The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-25

T e season had been disastrous for Ro1er
Godfrey. Indeed, as far as that goes. it
had been disastrous for all the cattle and
sheep men in Cinnamon Valley. The
previous winter had been dry and the
usual grass had all been eaten off the
ranges by June. The summer had been
not, with mole than the usual number OF
dry north winds. The creeks had gone
dry for the first time in twenty years.
Cattle and sheep must have grass and
water or they will die, and the result was
that Cinnamon Valley was strewn with
carcasses. Every day Roger Godfrey saw
his sheep stagger, fall, bleat once or twice
and expire; and every sheep that died
meant that he was just 81 poorer. On the
Isl day of June he had counted his sheep
and there were exactly 1904; on the LIST
of Septem Der he counted them again and
there were 36l; on the 1st OF October he
could find but $50; and when, on the
morning OF December l, he ran his eyes
over the remnant, of his flock there were
just seventy left.
Seventy lean, miserable sheep, hardly
able to stageer about. Their ribs showed
along their emaciateu sides and the beat
iuB VI Tue ieeDiS purse Was plainly NlslOic
on their sunken TANKS. There was no
shearing to be done, for starved sheep have
no wool, so this source OF income was cut
off. There was no fight left in the ske!e
ton rams and the eyes of the ewes were
large and bright.
1t was famous fall for coyotes. Every
night Roger could hear them laughing
and snarling over his sheep and lambs.
The valley was alive with them. They
howled and yelped and barked from sun
set to sunrise, and when Roger emerged
from his cabin in the morning he could
count them by the dozen, sitting on their
launches and licking their yellow chops.
The famine was on. The grass was gone
and when the flock staggered over the
range they raised cloud of gray dust that
f1oated into their mouths and parched
toeir paiates. The nearest water was four
miles off. Roger drove them there in the
morning and drove them back in the after
noon and when they got back they sank
exhausted on the dusty ground. For
weeks he expected that every day would
prove the last drive. To ado horror to the
famine the rain held off, ard if no rain
came during the winter there would be no
grass the following summer. This meant
ruin.
Cinnamon Valley was a sight those dark
days. 1t looked like the valley of the
sha dow of death. Standing at the door of
his cabin Roger could see nothing but q
great yellow plain stretching away for
miles, fanked on both sides by black
tawny mountains without even tree on
their barren slope. They reminded him of
the mountains of the moon. Small spots
OF white dotted the fat PLAIN as far as he
could see. They were the bones of his
starved sheep. The whole country looked
the abomination of desolation.
Though Roger had got down to his last
dollar and there was barely enough provi-
sions in the cabin to carry him over Christ
mas, he felt that he could have got along
somehow if he had been alone. But there
were wife and child in that lonely cabin,
fifteen miles away from the nearest neigh
Dor, and they wrenched his heart. They
were a cheerful young couple when they
had come out to California from Iowa and
squatted in Cinnamon Valley three years
before. Now Roger was gaunt old man
with haggard face and sunken eyes and a
long, matted beard thai f1oated down over
his chest. And the blue -eyeds farmers
daughter, who had taken him for better or
for worse? She, too. was gaunt and hag-
gard and old, and the despair of ruin was
set on her pinehed face and peered out
from her shining eyes.
And the boy, the golden-haired offspring
OF the famine-he, too, was getting gaunt
and haggard. When Roger looked at him
great rebellion arose in his heart and he
scowled at the sky above. as if recognizing
prosecutor there. But the mother crept
out behind the cabin and wept.
And so Christmas approached. The
jackals laughed all night, the vultures
wheeled about in midair all day or hoped
awkwardly from one heap of bones to
another. And the rain still held off. AS
if to further torment them the sky had
treacherous trick OF clouding up and
promising rain, only to clear off and leave
them one step nearer despair. And every