; and over here is a lot of lambs playing around. You see, a
sheep and a lamb don't always go together like a cow and a calf. Sheep
are awful monotonous, and I guess the lambs know it. So they go off in
a bunch and have a good time. And when one of them gets hungry he lets
a bleat out of him and starts for the bunch of sheep. They are all
tuned up to a different sound; so are the sheep. And the lamb and the
sheep know each other by sound. Well, the sheep will hear that and
she'll let out her sound and get an answer back, and that way he 'll
find her in the bunch. Maybe they meet halfway; then she smells him
and it is all right. Well, we have a thousand sheep all grazing
together; and off here is a bunch of lambs with a lot of robbers among
them, all playing and skipping around and having a hell of a time.
Well, a robber lamb gets hungry all of a sudden, so he skips off and
takes the first sheep that comes handy. He takes what ain't his. And
maybe it's twins. After a while little Johnny and Mary come home and
then _they 're_ up against it."

"And if you let things go like that," added Lee, "one sheep won't have
any lamb or any milk and another will be feeding two twins and a
robber. You can't raise sheep that way."

"But what is a man going to do about _that_? How can _he_ help it?"
pursued Diefenbach.

"Why," said Lee, "he 's got to keep track of them when they 're being
born and see that every sheep takes her lamb and gets to liking it.
Whenever there's one that don't want a lamb he's got to tend to her."

"_Donnerwetter!_" exclaimed Diefenbach, reverting momentarily to his
native tongue. He picked up a beading-punch and turned to his own line
of industry.

From sheep they got back to horses again,--conversation usually travels
in a circle,--and being now in their native element they continued in
one stay, discussing ways and means

"To wind and turn a fiery Pegasus,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship."

The story of the woman had reached this state, circumstantial and
complete, when, by divers methods, it got out to the more aristocratic
circles of Claxton Road.

CHAPTER VI

There was not a stone, it is safe to say, within half a day's walk of
Claxton Road. Prairie country of the black-waxy variety is noticeably
bereft of this usual feature of life, the lazy Southern ocean which
formerly brooded over these parts having deposited black, rich muck
till it covered everythi