28 WESTERN GRAZING GROUNDS AND FOREST RANGES 



and scattered to the four winds a prey to coyotes. On 

 one occasion several thousand were forced into a stream 

 full of quicksands and boggy places, in which hundreds 

 stuck arid died like flies on sticky fly-paper. Saltpetre 

 was scattered plentifully over salting grounds used by 

 the cattle, which the salt-hungry sheep eagerly sought, 

 and the saltpetre, harmless to the cattle, killed many 

 sheep. 



A Sample Attack. Once in northern Arizona ten 

 bands of sheep, each with about 2,500 head, had swept 

 across the ranges along the little Colorado River, ha- 

 rassed by the cattlemen every foot of the way. But with 

 an armed force of forty or fifty men as a guard, they 

 were never seriously checked in their westward march. 

 One night the whole outfit camped in one of the beau- 

 tiful open parks under the shadow of the San Francisco 

 peaks. The ten bands were bedded down in peace and 

 quiet, when a hundred or more range horses, wild as 

 deer, were driven among them, followed by fifteen or 

 twenty cowboys whose yells and shots from their six- 

 shooters sent the half-crazed horses down onto the sheep 

 like a cyclone. 



The horses had been 'previously placed in a corral, 

 and the boys had worked hard for several hours throw- 

 ing and hog-tying a lot of them to prepare them for the 

 "ceremony." Several horses had been decorated with 

 dry raw hides tied hard and fast to their tails, while 

 huge cowbells had been strapped about the necks of fif- 

 teen or twenty more. The herders sprang to their feet 

 and met the oncoming horses with shots from their 

 rifles. This served rather to make the work of the ani- 

 mals even more destructive, for they tore back and forth 

 across the park into and out of the bands, leaving a 



