ver on the
other side of the tracks near the loading-pen. After a while the women
folks got to talking about the place and making objections; so then the
rent was raised. I heard just the other day that she left town on a
horse and was looking around the country. She fastened the side of it
up with a big pin."

"A big breastpin," said Al Todd.

"That's her."

Here was a sufficient subject. Recollection failed to bring up a
parallel. It was something new in sheep-herding.

"Well," said Sloan, finally, "a man's liable to end almost anywhere if
he takes it into his head to herd sheep. They can raise all of them
they want, but I 'll stick to cattle; 'specially in spring. One thing
about a cow or a mare is that you don't ever have to teach her the
mamma business."

"Some sheep," remarked Todd, "ain't got natural human affections. When
one of that kind has a lamb you've got to mix in and get her to adopt
it. And half the time it's twins. And maybe she's willin' to take one
and won't have the other. I would n't have the patience."

"Nor me, either," said Harry Lee. "I have a brother that tried it one
time. And after he got through with that band of sheep, it would have
taken Solomon to straighten out the family troubles. One thousand of
them. Some had twins and some did n't have any, and the bunch was full
of robber lambs."

"What's robber lambs?" asked Diefenbach, who had now turned his back on
the workbench.

"That's a lamb that has n't got any mother in particular. Maybe his
own mother died or disowned him. And the other sheep all know their
own lambs and won't have anything to do with him. You see, a sheep is
mighty particular; no admittance unless he 's the right one, according
to smell. And maybe she won't take one anyway. Then the lamb is up
against trouble; he keeps going round trying to get dinner everywhere.
If he 's a robber lamb, he finds out that if he comes up and takes his
dinner from behind she can't smell him and don't know the difference.
What a sheep don't know don't hurt her. That's where a lot of trouble
comes in."

"What hurt does that do?" inquired the philosophic Diefenbach. "Has
n't a lamb got to have some milk?"

"Sure. But that sheep has got a lamb of her own; and pretty likely she
has twins, and it's all she can do to keep them. So this lamb that's
onto the game comes and robs them."

"You see, it's like this," put in Sloan. "Suppose you have a thousand
sheep