The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-07-25

pillows, interrupted here and there by
rim-rock masses like breakers, and by q
few scattered cedars like specks of dark
foam.
Before one OF these cedars, stark and
lightning splintered, Chris has halted,
70 read and to scratch his head.
DEAD LINE NOTICE
To Sheep Men
Notice ia hereby given that every
thing south of line extending from the
mouth of Willow creek to the forks of
the old government road is cattle coun-
try, and that this Dead Line is going
to be enforced.
Hefders who take their sheep across
will be dealt with accordingly.
COMMITTEE.
Chris scratched his head, while his
woolly folk wandered on.
II dom know" he said. ''Dis "a
something's new. I don know what dey
mean. 1 DON see no dead line. 1 dom
see no line at all. Nobody tells me nod
dings. l drive my Sleeps trough by
dis trail las year. Boss say take same
trail dis year; 60 mus % on wit dem.
dom want no troubles; but Meester
Boss say 60 on, und gov
Wherewith Chris followed his sheen
and dismissed the notice from his CON
tented mind.
The sun, crimson globe, has set
the west is golden, the zenith is pink.
the east is dark blue, when clamorous
all, trotting, walking, jo"tling, gathered
thus by man and dog from their long
days meandering in aspen and sage,
the shaggy horde pour from the last
brush upon the fat assigned to them.
Carrying tenderly, in his arms a weak
ling lamb too exhausted to walk, Chris
also enters.
"Dere," he addresses, depositing It.
Now you find nanny to tend to
you. ! amt your daddy -
He looks refectively, fatherly, over
the turbulent mass, as it swirls and
baas upon the bedding ground. Yellow
eyes, white dashed and uncanny, but
shrewd, meet his faded blue ones. The
sheep estimate him perfectly. They es-
innate his pretended fierceness when he
raises that staff which never descends
upon them when he throws those stones
which never hit; when he sends Kitty
at them-Kitty, who nips but never
draws blood, for dog is like master.
And Chris understands them, In
turn. he knows every eve and wether;
he knows the lambs better than do their
mothers; he counts every nose in the
5000 and their children. They are his
family; he, their only protector, guide
and counselor.
The band is settling to the bedding
ground but from the main body of ell
ders squads of frolicsome lambkins, in
single file like urchins- at follow my
leader" are continually scampering out,
circling through the adjacent sage and
returning.
Chris, leaning upon his staff, smiles
patronizingly under his CRIME. ...-.
''Dose leetle lambs, dey got to play"
he tells Kitty. Never too tired to
play!"
Kitty, after an instant of bright eyed
attention, satisfied with the evenings
work, heads for the dingy tent, to throw
herself fat, with dripping tongue, there
by the canvas wall. Chris presently fol-
lows. The short twilight has waned,
rapidly retreating westward before the
advancing dusk, skirmish line Of the
host of night. The mesas are tosched
with high lights, but the sagy pillows
are dimming, and in the sky the
brighter stars are twinkling. A chill
drifts upon the purple and misty air;
somewhere a coyote yaps.
For Chris there is much to do. He
must bring q pail of water from the
Doggy spring in the swale near by,
where aspens and willows are clustered
like palma in an oasis. He must make
his fire in the little sheet iron stove
and put his coffee pot on to boil. He
must mix his dough for bread, and peel
his potatoes, and cut his mutton from
the carcass denied to blowfiies by it's
wrapping of tarpaulin. He must light
his lantern.
With flaps open so that he may listen
the better, sitting cross legged upon his
tumbled bed, his table the ground and
An upturned box, he eats his supper.
Between mouthfuls he pauses, to listen
yet more closely-perhaps, with an ex-
clamation, to hasten out, lest some
fatuous mother, not having found her
lamb in the medley, should strike off
upon the back trail into the dangerous
brush.