One time I had them increased to fifty-five hundred--three bands.

Thought I was doing first rate; and I was then.
But everything began to go against me.

It seemed as if I always got the worst herders; and not having any water to raise alfalfa I had to buy winter feed, which was expensive; and a lot of them got the scab and died; and last year I lost nearly all my lambs at lambing time, the band being caught out in a storm and being in the wrong place.
Just one thing after another, to break my back.

Had trouble about the range, too.

When I started them off this spring, they were down to seven hundred; and I've been losing some right along from one cause or another.