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than they eat. This "varmint" is somewhat larger than a Scottish sheep-dog, and of a tawny color; he has long hair like a colley, and is much more cowardly than fierce. He lives in the thick brush, whence he steals out at dusk on his murderous errand. He hunts generally alone, though one of our friends saw three together one evening this winter. His pace is a long, untiring gallop, and it takes a very good hound to run him down.

The usual plan of the hunt is for several rifles to command the outlets from a piece of woodland, and then to take into the brush a collection of five or six of the best hounds that can be got together. When the scoundrel breaks cover he may go fast, but the rifle-bullet or buckshot goes the faster, and it would not do to miss.

The sheep killed by the coyote is identified by the two little holes on either side of the throat, where the wolf has struck and held to drink the fast-flowing lifeblood. The carcass is rarely torn. But the worse and more common coyote is the mongrel hound. Every now and again one of these impostors takes to murdering, and, demure and quiet as he looks by day, slouching around the barn, spends his nights killing the neighbors' sheep. There is not much chance for him if he is but once seen; his life is a very short if a merry one.

When shearing-time comes round there are plenty of applicants for the job. The price is usually five cents a head, the farmer providing food, but the shearer finding his own tools. Some of these fellows will clip a hundred sheep a day, or even more: true, you must look after them to prevent scamping, in the shape of

"CORRALING" THE SHEEP.

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cuts on your sheep, and wool left on in thick ridges, instead of a clean, good shear. We expect an increase of at least one hundred per cent. on the ewes at lambingtime, even though so little cared for; those farmers who are good shepherds too, improve greatly on this average. The lambs must be well looked after, unless the wildcat, eagle, and coyote are to take their toll. Not half the sheep are kept in this valley that ought to be, and that will be, when change or succession of crops are universally practiced.

The amusing part of sheep-keeping in our coast-hills is "corraling," or gathering them for the night. By day they roam freely over the hill-sides, and you would be surprised to see how they thrive in brushwood and among fern, where the new-comer could hardly detect a blade of grass. These mountain-sheep, too, are more hardy and independent than the valley flocks. But, when the lambs are about, I am sure it is wise to undertake the labor of collecting them in the "corral" for the night. Without your sheep-dog you would be lost, for you would not have a chance on the hill-sides, and over and under the occasional logs, with sheep that jump and run like antelopes. But the dog cures all that, and you can stand in the road and watch Dandy or Jack collect your flock just as well as if he were in the cairns and corries of old Scotland, whence he or his grandfather came. I like to see them march demurely in at the open gate, and then run to the log where you have scattered a handful of salt for them, every grain and taste of which is eagerly licked up. And they are excellent brush-clearers; they love the young shoots of the cherry and vine-maple, and keep them so close down that in one or two seasons at most the stub dies,

and can be plowed out and burned. Therefore every settler who takes up land, or buys a partly cleared farm, will find both pleasure and profit in his sheep, and that to him they are a necessity, even more than to the valley farmer. He must expect a percentage of loss from the wild animals, but his vigilance and love of sport together will reduce that percentage to the lowest point.

CHAPTER X.

The trail to the Siletz Reserve-Rock Creek-Isolation-Getting a road— The surveying-party-Entrance at last-Road-making-Hut-building in the wilds-What will he do with it?-Choice of homesteadFencing wild land-Its method and cost-Splitting cedar boards and shingles-House-building-The China boy and the mules-Picnicking in earnest-Log-burning-Berrying-parties-Salting cattle-An active cow-A year's work-Mesquit-grass on the hills.

WHEN I traveled through Oregon in 1877, we visited the Siletz Indian reservation. To get there from the district called King's Valley, where we were, we had to take the mountain-trail first cut out by General Sheridan, when, as a young lieutenant, twenty years ago, he was stationed on this coast. The trail went up one mountain and down another, and crossed this river and that creek, till, at the foot of one long descent from a lofty ridge, which we thought then, and which I know now is, the water-shed between two great divisions of this county, we entered a valley entirely shut in. At the southeastern end, where we entered it, it was a narrow gorge, down which a quick stream hurried, with many a twist and turn, and over many a rocky ledge. The hill-sides above were thick with fern and berry-bearing bushes, and the black trunks of the burned timber stood as records of the great fire; but the stream ran through a leafy wilderness, where maple, alder, and cherry shut in the trail, and the maiden-hair and blechnum ferns grew thickly along the banks. The

valley widened out as we advanced, and we found it in shape almost like an outspread hand, the palm representing the central level bottom, and the fingers the narrow valleys and cañons between the encompassing hills. The trail led us by turns along the bottom and the lower steps of the hill-sides. We camped to dine, and explored some distance up the side-valleys, coming on old Indian camping-places, with the bones of deer and beaver scattered round.

The isolation of the place, hidden away there among the hills, the fresh abundance of the vegetation, the mellowness of the thick, fat soil shown where we crossed again and again the creek dividing the valley down its entire length, all charmed me; the steep yet rounded outlines of the hills often recurred to me when I was very far away. When I came back to Oregon, in 1879, I took the first chance I had of going over this old ground.

The question was, if it were possible to run in a road out of the main Yaquina road, which I knew lay but some five or six miles off.

So I sent out a surveying-party to ascertain, and a rough time they had. It rained almost incessantly; the brush was thick; they lost their way; it got dark, and they went wandering on till they struck a trail which led them to a river. "Now we're all right," said the leader; "this is the Yaquina; the road is on the other side of the creek." So they struck into the rushing water, then running in flood, and waded across waist-deep. But no road on the other side; only a dark trail leading into thick brush. Presently it was pitch-dark, and the surveyor confessed he did not know where he was; that this was certainly not the Yaquina,

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