“And you have wool damaged by shearing,” Ingred said. “Belly wool, tags, felted pieces, all the stuff your buyers discard.”
“Hundreds of pounds,” Martin said. “We burn it every spring.”
“Don’t burn it,” Ingred said. “Linen your cabins.”
That afternoon the Grandes returned to their ranch. By April, crews were installing wool insulation in all 14 base camps. By the following winter, every major sheep ranch in Meagher County had adopted the technique.
Of course, Silas Brennan heard about it. The rancher who had predicted Ingred’s death in October was still alive in April, barely alive. He had lost 2,000 head of cattle in the Great Dying, nearly 70 percent of his herd. His business would never recover. In two years, he would sell his remaining cattle and leave Montana forever.
Ingred saw him one last time in White Sulphur Springs, in late March, gathering supplies for the spring lambing season. He was standing outside the bank, thinner than she remembered, with the hollow look of a man watching his life’s work slip away. Their eyes met across the muddy road. Brennan said nothing. Ingred said nothing. There was nothing left to say.
She turned and entered the store. Behind her, Brennan walked off in the opposite direction. They never spoke again.
Ingred Torsdaughter remained in Montana. She worked for the Grandes until the spring of 1887, then used her accumulated savings to buy a small herd of 120 head cheaply from a rancher who was liquidating everything to pay off his debts. She filed a land claim on 160 acres along the Musselshell River, built a proper cabin with wool insulation from the ground up, and spent the next 43 years raising sheep on the land she had secured.
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