The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-09-09

ness the horse he was riding slipped over
a precipice and fell with him to the bot
tom of a gorge, so feet below. killing
both instantly.
!. Mrs. Lowell took a position as house
keeper on q ranch nea Lindale, with the
privilege Of retaining her two sons with
her.
The elder, a lusty lad Of II, was put to
work. So was Sam when he became old
enough. He was giveish herd and moved
into one of the little cabins five or six
miles from the managers house. He took
with him his faithful dog Rex.
Sans herds a after year grew lar
ger as the ssboss" became confident of his
efficiency. Twice every year the youth
helped to drive his charges to the shear
ers and saw them stripped Of their
feeces, and once or twice a year he help
ed to drive up a new regiment from the
lowlands to add to his command.
He seldom went home for any other
purpose. He was not supposed to go
home. He was there TO watch his flock,
and he could not watch them faithfully
unless he remained always with them.
Rex did three-fourths of the work, but
the other fourth had to be done by Sam.
Rex worked. Sam watched.
For hours at a stretch he just sat still,
with his back against a rock, and watch
ed. Most of US who live in the rushing,
crushing city think we know what lone
someness is. Some Of us have sat in a
theater and felt lonesome.
The young sheep herder in all his life
never saw a theater, never saw a street
car, never was In a city larger thar AL
turas, whittier he went some half dozen
times with those who carried the wool to
market.
He never had a chance to be lonesome
In the polite, kid gloved way. The lone
someness that crushed In upon him was
that of utter, absolute, unthinkable soli-
tude, the solitude that drives men wild
in the ley Businesses of Alaska when they
get blown aside and lost from the beaten
paths Of men.
OF course he had been born to it or in
digenous to 1t and was acciimated by
slow degrees, so that 1t didn't strike him
entirely as a sudden experience when the
full sense of b~arrenness began to play
upon him.
But the slow, slow creeping of the
smothery fog Of silence, the narrowing of
the horizon until it threatened to close in
and swallow him, the blurring Of the dull
landscape into a single refrain that beat
upon his eyes over and over again and
made them ache-that was the deathly
sensation that gradually took a grip up
on him and drove him shrieking into his
cabin to stare at the duh walls for relief.
One morning a party Of shearers went
up to Lowelrs focks to make their semi
annpal harvest of wool.
The men paused outside the cabin and
looked for the young herder to appear,
but several moments passed without his
revealing himself. One Of the men start
ed forward to knock at the cabin door.
He had hardly taken a step before the
door was flung open, and the young
sheepman sprang out.
They knew In q moment that he was
mad. Ills face was afame with the
white fire OF delirium. In his hands was
a rifle. He did not walk. He plunged
and swung sideways, as a drunken man
In q passion.
The shearers fell back and scattered
out Of range of his rife. But he did not
notice them. The barking of the dog
held his furious attention. He turned
with a snarl and shot the faithful beast.
In the afternoon the men returned,
armed, and prepared to bring Sam Lowell
back with them to the ranch house. He
made a desperate resistance, but was
finally cverpowered.
lie was taken to the ranch house, and
a doctor was brought all the way from
Sacramento to attend him. But it was
not a doctor Of this worlds ills that Sam
Lowell needed. He had run his course
in this life, and the sublime force that
hail made him d man instead of a beast
was gone from him. AT the end of a
week his body died, too, and the book
was closed on one more Of those children
of the gray frontier.