The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1899-11-30
THE SHEPHERDS LIFE.
DANGERS AND HARpsHIPs ENDURED
ON THE WESTERN PLAINS.

velOusiy Intelligent Dogs.
People who put on heavy woolens
have little idea of the dangers faced
by the men who make it possible for
them to have these garments to wear.
Only week or two ago the dispatches
told of the heavy loss of Lille in the
blizzards which swept over Northern
Montana. Many sheep herders were
caught out in these terrible storms,
and perished rather than desert the
focks they were hired to tend. One
of them, William Graham, after try
ing hard through fearful night to
get his herd into camp, came back to
his tent about midnight, exhausted.
Thoroughly conscious of what his fate
would be were he to venture out
again, he wrote q note, telling of his
condition and his determination to
return again into the night and seek
his sheep. When the blizzard had
abated in force the searchers found
him stretched upon the snow, dead.
One of his dogs had stayed to guard
his masters body, and the other had
gone in search of the herd. Many
other pitiable tales OF suffering are
told, aud still many more never will
reach the ears of Eastern folk.
For the greater part Of the year the
life Of the sheep herder on the plains
is one of monotonous, hard, unceasing
toll. In Kansas rain seldom falls,
and in summer, even, day follows day
in constant succession OF cloudless
blue sky and fervent sunshine. The
shepherd has nothing to look at,
therefore, but sky and earth, blend
ing vaguely in the distant horizon,
his flock forming the only object
which diversifes the prospect. He
hears no sound except the plaintive
bleating of his sheep, and the only
things to interest him are the insane.
ly merry gambols of his lambs and the
readiness with which the ewes pick
oat their own offspring merely by the
sbi!ity 20 distinguish tie cry Of thei:,
own young, eve- though it be among
the bleating of 500 others.
When "the scab" breaks out among
the flock every sheep must be sheared,
washed and anointed with some medi-
cament to destroy the disorder.
When the sheep p-shesring season ar
rives the shepherds, who have led
such lonely lives all the rest of the
year, find themselves in the midst of
a crowd. Men in all of the railroad
towns in the vicinity OF sheep-raising
districts who make a business OF
shearing the animals come out to the
ranches in great companies. Camps
are formed and the lonely corrals are
transformed into bustling, humming
villages. Nothing has been found as
lug sheep so we'll and satisfactorily
as the old-fashioned shears which
were in use in the days when the mas
ters painted their first pictures ana
the poets sang their first songs of
beautiful shepherdesses and hand
some shepherds provided with crooks
and pipes.
Sheep shearers are paid for their
work at certain rate for every sheep
they shear, 80 they work rapidly. On
every sheep ranch is large, lcng
wooden building, the wool shed, in
which are openings communicating
with the pens where the sheep are
kept while shearing is in progress. A
shearer goes into one of the pens,
seizes a sheep by one of its hind legs,
drags it into the wool shed through
one Of the openings made for the pur
pose, and with deftness as swift in
it's results as the "presto, change!" of
the magician, transforms the creature
from thickly covered, woolly sheep
into a shorn, naked-looking, chilled
and quaking spectre, which, permitted
to escape from the hands of him who
despoiled it so ruthlessly of its fleece,
runs through door at the opposite
side of the wool shed and again re-
sumes its nibbling rambles over the
prairie.
An important functionary at this
time is the tar boy, la1 with bucket
of tar and brush While there is
nothing whatever which the most
fanatical advocate OF kindness to dumb
creatures could construe as cruelty in
the shearing of sheep, nevertheless,
even the most careful shearer occa-
sionally snips the flesh with his shears.
| Whou puCu uu dCCiucut nuppeuS nc
yells "Tar!" With his brush the lad
smears little tar over the nipped
place, for nothing is so healing to
wounds on a sleeps back as pine tar.
A first-class shearer on Western
ranch will shear from eighty to 100
sheep betw cen sunrise aud sunset.
Experts frequently shear 1875 in day,
but the average for shearers is some
where between fifty and sixty day.
One Of the diversions of shearing
time is fightA A,etween rams. Many
of these creatures, Notwithstanding
their timidity il the presence of
other animals, are extremely pugna-
cious toward one another, and quar-
rels among them are frequent, the
principal cause being a rivalry for a
particular ewes favor. When a chal-
lenge has been issued and accepted
the rivals back away ten or twelve
PAGES from each other and then both
lower their heads and make for each
other in q straight line with force
and speed which one would hardly
accredit to them. Bang! go the two
heads. But the crashing blow does
not seem to have the slightest effect
on either of them. Again they run
back several PAGES and advance with
the velocity of an avalanche. Again