Testimony. A Poem

VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE 113 J. B. and Pagahrit men had ridden back down the hill and out of sight, behold Ben with the jaded, pacing mare and old Bowse acting the part of a bull-fence twenty rods long. He hated the task cordially, especially since it lasted without company and without intermission from sunrise to sunset. Did I say without company? He had the old dog and Flossy. Without them he would have been a poor and sickly fence indeed. They listened thoughtfully to the words of his loneliness, and the old wag-tail responded with many a dog antic, more easily understood than described. The bay mare simply looked her condolence, with such artless sincerity that no further expression was needed. Besides these, young Rojer met his father in the J. B. camp in the evening, and heard that tone of encouragement which always did him "good like a medicine." At one time he enquired, "Did you get awfully lonesome today, son?" and when Ben answered, "Oh, my, yes ! that's the lonesomest job in the world" — the same unfailing kindness braced him up with : "If you can just stay with it two days longer, it'll help our cause out mightily, and we'll go home together." "If I can!" mused young Rojer, looking reverently after his father, "yes-sir-ee, I sure can, 'cause it'll help him mightily." All the same the life of a fence is dull and irksome, even with the old dog and the pacing mare as strong supports. For the hundred and thirty-seventh time, Ben reviewed the whole scene : the cliffs, the trees, the river ; and beyond it the "hogon," the flock of sheep, and the Navajo herdsboy. Long before noon the little lunch sack went up with its sandwiches against the painful monotony. Still the wheels of that September day seemed fast in a mighty deadlock. He reviewed the scene again ; there was nothing else which the functions of his fencely office would permit him to review, for the pacer and the wag-tail slept, a pleasure he would have envied any other two creatures on earth. Every feature and element of the scene waxed dismal and wearisome— every feature but that sturdy herdsboy, whose black hair in the sunlight loomed up against the background of heated sandhills, like a blow-fly on a white ceiling. It became the hub of the blistered landscape, and then the only half-tolerable dot below the horizon. If he could have trumped up any passable excuse, the cowboy would have signalled the herdsboy to come over, but with everything peaceful and no emergency, it hardly seemed right to lure the shepherd so far from his sheep. For all that, he looked squint-eyed at the speck, and fancied the speck looked squint-eyed at him. Three times he even filled his lungs to call out, and then quelled the impulse on his very lips. When the wheels of the third day slowed down to a standstill, and Bowse and Flossy had paid the last reasonable tribute