Slow Smoke/The Sheepherder
CACTUS
Gallatin Range
Madison Basin
Beaverhead Forest
Jackson's Hole
Madison Valley,
Montana
THE SHEEPHERDER
Loping along on the day's patrol,I came on a herder in Jackson's Hole;Furtive of manner, blazing of eye,He never looked up when I rode by;But counting his fingers, fiercely intent,Around and around his herd he went:
One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four . . . Twenty and thirty . . . forty more; Strayed—nine ewes; killed—ten rams; Seven and seventy lost little lambs.
He was the only soul I could seeOn the lonely range for company—Save one lean wolf and a prairie-dog,And a myriad of ants at the foot of a log;So I sat the herder down on a clod—But his eyes went counting the ants in the sod:
One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four . . . Fifty and sixty . . . seventy more; There's not in this flock a good bell-wether! Then how can a herder hold it together!
Seeking to cheer him in his plight,I flung my blankets down for the night;But he wouldn't talk as we sat by the fire—Coralling sheep was his sole desire;With fingers that pointed near and far,Mumbling, he herded star by star:
One sheep, two sheep, three—as before! Eighty and ninety . . . a thousand more! My lost little lambs—one thousand seven!— Are wandering over the hills of Heaven.