In point of fact, he is ruined; that is to say, he is
'locoed'. Further indulgence in the plant results in death, but rarely
does an animal recover from even one eating of the insane weed.
The shepherd on the great sheep ranges leads an absolutely isolated life.
For weeks, sometimes for months together, he does not see a human being.
His only companions are his dogs and the three or four thousand sheep he
is herding. All day long, under the burning sun, he follows the herd over
the rainless prairie, as it nibbles here and there the short grass and
slowly gathers its food. At night he drives the sheep back to the corral,
and lies down alone in his hut. He speaks to no one; he almost forgets
how to speak. Day and night he hears no sound except the melancholy,
monotonous bleat, bleat of the sheep. It becomes intolerable. The animal
stupidity of the herd enters into him. Gradually he loses his mind. They
say that he is locoed. The insane asylums of California contain many
shepherds.
But the word locoed has come to have a wider application than to the poor
shepherds or the horses and cattle that have eaten the loco. Any one who
acts queerly, talks strangely, is visionary without being actually a
lunatic, who is what would be called elsewhere a "crank," is said to be
locoed.
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