Shepherds for Science

Author of “Local Option in Loco Land,” “Evidently Not,” etc.

Me and Dirty Shirt Jones prods our three burros across the border of Yaller Rock County, points north through the country where God dumped the leavings after He made the Bad Lands, and has visions of the old home town.

Me and Dirty has abandoned the idea of finding gold where she ain’t, and right now we’re herding our sore-footed jassacks towards the flesh-pots of Piperock town.

We’re cutting around the side of a hill, when all to once we discerns the figure of a man setting on a rock ahead of us.

He looks a heap like he was figuring out the why and whatfor of all things. He humps there in the sun, a long, lean, pathetic-looking figure, despondency showing even in the curves of his cartridge-belt. I feels sorry for him long before our lead burro halts before him and lets us arrive.

The figure raises its head, peers at that gray burro, and when we stop he gets to his feet, turns to us and snaps:

“Hold up your hands! Both of you!”

Me and Dirty jerks our hands above our heads, and this fretful-looking hombre with the good-by forever mustache and weary eyes squints at us and says—

“You both solemnly swear to uphold the law vested in you as deputy sheriffs of Yaller Rock County, so help you Gawd?”

Me and Dirty nods and puts down our hands.

“Now,” says Magpie Simpkins, sheriff of Yaller Rock County, “I feel a danged sight better.”

We nods again, sets down beside him, and rolls smokes. After while Magpie scratches his nose and pinches out the light of his cigaret.

“What you doing here—hunting snakes?” asks Dirty.

Magpie shakes his head and digs into the dirt with his heels.

“Of course it ain’t none of our business,” says I, “but I would like to know why you inoculates us with sheriffitis without warning.”

“Sheep,” says he, soft-like. “Just sheep, Ike.”

“Which there never was nor never will be,” states Dirty. “You mean just plain sheep, don’t you, Magpie?”

“That is as may be, Dirty.”

Magpie fingers his mustache, and nods.

“Well,” says I, “me and Dirty hankers for home, so I reckon we might as well drift along, Magpie.”

“No,” says he, sad-like. “You ain’t going no place, Ike. You’re arrived. Do you reckon I deputized you for fun?”

“Sheep,” pronounces Dirty, “don’t mean nothing at all to me. I sure am contemptuous of all things pertaining to wool.”

“Me, I votes against anything that blats,” says I.

“I don’t love ’em!” snaps Magpie. “Don’t see me packing no sheep-dip to alleviate their sufferings, do you?”

We don’t seem to, so we all sets there, humped over in the sun. After while Magpie clears his throat.

“‘Alphabetical’ Allen and ‘Scenery’ Sims own three thousand woollies,” says he. “Scenery was a silent pardner, being as he’s a cow-man, which hates sheep. Alphy gets Scenery to unhook a thousand dollars to buy some fancy stock. Sabe? Well, Alphy bought ’em—red, white and blue ones, in stacks, the same of which ain’t productive none to speak about.

“Scenery chides Alphy to the extent that Alphy gets disgruntled and wishes to separate the herd, fifty-fifty, without considering the thousand he lost over the green cloth. Alphy contends that him and Scenery has agreed to suffer gains and losses together, and furthermore that he lost a lot of his own money at the same sitting, the same of which makes them feller sufferers.

“Such a open declaration causes some smoke and a little noise in Piperock, but neither of them gets shot up enough for us to declare a holiday. Scenery plasters a attachment on the herd, and then Alphy limps to Judge Steele’s wickiup and prays for a receiver.

“Being as I’m the sheriff I has to serve said attachment, and also being as I’m a danged fool I’m appointed as the receiver. The county didn’t elect me to herd sheep, gents. Over on the other side of that hill is the sheep. Somewhere over there is the tent. All very simple.”

Magpie fusses with his mustache for a moment and then gets to his feet. He slaps our lead burro with his hat, and hitches up his belt.

“Come on, mules! Hump yourselves!”

“Where to, feller?” asks Dirty. “Them is our burros, Magpie.”

“You won’t need ’em,” says he, weary-like, “so I’ll take ’em home for you. All I ask is this: Take care of the sheep.”

“Sheep?” I yells.

“S-h-e-e-p,” he spells, counting the letters on the fingers of his left hand with the barrel of the gun in his right. “Just sheep, Ike. Keep—your—hands—off—that—gun!”

“Yea-a-a-a-a-h!” blats Dirty, excited-like. “Explain yourself, feller.”

“You—” Magpie points at Dirty— “are the receiver. Sabe? I hereby makes you deputy receiver of them sheep, and I honors Ike by making him deputy attacher. Ike always was attached to sheep. May the Lord have a little mercy on your souls, and—don’t lose any sheep. Come on, canaries.”

Me and Dirty sets there like a pair of mummies and watches that forlorn-looking hombre herd our long-eared rolling-stock across the hills. Dirty jerks a rock at a sand-lizard, and yanks his hat down over his ears. We glares at each other for a moment.

“Shepherd!” hisses Dirty. “You sheep-attacher!”

“Ditto!” I hisses back at him. “You sheep-receptacle!”