The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-05-02
INvASIONs OF THE NORTHWEST.
The Sheep-Shearers, Cowboys, Hop.
Pfckers and Grain Harvesters.

Julian Ralph in Harpers Magazine.
Because it Is impossible to picture the
novelty-to an Eastern reader-of life in
the Northwest, and because it nevertheless
must be suggested, let me tell only OF four
peculiar visitations that the new states ex-
psrience-of four invasions which take
place there every year. In May there
come into the stock ranges Of Montana
shearers by the hundreds, in bands of ten
or twenty, each led by a captain, who finds
employment and makes contracts for the
rest. These sheep-barbers are mainly Cali
fornians and New Workers, and the Califor
mia men are said to be the more skillfu
workers. To layman, all seem marvel
lously dexterous, and at 10 cents a head,
many are able to earn So to So a day. They
lose many days in travel, however, and
may not average more than IS on tina
account. Their season begins IN Califor-
MIA in February, and they work through
Oregon. Washington and Montana. to re-
turn to a second shearing on the Pacific
coast in August Some come mounted
and some afoot. and some are shiftless and
dissipated, but many are saving, and am
bilious to earn herds of their own.
They come upon the Montanan hills
ahead OF another and far stronger process
sion-that of the cattle that are being
This is string of herds of Texas 2-year-
olds coming north at middle age to spend
the remaining half of their lives fattening
on the Montana bunch-grass, and then to
end their careers in Chicago. The bands
are called trails, F" and follow one another
about day apart. With each trail ride
the hardy and devil-may-care cow
boys, led by foreman, and fol-
lowed by horse-wrangler in charge
OF the relays of broncos. A cook,
with four-horse wagon load of provisions,
brings up each rear. Only a few miles are
covered in day, and the journey con-
sumes many weeks. These are enlivened
by storms. by panics among the cattle, by
quarrels with settlers on guard at the
streams and ON their lands, by meals
missed and nights spent amid mud and
ram. That Is as queer and picturesque
procession as one can easily imagine.
Then there is the early autumn hop
picking in the luxuriant fields of the Pa
cine coast in Washington. Down Puget
sound and along the rivers come the in
dustrious canoe Indians of that region in
their motley garb, and bent on making
enough money in the hop fields TO see
them through the rainy aud idle winter.
They are not like the Indian of
story and of song, but are squat
inquired people, whose chests and
arms are oyer-teveloped by exer-
NASO III inc CaHOtS, WHICH tuh6 the place OF
the Indian ponies of the plains, as their
rivers are substituted for the biazed or
foot-worn trails of the East To the hon
neids they come in their dug-outs from as
far north as British Columbia and
Alaska. When all have made the Journey.
their canoes fret the strand. and the smoke
OF their camp fires touches the air with
blue Women and children accompany
the men, all alike illuminating the green
background OF the hop fields with their
gay blankets and calicoes, themselves
lending still other touches of color by
means Of their leather skins and let hair.
They leave trail of silver behind them
when they depart. but the hops they have
picked represent still more of gold-a
million last year; two millions the year
before,
Again, fourth set of invaders appears:
this time in Dakota. These are not mic
turesque- They come not in boats or
sstFlde horses, but struggling or skulking
along the highways, as the demoralized
peasantry made their way to Paris during
the French Revolution. These are the
wheat harvesters, who follow the golden
gram all the way up from Texas, finding
themselves in time for each more and
more belated ripening in each more and
more northerly state, until, in late autumn,
they reach the Red River valley, and at
last end their strange pilgrimage in Mani
toba. The hands and skill they bring to
the dense wheat fields of Eastern North
Dakota are most welcome there, and these
harvest folk might easily occupy a high
niche in sentimental and poetic literature,
yet they don't. As rule. they are not at
all the sort OF folk that the ladies of the
wheat lands invite to their tea parties and
sewing bees. On the contrary, far too
many OF them are vagabonds and fond OF
drink In the Red river country the har-
yesiers from the sonth are joined by lum-
oermen from Wisconsin and Minnesota,
who ind that great natural granary a fine
heid for turning honest pennies at lighter
work than Telling forests.
Childrens' extra nne seamless fasr hlack hnsa