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74 “Ay, that I have,” answered Alessandro; “not a man of them but can shear his hundred in a day, There is not such a band as ours in all San Diego County; and we don't turn out the sheep all bleeding, either; you'll see scarce a scratch on their sides.”

“Humph.” retorted Juan Can. “'Tis a poor shearer, indeed, that draws blood to speak of. I've sheared many a thousand sheep in my day, and never a red stain on the shears. But the Mexicans have always been famed for good shearers.”

Juan's invidious emphasis on the word “Mexicans” did not escape Alessandro. “And we Indians also,” he answered, good-naturedly, betraying no annoyance; “but as for these Americans, I saw one at work the other day, that man Lomax, who settled near Temecula, and upon my faith, Juan Can, I thought it was a slaughter-pen, and not a shearing. The poor beasts limped off with the blood running.”

Juan did not see his way clear at the moment to any fitting rejoinder to this easy assumption, on Alessandro's part, of the equal superiority of Indians and Mexicans in the sheep-shearing art; so, much vexed, with another “Humph!” he walked away; walked away so fast, that he lost the sight of a smile on Alessandro's face, which would have vexed him still further.

At the sheep-shearing sheds and pens all was stir and bustle. The shearing shed was a huge caricature of a summerhouse,—a long, narrow structure, sixty feet long by twenty or thirty wide, all roof and pillars; no walls; the supports, slender rough posts, as far apart as was safe, for the upholding of the roof, which was of rough planks loosely laid from beam to beam. On three sides of this were the sheep-pens filled with sheep and lambs.

A few rods away stood the booths in which the shearers' food was to be cooked and the shearers fed.