Elmer Tippie made his appearance a little after sunset, his approach announced by the noise of the three wagons in his train long before they came in sight. There were four horses to a wagon, each of the vehicles being pretty well loaded with boxes, barrels and sacks. Rawlins beheld this wholesale provisioning with amazement. He thought that must be a heavy-feeding family if that represented only six months' supplies, as Mrs. Duke had told him her foreman was bringing along from Jasper.
On this point Rawlins received considerable enlightenment while he helped Elmer and the drivers put the teams away. That generous providing was mainly on account of twelve sheep-herders who were looking after a matter of thirty thousand sheep carrying the big black D on the adjoining range.
That was a business of considerably more importance than the modest homestead indicated. Ewes were selling in that day around five dollars a head on the range; wool at forty cents a pound. It required no very difficult computation to arrive at the conclusion that Mrs. Duke was one of the big ones in the sheep world of whom Clemmons had spoken.
One of the drivers said that was the third trip they had made to Jasper in the past month with the spring
