34 



pork and "camp sinkers," so if possi- 

 ble she provided her own susten- 

 ance any unlucky field mouse or 

 chipmunk not agile enough to escape 

 her spring. 



Sheep had always been associated 

 in my mind with great green stretches 

 of rolling park land whereon a 

 handful of these well-kept woolly 

 things fed picturesquely, yielding at 

 uncertain times and in obscure ways, 

 white fleece; so I had small sym- 

 pathy with the prejudice in the West, 

 encountered universally, against 

 ' ' sheepmen. ' ' Why class them among 

 the despised? And the herders as 

 creatures beyond the pale outcasts ? 

 Why? We must have food, and 

 mutton is most delectable. 



We had been travelling about a 

 week, each day gliding by as event- 

 less and delightful as another until 

 I had come to the comfortable be- 

 lief that in well-regulated "outfits" 

 nothing did happen; when the ac- 

 cumulated bolts of Jove struck 

 among us right busily. On a cer- 

 tain well-remembered day we began 

 to pass through some very extraor- 

 dinary country, unclean, desolate. 



