Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 9).djvu/173

Rh Fink et al., is sufficiently typical to represent the other ninety-nine. Voyaging down the Ohio, Fink one day noticed a flock of fine sheep on shore, and, being out of fresh provisions, he determined to secure a supply of mutton without the delay and vexation attendant upon any financial exchange. In his cargo was a number of bladders of Scotch snuff. Obtaining a quantity of this drug he caught a few sheep, rubbed it on their heads and faces, and instantly sent a messenger for the owner whose house was not far distant.

By the time this man appeared the sheep Fink had dosed were deporting themselves in a manner at once disgraceful to the remainder of the flock and prodigiously marvelous to the eyes of their dazed owner. Leaping and bleating, the distracted animals were pawing their heads, rubbing them wildly on the ground and acting in general as though possessed of devils and on the point of dashing down the river bank into the water.

"What's the matter with my sheep?" exclaimed the alarmed owner.