to waste their few hundreds on its dissipations were looked upon with scorn.
The mark of sheep was on Jasper. The grease of wool was on the planks of the long platform and loading sheds at the railroad station; the grease of wool from sheepmen's clothes had polished the chairs in the hotel, and left its rancid scent on pillows and blankets.
In spite of the large money they received, especially at this season of the year for wool, sheepmen were stingy spenders. Luxury was unknown to them; the refinements, even the comforts, of life were largely despised. Due to this the hotel rate was not high. Rawlins installed himself in a wool-tainted room to wait the outcome of his investigation.
In the course of three weeks, after a telegram had been shot in to kick him along, the congressman's reply to the land-seeking wanderer's letter came. It was a long letter, full of political subtleties, insincerities, evasions; but it settled the doubt, if there had been any doubt in Rawlins' mind to be settled, concerning the legality of sheep limit at the edge of the Dry Wood country.
As far as he could find out from the Department, as far as the records showed, Senator Galloway had no lease covering the public lands in question, the congressman wrote. But why should he have a lease to something nobody ever had wanted, or ever would want? What was all this trouble and inquiry over, anyway? Rawlins knew how such things went. It might be called one of the pleasant perquisites of senatorial eminence, one of the outside emoluments of political service. Wasn't there land enough lying
