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Show 556. shepherds, tourists, Indians, educators from his past, and his employer, Patrick Delaney. The hero moved back and forth through the book, between society and the wilderness, while the author constantly tested his idealistic aspirations. Both men had their say. PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST IN A SHEEP CAMP The young hero of First Summer had no illusions about the pleasures of pastoral life. He joined Patrick Delaney and his shepherd Billy as they followed the flocks out of the Central Valley and into the Sierra, because that was the surest way for him to enter the mountains. Though Delaney assured him that he would be left perfectly free to pursue his studies, and though Muir "was in a mood to accept work of any kind," he was saddled with responsibility for his employer's sheep. Delaney wanted Muir to be the "man about the camp whom he could trust to see that the shepherd did his duty." Caught by duty from the beginning, though he might be able to rationalize that "we never know where we must go, or what guides we are to get, - men, storms, guardian angels, or sheep," still he was responsible to an enterprise which he knew was degrading. To see this, one need only look at the way young Muir characterized Delaney, whom he called Don Quixote, and Billy, who was Sancho Panza. The Don, "bony and tall, with sharply hacked features," was once educated as a priest, but then Participated in the gold rush. And what the narrator thought |