as too much snow upon
them for too many months in the year,--that the sheep would get lost, the
ground being too difficult for shepherding,--that the expense of getting
wool down to the ship's side would eat up the farmer's profits,--and that
the grass was too rough and sour for sheep to thrive upon; but one after
another determined to try the experiment, and it was wonderful how
successfully it turned out. Men pushed farther and farther into the
mountains, and found a very considerable tract inside the front range,
between it and another which was loftier still, though even this was not
the highest, the great snowy one which could be seen from out upon the
plains. This second range, however, seemed to mark the extreme limits of
pastoral country; and it was here, at a small and newly founded station,
that I was received as a cadet, and soon regularly employed. I was then
just twenty-two years old.

I was delighted with the country and the manner of life. It was my daily
business to go up to the top of a certain high mountain, and down one of
its spurs on to the flat, in order to make sure that no sheep had crossed
their boundaries. I was to see the sheep, not necessarily close at hand,
nor to get them in a single mob, but to see enough of them here and there
to feel easy that nothing had gone wrong; this was no difficult matter,
for there were not above eight hundred of them; and, being all breeding
ewes, they were pretty quiet.

There were a good many sheep which I knew, as two or three black ewes,
and a black lamb or two, and several others which had some distinguishing
mark whereby I could tell them. I would try and see all these, and if
they were all there, and the mob looked large enough, I might rest
assured that all was well. It is surprising how soon the eye becomes
accustomed to missing twenty sheep out of two or three hundred. I had a
telescope and a dog, and would take bread and meat and tobacco with me.
Starting with early dawn, it would be night before I could complete my
round; for the mountain over which I had to go was very high. In winter
it was covered with snow, and the sheep needed no watching from above. If
I were to see sheep dung or tracks going down on to the other side of the
mountain (where there was a valley with a stream--a mere _cul de sac_), I
was to follow them, and look out for sheep; but I never saw any, the
sheep always descending on to their own side, partly from habit, and