Waterbury Democrat., 1902-12-30

the settler had rights they must re- spect. The government said to the sheepmen Gin the two mile hmit''), you, too, must give tho homesteader chance, must not allow your crea- lures to grub and devastato at will. The 1.-two mile limit'' is statute prohibiting tho sheep from grazing within two miles of any inhabited dwellings,; and as the dwellings ara increasing in number so fast the sheep's struggle for existence is get ting to be much more of a struggle than formerly.
 The settler and cattlemen war on the sheep because wherever this in- defatigable grubber goes, he works great havoc. He leaves nothing be- hind, no blade of grass, not a thing for any creature thnt may come aft CT. As he nibbles he makes a clean sweep of everything, biting way down below the blades into the roots. And not only is he ruthless as to getting what he can for himself, but, fiocks travelling ever in the wake of a Iead- CT, everything underfoot is de- stroyed. To add to his unattractive- mess on the range, the odor of fsheep's hoofs is very unpleasant to both horses Gld cattle, who there- fore do not care to browse in his viz cinity.
 Because of his monopolistic tenden- cies every mans hand seems against him. Lately he has been prohibited the forest reserves, and now nothing is left for him but to fight the cat tlemen for the open range. And fighting it is that is going on out there in the grazing lands of the northwest, cowboys and shepherds in desperate straits to find sustenance for their herds and fiocks.
 Retribution falls heavily upon the unsuitable hocks, occasionally set tiers uniting with cowboys in a wholesale slaughtering of the sheep. Shepherds, needing new . pastures, will, fully conscious of the danger att tending the move, push on into re- zion where cattle are feeding, or they will encroach on settlers lands. Fierce hostilities follow, both sheep and shepherd often losing their lives. Last summer band of masked riders out in Wyoming planned and exe- cuted a border deed most bold and lawless. They attacked and mur- dered the herders of large flock, killed thousands of sheep, and turned loose other thousands to die of ex- posture and want.
 Even in this day of newspaper fer rets, not all that happens on the range gets to the eye of the reader. The life of the western, shepherd is not the peaceful, contemplative thing depicted in fairy tales. The tender of focks in the disputed lands snust be keen on the alert against a hu- man enemy, knows that 3 sudden att tack may end all for both herd and herdsmen. It is estimated that in the last ten years 500 herders and 100000 sheep have lost their lives at the hands of the cowboys. A heavy loss of property, grievous waste of Efei agsi saaa2
 The methods of slaughter are va- rious. Sometimes a flock is silrround- ed, the herders captured or chased away, and the rifles kept cracking until the whole flock is destroyed. Dynamite is occasionally employed in the work of extermination, the bombs being thrown into the midst of the huddled creatures, for whoms and for the herders, there can be no escape.
 The governments attention is at present considerably taken up with this cattle-sheep-settler question in the northwest, and it looks as though the doom of free range were at hand. A settlement of the matter may be 1nade among those most nearly cou- cerned, or the government may give out the range in leases, as is dono with the school lands in most of tho states The wild picturesqueness of life on the range may fade away ut- ter1y, but perhaps one can be re- signed to that in the contemplation of peaceful ranches and of myriads of homesteads for myriads of land less folk. KATHERINE POPE