AUTHOR OF "THE FOUR MILLION," "THE HEART OF THE WEST," STRICTLY
BUSINESS," ETC.
I found myself in Texas a recently, revisiting old places and
vistas. At a sheep-ranch where I had sojourned many years ago, I
stopped for a week. And, as all visitors do, I heartily plunged
into the business at hand, which happened to be that of dipping
the sheep.
Now, this process is so different from ordinary human baptism
that it deserves a word of itself. A vast iron cauldron with half
the fires of Avernus beneath it is partly filled with water that
soon boils furiously. Into that is cast concentrated lye, lime,
and sulphur, which is allowed to stew and fume until the witches'
broth is strong enough to scorch the third arm of Palladino
herself.
Then this concentrated brew is mixed in a long, deep vat with
cubic gallons of hot water, and the sheep are caught by their
hind legs and flung into the compound. After being thoroughly
ducked by means of a forked pole in the hands of a gentleman
detailed for that purpose, they are allowed to clamber up an
incline into a corral and dry or die, as the state of their
constitutions may decree. If you ever caught an able-bodied,
two-year-old mutton by the hind legs and felt the 750 volts of
kicking that he can send through your arm seventeen times before
you can hurl him into the vat, you will, of course, hope that he
may die instead of dry.
But this is merely to explain why Bud Oakley and I gladly
stretched ourselves on the bank of the near-by charco after the
dipping, glad for the welcome inanition and pure contact with the
earth after our muscle-racking labors. The flock was a small one,
and we finished at three in the afternoon; so Bud brought from
the morral on his saddle horn, coffee and a coffeepot and a big
hunk of bread and some side bacon. Mr. Mills, the ranch owner and
my old friend, rode away to the ranch with his force of Mexican
trabajadores.
While the bacon was frizzling nicely, there was the sound of
horses' hoofs behind us. Bud's six-shooter lay in its scabbard
ten feet away from his hand. He paid not the slightest heed to
the approaching horseman. This attitude of a Texas ranchman was
so different from the old-time custom that I marveled.
Instinctively I turned to inspect the possible foe that menaced
us in the rear. I saw a horseman dressed in black, who might have
been a lawyer or a parson or an undertaker, trotting peaceably
along the road by the arroyo.
Bud noticed my precautionary movement and smiled sarcastically
and sorrowfully.
"You've been away too long," said he. "You don't need to look
around any more when anybody gallops up behind you in this state,
unless something hits you in the back; and even then it's liable
to be only a bunch of tracts or a petition to sign against the
trusts. I never looked at that hombre that rode by; but I'll bet
a quart of sheep dip that he's some double-dyed son of a popgun
out rounding up prohibition votes."
"Times have changed, Bud," said I, oracularly. "Law and order is
the rule now in the South and the Southwest."