broad-breasted wives; single horsemen, horsemen in pairs and troops; even a band of Indians coming down from the distant mountains with the moccasins and baskets representing their winter's work to be traded for the luxuries of civilization at Jasper.
Rawlins was offered a job along toward evening by a sheepman who had driven three hundred miles with eight loads of wool. This man had a most imposing train, twelve horses to a double wagon. He was making camp with his many teamsters when Rawlins met him, having a day's drive yet ahead of him to Jasper.
No, he wasn't looking for a job, Rawlins told the sheepman. He was heading for the Dry Wood range to start operations for himself. Not much of a country he was bound for, the sheepman said. It was better over his way, toward the south-west. Rawlins had his plans too complete and firmly fixed on Dry Wood to have his determination shaken by a disparaging report.—He declined the friendly invitation to share camp with the opulent sheepman, pushing on until dusk.
Rawlins made camp that night by a brook that was already dwindling, soon to dry up and cease among its troubled stones. He slept with feet toward his little fire, as he had done many a time on the high, hillocked range in the old buffalo country of Kansas, feeling again quite at home.
When he kicked out of his blankets at the first streak of day, Rawlins felt himself considerably bunged-up and chilled to the bone, for which tenderness he despised himself. A man who intended to go in for the sheep business must case-harden himself against all temperatures, and not shiver around like a
