W. C. Tuttle

“ Magpie points at Dirty— “are the receiver. Sabe? I hereby makes you deputy receiver of them sheep, and I honors Ike by making him deputy attacher. Ike always was attached to sheep. May the Lord have a little mercy on your souls, and—don’t lose any sheep. Come on, canaries.”
Me and Dirty sets there like a pair of mummies and watches that forlorn-looking hombre herd our long-eared rolling-stock across the hills. Dirty jerks a rock at a sand-lizard, and yanks his hat down over his ears. We glares at each other for a moment.
“Shepherd!” hisses Dirty. “You sheep-attacher!” ”

“ We sees four punchers riding toward them sheep, sort of swinging around to get between them and the creek. They bunches the whole works, and proceeds to drift ’em over the hill. I recognizes one of ’em as Sandy Sorensen, on the roan, so I reckon it got home all right.
“Exactly,” nods Pettingill, wiping his glasses. “No doubt everything is all right, but just why are those men taking away our sheep?”
“Gents,” says Dirty, rolling a smoke, “you have witnessed the theft of a few hundred sheep. With your own eyes you have seen part of your herd swiped by outlaws. ”

“ Not thudden.”
“I reckon it’s a mistake to say that all shepherds are crazy,” observed Magpie. “Cow-men use that expression more because they hate sheep than because the shepherd is loco. They figure that any man is crazy who would herd sheep. Sabe?
“What is your scientific opinion, gents? Do you think they’re crazy?”
I looked at Middleton inquiringly, and he nodded.
“I will thupport you, Pettingill.”
“Well,” said I, “after personal observation, I will say this much: If he isn’t crazy to begin with, and doesn’t go crazy—he is a superman.”
“Reckon the sheep are to blame?” asked Adams. ”

“ Later on I insisted on knowing the probable destination of the sheep.
“Over in Sandy’s corral,” said Dirty Shirt. “Everything is grist that comes to his mill. He’ll demand payment for the range he thinks the sheep ate.”
“Oh, is he a miller?” asked Middleton. Dirty and Ike exchanged glances, and Ike said—
“That’s what education does for a feller, Dirty.”
Education had little to do with it, as any one would know that no one but a miller would have need of grist, and he spoke of “his mill.” ”

“ You’re always going to kill somebody the day after. You think too slow.” We sets there a while longer, and then Dirty yawns.
“Might as well find ’em, I reckon. You attach ’em and I’ll do the receiving, Ike.” We pokes over the ridge, and after going about a mile we hears the voices of lamblets, and then we sees the teepee, which we deciphers to be the sheep-camp. In her callow youth she might have been a tent, but the wear and tear of sheeping existence has put her in the sere and yaller leaf, with a touch of color, where somebody’s red-flannel shirt has patched up a hole in one side. ”

“ A terrific force seemed to crash into me, my lungs filled with smoke, and somewhere in my consciousness I seemed to hear a deafening explosion. Then I seemed to feel myself bouncing and sliding over the ground, only to stop with a grinding shock. ”

“ The person with me is a Harper offspring, called Ike. Where are you from, Ike?”
“There or thereabouts,” says I.
“Exactly,” says Professor Middleton. “Now the question is this: Pettingill and myself are dabbling in a few problems outside of our regular work, and this one has come to our notice: Are sheepherders really insane? Do they acquire insanity from their occupation? Is there anything about a—er—sheep that would cause a normal man to lose his mind, as it were?”
“Yes,” nods Dirty. “It is.” ”

“ Me and Dirty Shirt Jones prods our three burros across the border of Yaller Rock County, points north through the country where God dumped the leavings after He made the Bad Lands, and has visions of the old home town.
Me and Dirty has abandoned the idea of finding gold where she ain’t, and right now we’re herding our sore-footed jassacks towards the flesh-pots of Piperock town.
We’re cutting around the side of a hill, when all to once we discerns the figure of a man setting on a rock ahead of us. ”

“ Then they wants to know where the sheep are.
“You fellers want to be regular shepherds, don’t you?” asks Dirty.
“Oh, certainly,” says Pettingill. “We’re prepared for the worst. I am anxious to get first-hand information on the subject. Professor Middleton and myself are never content to take hearsay evidence for any weighty subject.”
Being as we ain’t never seen the sheep ourselves, we has to trust to luck. We leads them pelicans to the top of a tall butte, and from there we gets a glimpse of the herd. ”

“ Then another one came; and another. I said to myself—
“Pettingill, there must be kennels near here.”
From a distant butte, against the pale light of the moon, I saw several more, and then came a wailing howl. From near me came a blood-curdling answer. I said to myself—
“Pettingill, those ‘dogs’ are wolves!” The realization was painful. I really believe I grew homesick. In all that waste I could not see a tree. I peered around. Ah! On a not too distant ridge stood a tree.
I stood erect, grasped my gun, and hurried up the slope, spurred onward by the howls of at least a million savage throats. ”

“ What you going to do?”
“Borrow your bronc,” says Dirty. “We’ll ride that roan double, Ike.”
“Won’t ride double,” says he.
“Maybe it never has,” corrects Dirty, taking his foot out of the stirrup. “Come up, Ike.”
Sandy sure diagnosed that bronc right. I’d trail my bet with his when he says it won’t ride double—not meek-like. A bronc can’t do its best with two hundred and ninety pounds on its back, but I hope to gosh I never ride that bronc single-handed when it’s riled. ”

“ It is reasonable to suppose that a road leads to something. I hope we will eventually arrive at some place where a physician resides.”
We climbed in, and Middleton took charge of the lines. It was much better than walking, although neither of us could occupy the seat. All went well until we came to a steep hill, where the horses seemed unable to check the speed of the wagon. I spoke sharply to Middleton about our speed, and he rudely replied:
“Oh, go to ——! If you’re going to be a shepherd, be a regular one—dang it!” I fear that Middleton would soon acquire a profane vocabulary. ”

“ It knocked me down, got to its feet and said, ‘Aye am de ship-hoorder,’ and then it went on, Pettingill; it went on—with my shirt in its hands. If you ever feel that you have to shoot again—hold lower, old-timer.”
Then we went on. Middleton complained about the effects of the shooting, while I suffered untold agonies from cactus spines and the effects of that shotgun.
“We should soon be able to see the mill,” said Middleton, peering into the night, “but all I can see is a huddle of low buildings. One is larger than the rest, but none would be suitable for milling.” ”

“ Just then we were interrupted by the coming of Ike and Dirty Shirt, leading the runaway horses. They stared at the strangers.
“Holy henhawks!” exclaimed Dirty. “They’ve roped our shepherds!”
“Uh-huh,” nodded the tall one. “You might say a few words, Dirty.”
“Hello, Adams,” nodded Dirty to the other one. “Meet Professors Pettingill and Middleton. Gents, this person is Alcohol Adams. The tall one is Magpie Simpkins, the sheriff of Yaller Rock County. He’s just as bad as he looks. Magpie, what you got ropes on them pelicans for? They ain’t done nothing.” ”

“ Standing there beside a pair of packed burros is the queerest-looking pair of pelicans I ever seen. They’re both wearing hard hats and black-rimmed specs, and what you might expect such persons to wear in the line of shirts, collars and neckties, but from the waist on down they’re clad in chaps and boots.
One of ’em is wearing a pair of Mexican spurs—the kind with rowels the size of a dollar and eighty-five cents. One of them has a belt draped around his waist, and in the holster is one of them single-shot twenty-two pistols. The other is packing a pump shotgun. ”

“ Such a open declaration causes some smoke and a little noise in Piperock, but neither of them gets shot up enough for us to declare a holiday. Scenery plasters a attachment on the herd, and then Alphy limps to Judge Steele’s wickiup and prays for a receiver.
“Being as I’m the sheriff I has to serve said attachment, and also being as I’m a danged fool I’m appointed as the receiver. The county didn’t elect me to herd sheep, gents. Over on the other side of that hill is the sheep. ”

“ Aye get de law.”
“Yeah?” says Dirty. “Look at us, shepherd. We’re the law. Sabe?”
He looks at us, and his whiskers seem a heap agitated.
“You—are—de—law?” he asks, deliberate-like.
“You are looking at it,” grins Dirty. “How does she look?”
“Val—” he hitches up his rope belt, and picks up his war-sack—“val, Aye can say dis mooch: Yorge Hokansen hay say to me, O-o-olaf, das country has too mooch bum law and no yustice! Yorge iss smart—you bet.”
And me and Dirty stood there and watched the Hairy One fade out over the hills towards Silver Bend. ”

“ Haw! Haw! You poor, locoed snake-hunters! Listen: I didn’t no more than get started for Piperock when I meets Scenery and Alphy. They’ve done patched up their differences. We went over to notify you, but you never showed up. I’ve been looking for you.”
“Haw!” replied Dirty Shirt vacantly.
“You—uh— Say, who in —— owns the sheep we’ve been dry-nursing, Magpie?”
“I do,” said Mr. Adams. “I had a Swede out here, but he went loco, I reckon, and tried to dynamite Scenery’s camp, and——”
Ike stepped over and took the ropes off Middleton and myself. ”

“ I asks.
“Well—” he looks at Dirty’s gun, serious-like—“well, not to mean any offense, but I’d say that Alcohol exaggerated a little, he meant a twenty-two.”
Be it known that Alcohol Adams is so ornery that his own dog barks at him. He’d steal money from his own kids, and then lick thunder out of them for losing it. ”

“ Me and Dirty jerks our hands above our heads, and this fretful-looking hombre with the good-by forever mustache and weary eyes squints at us and says—
“You both solemnly swear to uphold the law vested in you as deputy sheriffs of Yaller Rock County, so help you Gawd?” ”

“ I contend that one’s information on such a problem must come from personal observation and not from hearsay or opinions of others. We refuse to take circumstantial evidence, as it were. It seems that some of the natives are—well, a bit touchy on the subject. ”