The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1897-10-15

the canal, a8 many nu evening before
h0 had aat Watching The mules come
in from water Tonight there was
never o mule I'm sight. Down The
breeze came a pungent odor aud a
tinkliug Of little bells over the
crest Of ON adjacent BIN appeared the
flock browsing ON the rank sage.
''They do look some like mules"
he soliloquized, "and Ill bet I'm the
only Irishman In America ever owned
a herd Of sheep"
Winter came and passed, and the
only lrishman prosperod. by roofing
in n cutwith brush he had commodious
sheds, aud cross sections of poles
divided the broad ditch into as many
corrals as he chose. The sheep were
Fat and carried heavy fleeces.
Whalen had for help two boys, who
had wandered there and asked for
work He had proposed 10 hire one
OF them, but the boys protested that
they had never been separated, and
that If they got jobs al different ranches
''the other one wouldn't know where
the other one was" contingency
which they could not abide. So
Whalen offered TO take the two at the
price Of one, and on that basis they
shared with him the shack, herded the
flock aud cooked the grub. They soon
knew as much, or as little, about
sheep as Brick himself; and the pro-
prietor found opportunity to break the
monotony Of camp life by occasional
trips to the railroad and once to San
Francisco.
"Tm going to see my friend Martin, 4"
he told the boys. "Now tend to bust
ness and don't let any get away" And
the boys gave their word that not one
should escape.
During Whalen's absence in the city
he went out of the sheep business even
more abruptly than he went into it the
previous autumn. The instruction to
the boys was fulfilled to the letter.
not any got away.
It happened on hot day in June,
when, contrary to usual custom, the
boys brought the flock to camp and
/ the shade of sheds at noontime. It
.never rains in that arid region, but
sometimes pours. This was one of
those times. Charged with ice and
water a great black cloud came drift
ing down the wind and emptied out its
load upon the camp and the hillside
above il. The canal curying around
it's base, formed an eave-trough for
the whole mountain and poured several
thousand inches of water into
Whaen's improvised sheep sheds.
The food very soon subsidized, but
when the cloud had passed and the
sun again shone forth, there were no
living sheep. Not many minutes are
required to drown rat in Il hole.
Meanwhile the boys, greatly
frightened by the sudden storm, and
with no thought for the safety of the
| flock, were in the shack. The hail
pounded and the wind shookit. Water
covered the floor
pray, Billy" said the one on the
barrel
''No, you do it, j" he answered from
the tabletop.
The shack had no window, and,
with The door closed, it was pretty
dark in there. When Whaien reached
home two hours later, the floor was
still wet, and the boys were yet roost-
ing on table and barrel, but outside,
in the bright sunlight, the ground
appeared already almost dry. A
solitary goat stood upon the shed
roof he had been among the sheep in
the pen.
"You can't keep a good man down
any more than you can a goat, " was
Bricks comment on the catastrophe.
While Whalenwas working the boys
double time at pulling the wool from
the dead sheep, he had the happy
thought Of stocking his ranch with
, bees. Having money enough for the
proceeds of his wool sale to buy @
hundred stands, he promptly carried
the thought into effect.
Again he sat down in the door of his
shack to "double his money"
,, "This is better than sheep" said
he; "for they herds themselves. And
they are like mules in one thing-you
: are liable to get hurt if you fool with
'em."
This wave of prosperity broke up as
soon as former ones had done, for he
had imported bad case offoul brood
and within a year the hundred
+ swarms had petered out. When we
went down there last summer in the
L interest of new company which has
e taken up the work of completing the
i canal, Whalen gathered the bones on
Of the old shed in the cut and hauled
them to the railroad, where he SOLE
a them for fertilizer, realizing enough
o to buy two more mules. With hi
n four-mule team he is at work in tn
d ditch for days wages. Somewha
8 grizzled now, and not so brick-red o
o hair and whisker as formerly, he i