THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE SHEEPMEN.
After we buried Chuckwagon we walked across a bend in the road and
caught up with the stock train and strolled on ahead with sad hearts and
silent lips till we arrived at the top of Sherman Hill. We prepared to
wait for the arrival of the stock train, so selecting a site on the
south side of Ames monument, we built a snow hut by rolling up huge
snowballs and piling them up one on top of the other for walls to a
height of about seven and one-half feet, leaving a space for our room of
about twelve feet square inside, and gradually drawing them together at
the top for a roof, and making a big snowball for the door. After it was
all finished we let the sheepmen and Jackdo go over across the canyon
about two miles and build another hut for themselves. We moved our
luggage (which we had carried to lighten up the train) inside, and after
closing the door with the big snowball, we ate a hearty supper of boiled
rawhide, and spreading down a sheet of mist, we rolled up in a blanket
of fog and went to sleep.
We hadn't no more than got to sleep before a lightning rod agent by the
name of Woods came along and put up lightning rods all over our snow hut
and woke us up to sign $350 worth of notes for the rods. This matter
attended to, we went to sleep again and the lightning rod agent went
over across the canyon to the sheepmen's hut and put rods on it. This
man Woods was a good fellar, got people to sign notes by the wholesale,
but never did anything so low as to collect them, just turned them over
to a lawyer and let him attend to that. He was always broke and borrowed
your last "five" in a way that endeared him to you for life. He never
bothered with paying for anything, always said, "Just put it down, or
charge it," in such a lofty way that everyone in hearing would begin to
hunt for pencils right off. He put lightning rods on everything, even to
prairie dogs' houses and ant heaps, took anybody's note with any kind of
signature.
Cottswool Canvasback, Rambolet Bill and Jackdo couldn't write, but he
had Rambolet Bill make his mark to the note and then Cottswool
Canvasback and Jackdo witnessed it by affixing their mark; then he had
Cottswool Canvasback sign his mark as security and Rambolet Bill and
Jackdo witness the signature with their marks; then had Jackdo sign his
mark as security and Rambolet and Cottswool witness it with their marks.
We had put out a signal flag on our snow hut so the trainmen would know
where to find us when they came along with the stock. When we awoke
next morning and went outdoors a strange sight greeted our astonished
vision. There had come a [1]chinook wind in the night and melted the snow
off up to within one hundred feet of our altitude. As Jackdo and the two
sheepmen had built their snow residence about 150 feet lower altitude on
the other side of the canyon, their house had melted down over their
heads, and as they were nowhere in sight it was safe to presume they had
been carried away in the ruins. We had quite an argument now, whether we
should try to find them or not. Dillbery Ike maintained they was human
beings and as such was entitled to our looking for them. Packsaddle Jack
said he didn't know for sure whether sheepmen were humans or not. He
guessed it was a mighty broad word and covered a heap of things. Eatumup
Jake said he reckoned they would turn up all right, that sheepmen didn't
die very easy, that he knowed them to pack off more lead than an
antelope would and still live; he guessed being washed off the side of
the mountain wouldn't kill them. He said we'd better wait till the
trainmen came along and then report the matter to them, as the sheepmen
would want damages off the railroad or somebody and we'd better not hunt
them up too quick as it might jeopardize their case. We all agreed there
was some difference in sheepmen, and that Rambolet Bill and Cottswool
Canvasback certainly belonged to the better class, and we all fell to
telling stories of the generous, open-handed things that sheepmen of our
acquaintance had done.
Packsaddle Jack said he knowed a sheepman once by the name of Black
Face, who was so good-hearted that he paid $20 towards one of his
herder's doctor bill when he lost both feet by their being frozen in the
great Wyoming blizzard in '94. The herder stayed with the sheep for
seventy-two hours in the Bad Lands and saved all the 3,000 head except
seven, that got over the bank of the creek into ice and water and
drowned. The herder having got all but these seven head out and getting
his feet wet they froze so hard that Black Face said his feet was
rattling together like rocks when he found him still herding the sheep.
Of course, the sheep might have all perished in the storm if the herder
didn't stay with them, and of course, the herder didn't have anything to
eat the entire three days in the storm, as he was miles from any
habitation and that way saved Black Face 30 cents in grub. But we all
agreed that while Black Face would feel the greatest anguish at the loss
of the seven sheep and giving up the $20, yet the satisfaction of doing
a generous deed and the pride he would experience when it was mentioned
in the item column of the local county paper would partially alleviate
that anguish.
Eatumup Jake said he knew a sheepman by the name of Hatchet Face from
Connecticut, who had sheep ranches out there in Utah, and he was so
kind-hearted that when one of his herders kept his sheep in a widow
neighbor's field till they ate up everything in sight, even her lawn and
flower garden, he apologized to the widow when she returned from nursing
a poor family through a spell of sickness, and told her he would pay her
something, and while he never did pay her anything, yet he always seemed
sorry, while a lot of sheepmen would have laid awake nights to have
studied a way how to eat out the widow again. Eatumup Jake said old
Hatchet Face, when he prayed in church Sundays (he being a strict
Presbyterian), he always prayed for the poor and widows and orphans, and
that showed he had a good heart, to use what influence he had with God
Almighty and get Him to do something for widows and orphans and poor
people.
Dillbery Ike said he knew a sheepman by the name of Shearclose, and
while he never gave his hired help any meat to eat except old
broken-mouthed ewes in the winter and dead lambs in the spring and
summer, and herded his sheep around homesteaders' little ranches till
their milk cows mighty near starved to death, yet old Shearclose gave $5
for a ticket to a charity ball once when a list of the names of all the
people who bought tickets was printed in the county paper.
[Illustration: _C. J. Lane, General Freight Agent and Pass Distributer
to Live Stock Shippers._]
After we summed all these things up, our hearts got so warm thinking of
these acts of generosity by sheepmen that we concluded to make a hunt
for Rambolet Bill, Cottswool Canvasback and Jackdo. We now discussed a
great many plans how to rescue them. While we were arguing the stock
train came, and when we told the conductor, he immediately had the agent
wire General Freight Agent C. J. Lane at Omaha the following message:
"Two prominent sheepmen swept away by freshet while camping ahead of
special stock train No. 79531. Please wire instructions how to find
them."
Lane immediately wired back not to find them, and if there was any trace
left of them to obliterate it at once.
JACKDO'S STORY OF HIS ESCAPE.
We now sauntered down Sherman Hill ahead of the train to Cheyenne,
expecting to get some help there to find Rambolet Bill and Cottswool
Canvasback, and was much surprised to discover Jackdo asleep riding on
the trucks of a car in a special that went by, and on waking him up he
told us the following story of his escape:
He said when the flood came he got astride a big snowball and making a
compass out of a piece of lightning rod he pointed it for the north star
so as to not lose his bearings and started for Cheyenne. He said it was
a wild ride, that he passed cattle and horses, forests and ranches in
quick succession and his snowball was almost worn out when he got below
the altitude of the chinook wind and struck a country of ice and snow
again. But it was impossible to stop, he had acquired such a momentum
going down the mountain that he slid through nine miles of cactus and
prickly pears without having changed the sitting position he started in.
However, after his snowball wore out, he just held up his feet and kept
on till he struck a special stock train going East, and after knocking
two of the cars off the rails and breaking the bumpers of a half-dozen
more, he checked up enough to crawl on a brake beam and go to sleep. He
knew nothing of Rambolet Bill and Cottswool Canvasback.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For the benefit of our readers who do not know what a chinook wind
is, I will explain that it is a hot, violent coast wind which blows at
certain periods of the year at certain altitudes in the West.