or larger salmon-sided ones that may be found swallowing their
skins in the safety of a prickle-bush in early spring. Now and
then a palm's breadth of the trail gathers itself together and
scurries off with a little rustle under the brush, to resolve
itself into sand again. This is pure witchcraft. If you succeed
in catching it in transit, it loses its power and becomes a flat,
horned, toad-like creature, horrid-looking and harmless, of the
color of the soil; and the curio dealer will give you two bits for
it, to stuff.
Men have their season on the mesa as much as plants and
four-footed things, and one is not like to meet them out of their
time. For example, at the time of rodeos, which is perhaps
April, one meets free riding vaqueros who need no trails and can
find cattle where to the layman no cattle exist. As early as
February bands of sheep work up from the south to the high Sierra
pastures. It appears that shepherds have not changed more than
sheep in the process of time. The shy hairy men who herd the
tractile flocks might be, except for some added clothing, the very
brethren of David. Of necessity they are hardy, simple
livers, superstitious, fearful, given to seeing visions, and almost
without speech. It needs the bustle of shearings and copious
libations of sour, weak wine to restore the human faculty. Petite
Pete, who works a circuit up from the Ceriso to Red Butte and
around by way of Salt Flats, passes year by year on the mesa trail,
his thick hairy chest thrown open to all weathers, twirling his
long staff, and dealing brotherly with his dogs, who are possibly
as intelligent, certainly handsomer.

A flock's journey is seven miles, ten if pasture fails, in a
windless blur of dust, feeding as it goes, and resting at noons.