LET IT ALONE.

By Mary E. Bamford.

“Hold him tight, Sid!”

“I’m a-holding, Dave!”

The two-year colt, Rix, lay on the ground.  Sid was holding tightly to the lasso, while Dave was trying to put the points of a pair of small nippers into Rix’s right eye.  Rix had objected very much, but Dave was determined; he knew something was wrong with that eye.

“There!” said Dave at last, holding up the nippers.  “See?  Fox-tail, just’s I thought.  Got it in his eye.”

Dave jumped up, holding the piece of fox-tail grass yet in the nippers.  Sid relaxed the lasso, and Rix rose slowly to his feet.  The colt shut his eyes, and shook his head, as if wondering whether the agonizing fox-tail was really out at last.

“Poor fellow!” said Sid.

“I knowed that was it,” asserted Dave.  “I see something was the matter with his eye when he come in this noon.”

Rix, released, trotted away.

“Guess he’ll stay out of fox-tail after this,” said Sid.

“I dunno,” said Dave.  “Critters walk right into trouble with their eyes wide open.  I’m going to make bread now.”

Sid followed into the shanty, and watched Dave stir together sour milk and soda for bread.  The ranch was away in the hills, much too far from any town for visits from the baker’s wagon.  The treeless hills were the ranging-place of cattle and horses.  Far away in the valley Sid could see the river-bed.  It was dry now, but Dave said that if one dug down anywhere in the sand, one could find a current of water a few feet below the surface.  Dave always knew things.  Sid liked to hear him talk.  All this country was new to Sid.

“Does your bread always rise?” he asked.

“If it don’t I give it to the chickens,” said Dave, putting in some more soda.  “Tried yeast-cakes, but I couldn’t make them work.”

“Is fox-tail grass much bother to folks?” questioned Sid, seeing Rix from the door.

“Awful!” said Dave.  “Gets in the hogs’ eyes, and the sheep’s too.  Sheep-men try to burn the fox-tail off the pasture land, and the fire runs into the farmers’ grain, lots of times.  That’s what makes farmers hate sheep-men so.  Folks down ’n the valley round up the hogs every June to pick fox-tail out of their eyes.  If they didn’t, half the hogs’d go blind.”

“Round up?” questioned Sid.

“Drive ’em together,” explained Dave.  “You’ll see a round-up of my cattle ’fore long.  Got to go out and hunt the hills for ’em, and drive ’em away down to the railroad.  The other men are going to do it on their ranches too.  Takes about a day for us little cattle-men to round up, and then about two days more to drive them down to the railroad.  Big cattle-men it takes longer.”

“You like it?” asked Sid.

Dave laughed.

“Well ’nough,” he said.  “We stop, you know, and have a good time on the road every little while.”