were received by the ranchman who was grading the wool and supervising
the packing.

The packing was done in two frames, seven feet high, in which an iron
ring held the sacks open. To a man on one of these frames the fleeces in
their compact little bundles were tossed up, and he trod them down,
packing them in the sack. Then the sack was let down, sewed up, rolled
to the scales and weighed, marked with the ranch-mark, the weight, the
grade, and was ready for the freighters and a market. About ten
thousand pounds of wool were sheared, burred, packed, marked, and
perhaps shipped, in a day.

Inside and out, seventy men were at work about the shed: the fleeces
rapidly piled up on the burring-tables; tied and tossed out, they grew
into little mountains, and around the scales for a wide space the packed
sacks cumbered the ground. The ranchmen moved about to see that coal was
used where needed, and that it was not needed too frequently, that
fleeces were not broken, and were thoroughly burred and nicely tied; and
the Mexicans, ceaselessly chattering, singing, laughing, calling jokes
to each other, crying, "Viva Rito!" "Viva Encarnacion!" ran for their
checks, dashed in for their sheep, and kept the shears clashing, while
the perplexed ewe, with an uproar perhaps more distinctly justifiable,
called to the lamb she had left in the pen, and the lamb answered cry
for cry. All this went on in a strong south wind heavy with dust and the
acrid sheep smell. It was the liveliest possible spectacle of organized
confusion, and the accompanying noise was calculated to split the ears
of the groundlings. As the number unshorn of the installment of sheep in
the pen dwindled toward zero, little groups of unoccupied shearers
gathered round the posts near the low tables, lit fresh cigarettes,
whipped out cards, and started a little game of _monte_ for the checks