THE MYSTERY OF THE FOUR THOUSAND SHEEP
Early the next morning Scott called up Dawson to find out what his
orders would be in regard to the recount. He was itching to serve notice
on those herders.
“Good-morning, Mr. Dawson. Did Mr. Ramsey tell you of my report on the
number of sheep that are on this district?”
“Yes, he ’phoned me last night. I heard it rumored around among the boys
yesterday afternoon and mentioned it to him. How many extras do you
think there are?”
“About four thousand altogether.”
“How did you count them?”
“Of course I did not count them, but I am sure that the estimate is not
far off. Every band will run at least five hundred over.”
“Well, if you are sure of that notify those herders to have their bands
back at the chute for a recount next.... What day is this?”
“Friday, I think,” it was pretty hard for any one to keep track of the
days of the week out there in the forest.
“Friday, then tell them to be ready for the recount Monday.”
“Not before Monday?” Scott objected with disappointment.
“No, they will have to have that long to get their bands back to the
chute and I advise you to check your estimates pretty carefully before
you order them back. They will raise some row if you make a mistake.
Heth can help you with it.”
“I have not seen Heth since I started for that fire day before
yesterday,” Scott was glad of a chance to report this for he felt that
he was getting very little assistance out of Heth and he wanted Dawson
to know it.
“Must have gone to town with the checkings,” was the unsatisfactory
reply.
“Well, I guess I can handle this alone,” Scott said, “I am mad enough to
do almost anything.”
“Go to it then, but be careful not to get yourself into a hole.”
It was the most satisfactory conference that Scott had ever had with the
ranger and he began to think that Baxter’s estimate of him might be
right after all. He was going to have the satisfaction of ordering those
herders back to the chute and he was not sure that he would have let
Heth help him if he had been there. He hurried out to saddle Jed and get
started on such pleasant duty. Jed seemed quite as anxious to be off as
his master. He came up to the gate at Scott’s whistle and they were soon
skimming away over the old ridge trail on their joyful errand.
Scott rode straight to the place where he had seen the nearest band the
day before. They were nowhere to be seen even when he climbed onto a
knoll which gave him a quite extensive view. He was not an expert on
sheep, but he had heard from the herders themselves the day before that
the sheep had been on very slim rations in the lowlands before they came
onto the forest and were now so eager for the fresh spring grass that
they were hard to move. There was plenty of grass here and he could not
think why they had been moved, or where they could have gone.
But the trail of two thousand sheep is not very hard to find and Scott
was soon trotting rapidly along their dusty track. An experienced man
would have known from the barrenness of the ground, from which almost
all the grass had been eaten or trampled out, that the sheep were
bunched and were being driven somewhere rapidly. Scott could not tell
this from the trail, but he soon overtook them and found both herder and
dog busily engaged in driving the sheep as rapidly as possible down the
slope toward the valley cliffs.
It was hard to guess the number when they were bunched that way, but
Scott sized them up as best he could and was still convinced that there
were too many.
“How many sheep did you say you had in that band?” Scott asked riding up
to the herder.
“Fourteen hundred,” said the herder.
“They must have swollen since you counted them,” Scott replied
sarcastically.
“I didn’t count ’em,” said the herder. “Your man did the countin’.”
“I don’t think much of the job, whoever did it,” Scott retorted. “You
have those sheep up at the chute Monday morning and I’ll count them
myself.”
“What, drive these sheep clear back there to that chute just to have
them counted again?” the herder screamed.
“Those are the official orders,” Scott replied with dignity.
“What are you goin’ to do, count them every week? If I run all the fat
off these sheep for nothing I’ll make it warm for you.”
“You won’t do it for nothing. It will be a good thing for you. You won’t
have as many to bother with when you get back.”
He left the man cursing and screaming, and rode on. There was intense
satisfaction in showing these fellows that he was on to them.
The chase after the second band had brought him so far down toward the
valley cliffs that he decided to have a look at the little cañons where
the extra sheep had come in before he notified the other herders of the
recount. He was still gloating over his little interview with the first
herder when he came to the cliffs. He had never seen the cañons but he
knew their location from his map and had soon found the one farthest
east. He rode clear around the rim of it. There was not a single hoof
print. The upper portion of it was rather broad and shallow, but when he
went down into it he soon found that it ended in an almost perpendicular
drop to the valley below.
“Not much chance there,” Scott thought as he mounted Jed and started in
search of the next cañon. The second cañon was very much like the first.
It was a little larger at the top but ended in the same precipitous
drop.
Before he reached the third cañon a new idea occurred to him. Perhaps it
would be just as well not to leave any tracks around these cañons. He
did not know just why but he had a hunch that he did not want the
herders to know that he had been to those other cañons.
He began to suspect that the report was a joke to make him investigate
all those impossible cañons.
“I’ve got to look at every one of them now,” Scott fumed, “just to make
sure that it was not a fake, but I’ll see that nobody knows that I have
done it.” He rode doggedly on to the next cañon, but he dismounted at
some distance from it and took care to cover up his tracks wherever he
went. And so he inspected every one of those little cañons along that
five miles of valley cliffs, and everywhere he found the same thing. Not
a sign of a sheep trail anywhere and the same steep drop at the bottom.
“Self-respecting squirrel would not try to climb any of them,” Scott
muttered disgustedly as he finished the inspection. “Well, they worked
their joke all right but they’ll never have the satisfaction of knowing
it,” and he carefully covered up the last sign of his visit.
“Now to notify those other greasers,” Scott exulted as he rode back
toward the grazing grounds.
All of a sudden he straightened up with a jerk. He had found out that
the entrance of the sheep through the valley cañons was a fake, but if
they did not come in there, where under the sun did they come from? He
had forgotten all about that in his anxiety to get away from those
cañons. There was only one way to find it out now and that was to ride
around the boundary of his whole district.
He hurried off to find the other herders for it was a long way around
the boundaries and he would have to ride hard if he was to make it
before dark. Well, he had the horse to do it. He patted Jed’s arching
neck affectionately and the big black fellow pricked up his ears in
answer.
When he started on his search for the sheep it took him longer than he
expected to find the other bands because they had all left the feeding
grounds where he had seen them the day before and were for some
unaccountable reason moving southward toward the valley cliffs. He did
not have time to try to figure it out or even to enjoy an argument with
the herder. He simply gave them terse orders to have their sheep at the
chute for recount Monday morning without fail and left them cursing the
empty air.
No sooner had Scott notified the last herder than he turned about once
more and galloped back to the point where the boundary line of his
district met the valley cliffs. From there he followed the line
northward. From what he had seen of Baxter he did not think it probable
that the sheep had come over from his district, but he rode with eyes on
the ground determined to draw a complete circle around those bands and
not overlook any possible loophole.
He ate his lunch at the same place where he and Baxter had eaten the day
before in the hope that he would meet him again but no one came. The
same old question which he thought the supervisor had answered for him
the day before was still buzzing ceaselessly through his head. How could
those four thousand sheep have been spirited onto his district? He had
not come any nearer to the solution when he mounted again and started
once more on his long search.
The boundary led him far up to the head of the valley and close to the
foot of the peak where the lookout tower was located. A steady up grade
on a side hill trail finally brought him out on a ridge trail which he
knew from the map led from the lookout station to the ranger’s cabin. He
rode rapidly now but still scanned every foot of the trail carefully.
Jed was keeping a careful lookout too and he shied violently at a little
patch of brush beside the trail. Scott glanced back to see what had
startled him and reined in with a jerk. A little child was curled up in
the shade of the bushes. Jed refused to go near it so Scott dismounted
to investigate. It was a little girl about three years old and she was
sleeping peacefully.
Scott straightened up to see if there was any one belonging to the child
in sight. He could see for a mile down either side of the barren ridge
but there was not a sign of life. He did not know the child and could
not imagine where she had come from. It was at least three miles to the
lookout station and about two miles to the ranger’s cabin. He decided to
take the child with him and have Mrs. Dawson identify her.
He picked her gingerly up in his arms and started toward Jed. Jed
sniffed at her suspiciously and backed away. Scott caught the rein but
the horse jerked it indignantly out of his hand and circled out of
reach. Jed had never seen a child before and was determined not to carry
one until he knew more about it. He let Scott get hold of the rein
again, but blocked all his attempts to mount.
Scott looked helplessly down at the child in his arms and found her
smiling at him with wondering eyes.
“What is your name, little girl?” Scott asked gently. He was not used to
children and was almost as much afraid of her as Jed.
She only gurgled and stretched out her hand to Jed. He sniffed the tiny
fingers with a tremendous snort which made the little girl laugh aloud.
She was evidently used to both horses and men.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Jed,” Scott pleaded. “Why don’t you
take her on like a good fellow?” But Jed was not reconciled and snorted
loudly every time the little hand was extended in his direction.
It was rather exasperating to have to walk and carry a baby with a
perfectly good horse trailing along behind, but there was nothing else
to do, and the strange procession started for Dawson’s. Scott continued
to watch for the trail of the sheep and the child amused herself by
reaching out to tickle Jed’s nose whenever he came within reach. Jed
seemed to rather enjoy the game and was fast getting over his scare. The
child had seemed light as a feather when Scott first picked her up, but
she soon began to get heavy, and he had to shift her frequently from one
arm to the other. He was not sorry when the smoke of Dawson’s cabin
showed about a quarter of a mile ahead. All attempts at conversation
with the child had proven fruitless. She only smiled and laughed when he
spoke to her.
He had just turned a crook in the trail which brought him in sight of
the cabin when he saw a woman run wildly from the gate and start toward
him. It was Mrs. Dawson half wild with fright. Scott pointed her out to
the child who promptly proved her identity.
“Hurry up, muvver,” she called to the already flying figure, “I want to
show you something.”
“Oh, darling,” Mrs. Dawson cried as she snatched the child from Scott’s
aching arms, “where have you been? Mother has been almost wild about
you.”
The child only struggled in her mother’s arms. “Look, muvver, look,” she
exclaimed excitedly, and reached once more for Jed’s nose. She squealed
with delight at the gentle snort.
Her mother snatched her up again and held her fast. “Oh, Mr. Burton,”
she cried, “where did you find her?”
“Asleep under a clump of bushes about two miles down the lookout trail,”
Scott explained.
“Two miles! I sent her in to take a nap. I supposed she was asleep, but
when I went in the house a little while ago I could not find her. I have
run myself half to death looking for her. It is the first time she has
ever run away and I was almost frantic.”
“She seems perfectly contented,” Scott replied. “The horse would not let
me ride with her and she has been playing with him over my shoulder all
the way home.”
“It was awfully kind of you to carry her up and I can never thank you
enough.” She seemed rather embarrassed, hesitated a moment as though
about to say something, but was silent.
“It was pleasure enough to have found her,” Scott said as he swung into
the saddle, “please don’t say anything more about it.”
“Do be careful,” she called after him excitedly.
“Oh, he’s all right now,” Scott laughed over his shoulder, thinking she
referred to Jed.
He followed the trail down to the chute. Not a track. Not a single sheep
track had he seen since he left the valley cliffs. He had made a
complete circuit of his boundaries and was absolutely certain that no
sheep had entered his district except at the chute. He rode slowly up
the trail to his cabin in the gathering darkness trying to analyze the
situation. There seemed to be only one solution and yet he hesitated to
accept that without even more definite proof than he already had.
As he approached the cabin he thought he saw some one moving about it
and he wondered what Heth would have to say for himself, but there was
no one there. He put Jed into the corral, ate his lonely supper and
settled down to write up a detailed account of the day’s work in his
diary. He became very much absorbed in the task because he felt that it
was extremely important under the circumstances.
Suddenly there was the bark of a revolver and a bullet shattered the
window pane above his head. The shock dazed him for a second, but the
next instant the angry blood boiled through his veins and sent him
tearing out of the cabin to find the coward. He searched the surrounding
woods without finding any trace or hearing a sound. He was unarmed and
it would have been an easy matter for his assailant to have shot him,
but there were no more shots. Scott realized that no man in that country
could have missed such a target as he must have presented at the lighted
window except intentionally.
“Think you can scare me out of the country, do you? Well, you have
another guess coming,” and he went doggedly back to the table determined
to finish his report.