you have a wonderful air
here, very sweet and pure."

"_Seguro!_" affirmed the old man, "_seguro que si!_ But alas," he
added sadly, "one cannot live on air alone. Ah, _que malo_, how bad
these sheep are!"

He sighed, and regarded his guest sadly with eyes that were bloodshot
from long searching of the hills for cattle.

"I remember the day when the first sheep came," he said, in the manner
of one who begins a set narration. "In the year of '91 the rain came,
more, more, more, until the earth was full and the excess made
_lagunas_ on the plain. That year the Salagua left all bounds and
swept my fine fields of standing corn away, but we did not regret it
beyond reason for the grass came up on the mesas high as a horse's
belly, and my cattle and those of my friend Don Luis, the good father
of Jeff, here, spread out across the plains as far as the eye could
see, and every cow raised her calf. But look! On the next year no rain
came, and the river ran low, yet the plains were still yellow with
last year's grass. All would have been well now as before, with grass
for all, when down from the north like grasshoppers came the
_borregos_--_baaa_, _baaa_, _baaa_--thousands of them, and they were
starving. Never had I seen bands of sheep before in Arizona, nor the
father of Don Jeff, but some say they had come from California in '77,
when the drought visited there, and had increased in Yavapai and fed
out all the north country until, when this second _ano seco_ came
upon them, there was no grass left to eat. And now, _amigo_, I will
tell you one thing, and you may believe it, for I am an old man and
have dwelt here long: it is not God who sends the dry years, but the
sheep!

"_Mira!_ I have seen the mowing machine of the Americano cut the tall
grass and leave all level--so the starved sheep of Yavapai swept
across our mesa and left it bare. Yet was there feed for all, for our
cattle took to the mountains and browsed higher on the bushes, above
where the sheep could reach; and the sheep went past and spread out on
the southern desert and were lost in it, it was so great.

"That was all, you will say--but no! In the Spring every ewe had her
lamb, and many two, and they grew fat and strong, and when the grass
became dry on the desert because the rains had failed again, they came
back, seeking their northern range where the weather was cool, for a
sheep cannot endure the heat. Then we who had let them pass in pity
were requited