willows by some one else who was there. Three hundred sheep had gone over
the cliff before Jim knew what was happening. He rode like mad right
through the herd to try and head ’em off; but you know what sheep is
like—they’re like lost souls headin’ for damnation. Nothing can stop ’em
when they’re once started. And Jim lost every head—started for the
shearing-pens a rich man—rich for Jim—an’ seen everything he had swept
away before his eyes, his wife an’ children made paupers. My son he come
by and found him. He said that Jim was sittin’ huddled up in a heap, his
knees drawed up under his chin, starin’ straight up into the noonday sky,
same as if he was askin’ God how He could be so cruel. His dead dawg, that
they had shot, was by the side of him. The herder that was with Jim had
taken the one that was shot into Watson’s, so when my son found Jim he was
alone, sittin’ on the edge of the cliff with his dead dawg, an’ the sky
about was black with buzzards; an’ Jim he just sat an’ stared up at ’em,
and when my son spoke to him he never answered any more than a dead man.
He shuck him by the arm, but Jim just sat there, watchin’ the sun, the
buzzards, and the dead sheep."

"Was nothing done to this man Simpson?"

"The cattle outfit that he done the dirty work for swore an alibi for him.
Jim has been in hard luck ever since. He’s been rustlin’ cattle right
along; but Lord, who can blame him? He got into some trouble down to
Rawlins—shot a man he thought was with Simpson, but who wasn’t—and he’s
been in jail ever since. Course now that he’s out Simpson’s bound to get
peppered. Glad it didn’t happen here, though. ’Twould be a kind of
unpleasant thing to have connected with a eating-house, don’t you think
so?" she inquired, with the grim philosophy of the country.

The eating-house patrons had gone their several ways, and the quiet of the