the dogs; so you fall into the way of thinking a heap and saying
but little. I like it. Some herders, though, find it a hard sort of
existence. Many a man has sat alone day after day on the range, watching
the sheep work their way in and out of the flock until in his sleep he
could picture that sea of gray and white moving, moving, moving! It was
always before him, sleeping or waking. It is a bad thing for a shepherd
to get into that state of mind. We call it getting locoed."

"What does that mean?"

"You must know that on the hills grows a weed called loco-weed.
Sometimes the sheep find and eat it, and it makes them dull and
stupid--you know how you feel when you take gas to have your teeth
pulled. Yes? Well, it's like that. We never let the herd get it if we
can help it, and if they do we drive them away from it. They will go
right back again, too, and eat more if you do not watch them. That's
what loco-weed is."

"And the shepherds?"

"When a man gets dull and stupid by being alone so much, and sees sheep
all the time--even when his eyes are shut--the best thing he can do is
to leave the range. Some folks can stand being alone, others can't. Why,
I have known of herders being alone until they actually wouldn't
talk--they couldn't. They didn't want to speak or be spoken to and were
ready to shoot any one who came upon them on the range and disturbed
them. Once I knew of a herder leaving a ranch because the boss said
good-morning to him. He complained that things were getting too
sociable."

"I should think the herders would like to see people when they are alone
so much."

"Aye. Wouldn't you! But no. In Wyoming there is a law that no herder
shall be sent out alone to tend flocks; men must go in pairs. More than
that they must have little traveling libraries of a few books. The
reason for that is to prevent them from sitting with t