the toll bridge that he had seven thousand sheep on the road and they
would have to pass over his toll bridge.

The keeper of the toll bridge was on the lookout for us because the
report that Dillon had made would swell his finances $350. Inasmuch as
the toll across the bridge was 5c per head. When we arrived at the
bridge the keeper told me his charge would be $350. I told him I could
not pay the price, but he said Dillon would pay the toll. I asked him
what Dillon had to do with the sheep. "Why," he said, "they are Dillon's
sheep." I told him they were not Dillon's sheep, they were mine, and I
showed him my bill of sale. He said that nevertheless they were Dillon's
sheep. I asked him to describe Joe Dillon to me. He did so, and did it
to a "tyt." "Now," I said to him, "you go up on the hill and count those
sheep." They were laying down up on the hill in a kind of a swag.

There was a Missourian there and he told the keeper he was a sheep man,
that his father was a large Missouri stock man, and that he could
approximate the number at a glance. The way those sheep lay together, it
did not look as if there was more than 1000 sheep. I asked him if he
thought there was over a thousand sheep there and he said he did not
think there were. The toll keeper said that when those sheep went
skipping across the bridge, it "looked goldarned like there mout be a
million uv 'em, and they must 'a bin three mile long, be blasted."

"Well," I said, "of course you can count them." "Yes," he said, "I have
counted lots of sheep, and will count them." I went up to the station
and made arrangements that if he did not succeed in counting the sheep,
I would pay him $75 in tobacco or sheep, but that I had no money. The
toll keeper said he would neither take sheep nor tobacco, "but," he
said, "I will take a draft on the Virginia City Bank for $75.00." I told