Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/10/11/elko-nevada-ranches-mines-and-mountains/
Excerpt:
"Ranching included both cattle and sheep, often in the same enterprise. In both, Basque immigrants were important parts of the labor force. They were cowboys and sheep herders, although they are best known as the latter. Their skills were legendary, but the loneliness they experienced in this vast and wild land left some permanently scarred, or as the Basques said, they were "txamisuek jota," or "struck by sagebrush." We learned that Basque herders made carvings on the trunks of aspen trees (now called arborglyphs, see image), probably to mark their time, maybe to prove that they wre alive. We hope someday to see one.
Sheep herders were usually poorly paid and treated little better than serfs, although some eventually accumulatted enough capital to become ranchers themselves. Others left herding and moved to town, where a few opened merchandise stores, restaurants, bars, and hotels. Later, in the middle of the twentieth century, Basques herders came to the United States under special guest worker programs, and not only were they exploited but had to return home when their contract period ended."