charge; but for the most part, if he have a conscience, he will feel a
burden of responsibility upon him which of itself, independently of the
work he may have to do, will earn him his little monthly wage of twenty
dollars and the rough ranch food of "hog and hominy." For there is no
ceasing of labour for the Texas herder of the plains; Sunday and
week-day alike the dawning sun should see him with his flock, and even
at night he is still with them as they are "bedded out" in the open.
Even if he can "corral" them in a rough sort of yard, some slinking
coyote may come by and scare them into breaking bounds; and when they
are not corralled the bright moon may entice them to feed quietly
against the wind, until at last the herder wakes to find his charge has
vanished and must be anxiously sought for. In Australia, as I have said,
the sheep are left to their own devices for the greater part of the
year, unless there should be unusual scarcity of water; but even there,
to have charge of so many thousand animals, and so many miles of
fencing, makes it no enviable task, while the labour, when it does come,
is hard and unremitting. In New South Wales I have often been eighteen
and twenty hours in the saddle, and have reached home at last so wearied
out that I could scarcely dismount. One day I used up three horses and
covered over ninety miles, more than fifty of it at a hard canter or
gallop--and if that be not work I should like to know what is. This,
too, goes on day after day during shearing, just when the days are
growing hot and hotter still, the spare herbage browning, and the water
becoming scanty and scantier. And for a recompense? There is none in
working with sheep. They are quiet, peaceable, stupid, illogical,
incapable of exciting affection, very capable of rousing wrath; far
different from the terrible excitement of a bellowing herd of
long-horned cattle as they break away in a stampede, among whom is
danger and sudden death and the glory of motion and conquest; or with
horses thundering over the plain in hundreds, like a riderless squadron
shaking the ground with waving manes, long flowing tails, and flashing
eyeballs, whom one can love and delight in, and shout to with a strange,
vivid joy that sends the blood tingling to the heart and brain. Were I
to go back to such a life I would choose the danger, and be discontented
to maunder on behind the slow and harmless wool-bearers, cursing a
little every now and again