To The Last Man | Page 8

away from all around him.
The gobbling of wild turkeys awakened Jean, "Chuga-lug, chug-a-lug,
chug-a-lug-chug." There was not a great difference between the gobble
of a wild turkey and that of a tame one. Jean got up, and taking his rifle
went out into the gray obscurity of dawn to try to locate the turkeys.
But it was too dark, and finally when daylight came they appeared to be
gone. The mule had strayed, and, what with finding it and cooking
breakfast and packing, Jean did not make a very early start. On this last
lap of his long journey he had slowed down. He was weary of hurrying;
the change from weeks in the glaring sun and dust-laden wind to this
sweet coot darkly green and brown forest was very welcome; he
wanted to linger along the shaded trail. This day he made sure would
see him reach the Rim. By and by he lost the trail. It had just worn out
from lack of use. Every now and then Jean would cross an old trail, and
as he penetrated deeper into the forest every damp or dusty spot
showed tracks of turkey, deer, and bear. The amount of bear sign
surprised him. Presently his keen nostrils were assailed by a smell of
sheep, and soon he rode into a broad sheep, trail. From the tracks Jean

calculated that the sheep had passed there the day before.
An unreasonable antipathy seemed born in him. To be sure he had been
prepared to dislike sheep, and that was why he was unreasonable. But
on the other hand this band of sheep had left a broad bare swath,
weedless, grassless, flowerless, in their wake. Where sheep grazed they
destroyed. That was what Jean had against them.
An hour later he rode to the crest of a long parklike slope, where new
green grass was sprouting and flowers peeped everywhere. The pines
appeared far apart; gnarled oak trees showed rugged and gray against
the green wall of woods. A white strip of snow gleamed like a moving
stream away down in the woods.
Jean heard the musical tinkle of bells and the baa-baa of sheep and the
faint, sweet bleating of lambs. As he road toward these sounds a dog
ran out from an oak thicket and barked at him. Next Jean smelled a
camp fire and soon he caught sight of a curling blue column of smoke,
and then a small peaked tent. Beyond the clump of oaks Jean
encountered a Mexican lad carrying a carbine. The boy had a swarthy,
pleasant face, and to Jean's greeting he replied, "BUENAS DIAS." Jean
understood little Spanish, and about all he gathered by his simple
queries was that the lad was not alone--and that it was "lambing time."
This latter circumstance grew noisily manifest. The forest seemed
shrilly full of incessant baas and plaintive bleats. All about the camp,
on the slope, in the glades, and everywhere, were sheep. A few were
grazing; many were lying down; most of them were ewes suckling
white fleecy little lambs that staggered on their feet. Everywhere Jean
saw tiny lambs just born. Their pin-pointed bleats pierced the heavier
baa-baa of their mothers.
Jean dismounted and led his horse down toward the camp, where he
rather expected to see another and older Mexican, from whom he might
get information. The lad walked with him. Down this way the plaintive
uproar made by the sheep was not so loud.
"Hello there!" called Jean, cheerfully, as he approached the tent. No

answer was forthcoming. Dropping his bridle, he went on, rather
slowly, looking for some one to appear. Then a voice from one side
startled him.
"Mawnin', stranger."
A girl stepped out from beside a pine. She carried a rifle. Her face
flashed richly brown, but she was not Mexican. This fact, and the
sudden conviction that she had been watching him, somewhat
disconcerted Jean.
"Beg pardon--miss," he floundered. "Didn't expect, to see a--girl. . . .
I'm sort of lost--lookin' for the Rim--an' thought I'd find a sheep herder
who'd show me. I can't savvy this boy's lingo."
While he spoke it seemed to him an intentness of expression, a strain
relaxed from her face. A faint suggestion of hostility likewise
disappeared. Jean was not even sure that he had caught it, but there had
been something that now was gone.
"Shore I'll be glad to show y'u," she said.
"Thanks, miss. Reckon I can breathe easy now," he replied,
"It's a long ride from San Diego. Hot an' dusty! I'm pretty tired. An'
maybe this woods isn't good medicine to achin' eyes!"
"San Diego! Y'u're from the coast?"
"Yes."
Jean had doffed his sombrero at sight of her and he still held it, rather
deferentially, perhaps. It seemed to