Saga of the Sanpitch Vol 30

Herding, Learning to Cut Tracks

the blacks as they went into the corral and again inside the corral There should be twelve andhave only eleven blacks in the corral tonight Where did you have them today Straight east of the white-clay knoll in those steep hills Axel Peterson from Sterling was helping with the lambing at the ranch and was in on part of our conversation Dad said Axel this young man is outblack He must have droppedlittle bunch of sheep today back of the white-clay knoll Will you ride up to the corral with him in the morning and count his herd out of the corral There should be 170 Then you ll know how many heout Then ride up where he had them today and see if you can find them The next morning Axel counted 156 as we let those yearling ewes pass between us was out fourteen and much embarrassed about losing the sheep Axel rode eastward into the area where we expected to find the lost sheep andlet the herd slowly gaze in that direction In about an hour caught sight of the lost sheep playfully cascading downlong ridge toward the herd Although they were carefree yearlings and wouldnhavelamb of their own until next year possibly they sensed they were lost and were happy to be found They werewelcome sight As they came closercounted fourteen including the black Axel followed about 100 yards behind When he rode up to me we both dismounted while we hadlittle chat He said saw your horse tracks from yesterday when you went around the upper end of the herd Your horse tracks crossed on top of the tracks made by this little bunch of lost sheep Your circle did not go around all the tracks You didn cut tracks properly 143