The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-04-08

Illustration of the stuff there Is in somi
sheepherders. Montana weather is pretty
| changeable. This morning the sun may be
SHINING and the air too warm for an over
coat Before noon you may be thankful
Tor but alo coat and heavy woolen cap
We seen the thermometer change 50 de-
| grees in less than that number Of minutes
and so degrees in twenty-four hours. Last
october was that way. As fine weather al
| hrst as man could ask. Parties of hunt
ers. men and women. too. were up in the
mountains. having a good time and our
| herders were on the outside ranges One
| of the boys. Angus Mcdonald. was away
| up on the Marias headwaters nearly into
| the mountains. 4 mighty nice fellow he
was, Scotch of course, and educated up to
| the handle. He once told me he had grad
uated from Edinburgh University and af-
| terward from a school on the continent
| Weimar, or Heidelberg, or some such place
| When he went out with the sheep in the
morning he would take a little book in the
pocket OF his cau~as coat to read on the
range and usually it was in Greek. He
was steady reliable sort of fellow and
we were thinking of giving him a mixed
i band this season on shares, just to help
him along and because our range was get
| ting bit overstocked. anyway.
About the middle OF the month we had
a little storm. II covered a strip sixty
to hundred miles wide and two hundred
miles long. For three days it showed as
if that was the last chance it blew a gale
and it dropped to zero in one night. OF
course, our first thought was for our
sheep and the herders. Some of the sta
tons reported by telephone, and these
were all right. We sent men 10 the 9TH
ers, and you can bet sc went along. too.
One nerder had frozen to death: | forget
his name. His sheep had evidently STAN
peded and he loss his way. falling down
and dying not one hundred yards from
the door OF his shack. We sized it up that
he gave up his sheep fer lost and tried to
make camp. got confused in the storm,
and. passing his own door, tried to go up
the wrong coulee. When his strength
failed he dropped and that was the end
for him. He stayed there.
at took us seven days to get to Angus.
You can imagine how hard IL was when l
tell you that four men and horse made
just twelve miles in twelve hours. wag-
on could not be moved half mile in that
time. Angus had a shelter tent. and that
was the first thing we found. His blan-
kets, grub, etc, were there-and some
thing else. On the he'd was his lantern,
and stuck in the handle this note"
Here the speaker pulled out pocket
book. from which he took a dirty scrap of
paper. evidently the iyleaf OF a book. On
ii in pencil this note was scribbled:
October 10. 1899 12;o5 p. m.
Mr. -:
The sheep got away from me about o'eloel;
this evening and | have been follos ing them up,
irving to corral them. since. ! have list
left them for few minutes. ] shall try to brin;;
then back. but fear they hIv. gone up the
north coulee, and have little strength left, as
my cough has grown worse. Yours,
ANGUS MCDONALD.
He was worth more than a million
sheep. that fellow, and he must have
known it. but he tried to save our prop
erty. just the same. We went up the
north coulee after him. On the top of a
rise we struck beaten trail, crossing the
coulee and looking as if it had been made
by one animal. We followed it out. and
found at one end the sheep-at the other
was Angus Mcdonald and his dog. The dog
was alive. The poor beast had made that
trail. travelling al intervals through the
seven days between the body of his mas
ter and the sheep. | suppose he thought
his duty lay between the two. The old
story, isn't it? Like dog, like master,
and both faithful unto death.
There were seventeen herders lost in
that storm, and most of them stuck by
their sheep when they could have quit and
saved themselves. But they won't get any
big monuments nor much praise nor will
their deaths raise the sheepherder much
higher in the popular estimation of Mon
tana. | suppose the poor devils will con-
tine to play sucker to tinhorn gamblers
and divekeepers. and, when their time
comes to cross the DIVE, TO DR.. Mussg
brod's Institution for the mentally out of
whack at Warm Springs. Still, sometimes
think I would as soon be a Montana
sheepherder as Montana politician