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Hong Kong's leader is blaming "external forces" for helping stoke student-led pro-democracy protests that have brought parts of the Chinese territory to a halt in recent weeks.

Leung Chun-ying's statement in a televised interview on Sunday marked the first time he blamed foreign involvement for the unrest, something that Beijing has said repeatedly during the three weeks of demonstrations, according to The Associated Press.

The AP writes: "When asked on the Newsline program about a Chinese official's comments on outside involvement, Leung said, 'There is obviously participation by people, organizations from outside of Hong Kong.' Leung added that the foreign actors came from 'different countries in different parts of the world,' but didn't specify which countries."

NPR's Frank Langfitt, reporting from Hong Kong, says that many Hong Kongers view Leung, who was not democratically elected, as a puppet of Beijing. His echoing of China's line on the demonstrations is likely to reinforce that image.

Frank says after nights marked by violence and injury, the streets of Hong Kong have been peaceful, even as the protesters still control parts of three business districts. One of them, Mong Kok, has been the site of clashes between protesters and police.

The South China Morning Post says Hong Kong's High Court has ordered the demonstrators to leave Mong Kok in two cases brought against them by taxi drivers and a bus service that have suffered economic hardship as a result of the protest camps blocking main thoroughfares in the congested district.

The U.S. consulate in the city has rejected the claim of foreign intervention, with spokesman Scott Robinson telling the SCMP that Hong Kongers' desire for universal suffrage was driving the demonstrations. He said any suggestion otherwise was designed to distract people from the real issue.

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Across the country, cattle prices continue to climb. That means profits for some ranchers — and huge potential payoffs for cattle thieves.

Drought in states like Texas and Oklahoma caused the cost of feed to rise, forcing ranchers to sell off their cattle stock. Now that feed prices are back down this fall, ranchers are looking to replenish their dwindling herds — and since cattle supply is low, that demand is driving the cost way up.

In Oklahoma, Tulsa stockyards reported selling 4,500 head of cattle at record prices in a single day's sale this month.

With those record prices, ranchers have to be extra vigilant over their herds.

In The Dead of Night

Leon Langford runs a cattle ranch an hour south of Tulsa, Okla., where stockyards reported

"Our family's been in this business for 75 years," he says. "Taking care of cattle, all day every day."

The Langfords have a thousand head of cattle on their ranch. Recently, 19 registered purebred Herefords, worth $100,000 dollars, went missing.

That is, they were stolen.

Like something out of a Western movie, cattle rustlers trespass onto pastures and steal the animals in the dead of night.

"You know, you're sick to your stomach because you lost them," Langford says. "But when you know they're stolen, it's even a little worse. Somebody takes things that don't belong to them, it's a sickening feeling."

Since the cows were branded, law enforcement was able to identify some of the cattle.

"Nobody else in Texas, New Mexico or Oklahoma's got that same brand. And we know when we see that brand, it's our cattle," he says.

The woman selling them at an auction in Southern Oklahoma has since been sentenced to two years in jail.

"We're happy to get some of them back and we got a little over half of them back," Langford says. "I mean, all of the cattle were real valuable."

Call In The Special Rangers

When cattle go missing, the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association is on the case.

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Special Ranger Wayne Goodman with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, keeps an eye out at the Dublin, Texas Livestock Auction. Ron Jenkins/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

Special Ranger Wayne Goodman with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, keeps an eye out at the Dublin, Texas Livestock Auction.

Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

You can find Special Ranger Wayne Goodman keeping an eye on local sale barns in Texas. With his badge, a cowboy hat and a pistol in his holster, he's the lawman there.

Goodman's job is to track down rustlers, and his work keeps him busy.

"I've got one I started yesterday where 50 calves were taken," he says. "[They] come in at night, they will honk the horn, call the cows up. They'll pull in there with a trailer, load them up and they're gone."

For some ranchers, it could be days before they realize the herd has shrunk.

That gives rustlers plenty of time to transport cattle out of state, never to be seen again. They usually take them to an auction, Goodman says, where the profit can be huge.

"If I break into your house and steal a TV set or your stereo, I can take it to a pawn shop and I get 10 cents on the dollar, maybe, if I'm lucky," he says. "I can take your cows to an auction barn, and I get dollar-for-dollar."

It's a lucrative enterprise for the cattle rustler. For the rancher, it's devastating.

"These ranchers have a lot of money and a lot of time in these animals. Some guys could lose two or three and it would hurt them real bad because a lot of these cattle are mortgaged through banks," he says. "I worked a case out in East Texas when I was stationed out there, where I've got two families who had to sell their homes because of loss of cattle."

Protecting The Herd

It seems like it'd be impossible to track down stolen animals. But Goodman says it comes down to a tried and true method of identification.

"Branding is the oldest form of identifying cattle, but it's still the most effective," he says.

In Texas, ranchers actually register their unique brand symbols.

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The surest way to show proof of ownership is with a brand. Dairy owner Pete Wiersma, shown in Idaho in 2008, displays a small branding iron intended for newborn calves. Elaine Thompson/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Elaine Thompson/AP

The surest way to show proof of ownership is with a brand. Dairy owner Pete Wiersma, shown in Idaho in 2008, displays a small branding iron intended for newborn calves.

Elaine Thompson/AP

"You have to put down what your brand is, draw a picture of it, and where are you going to put it on the animal," Goodman says. "Left hip, right hip, right shoulder, left shoulder — all of that is part of your brand registration."

They also keep track of ear tags and small tattoos inside the animals' ears. All those details go into the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association database.

When an animal goes missing, special rangers know exactly what markings to look for at the local auction.

"We've had cases where we knew the cattle were stolen before the owner did," Goodman says.

Still, the risk of getting caught won't stop the thieves.

"There's all kinds of reasons for it. I mean, there have been instances where one young man was doing it to pay his girlfriend's rent," Goodman says. It's all about the money."

In this bull market for cattle, there's a lot of money to go around. Special Ranger Wayne Goodman just hopes the money ends up in the right hands.

On conditions on the train

It depended. We went a lot in third class because I really just wanted to sort of feel what it was like to ride the rails. And a lot of Russians who are going to see family or traveling from one place to another, they go in third class. And I would describe it, sort of, as a college dormitory. Actually, I think back, even more primitive than my college dormitory. Each little area of an open train car would have six bunks, so you'd be kind of right up against the window. And there were four bunks, two and two, and the bunks were on top of each other. Then there was this aisle where people would constantly walk back and forth and not care if they ran into your bed or anything ... And navigating these bunks was horrifying. I mean, you had to really be a gymnast — which I am not — to kind of climb up and get up onto the bunk. And it's really humiliating because everyone's watching and it's embarrassing.

Ask Me Another

David Greene: From Russia To NPR With Love

On the contrast between the open, empty countryside and the enforced intimacy on the train

Totally intimate, and it's an intimacy that I felt like I never want to suggest that I was truly getting a sense for how people live. But — you know, you go back to Soviet times- and, in communal apartments, people in Russia, they learned to live on top of each other. It was both great because families got to know each other and it was awful because there were times when families would basically spy on each other for the government. So it was both extremes. But they learned to be on top of each other, to share space. And you would sort of have to, as an outsider, have to get used to that. I mean, there were these customs. You know, if you had a lower bunk bed, if someone wanted to come in and get up to his or her upper bunk, the assumption was, you shouldn't care if I need to basically step on your face while you're sleeping to get up. That's the way this is! We're sharing this space! So you have to get used to that rhythm of life.

On the train food

There's a dining car, which makes you think that that could have some good food options. And you go there and you can sit there. Basically, vodka is the best thing to do in the dining car because that you know they will always have. They have this giant menu with all these delicious choices and usually none of them are actually available. So you sit there asking, "Oh, can I have the chicken julienne or the mushroom julienne?" "Nyet, nyet, nyet, nyet." "So what do you have?" "Borscht." "Ok, let me have some borscht." Which was fine, but — people would bring their own food on the train and share it. The first time I was on the Trans-Siberian, I was humiliated because I didn't realize that was such an important tradition. And I walked into a neighbor's train car and she waved me in and had a piece of Belarusian sausage from her family and this delicious horseradish concoction. She's offering all of this to me and all I had was a Luna bar that I brought from home.

On the Trans-Siberian versus Amtrak

Amtrak is boring now. There's really never a dull moment. There might be a Russian guy who has gotten way too hot in his compartment and has come out into the aisle. And he's in, essentially, his underwear — you know, box shorts and a tank top. And hiding a cigarette that he's sort of taking puffs of when no one's looking — because you're not supposed to smoke on the train — and gazing out into this empty landscape. But I don't get that on Amtrak. It's just these moments, and the food sharing and the conversation. There's just so much life.

A century-old teenager is the focus of a musical and an art exhibit in Washington right now. The National Gallery of Art is showing Edgar Degas' statue Little Dancer Aged Fourteen in conjunction with the Kennedy Center's Oct. 25 opening of Little Dancer, a new show inspired by the sculpture.

Ballet students Brittany Yevoli and Ava Durant, both 14, see themselves in Degas' statue. Looking at her, they stand as she does — fourth position, weight on the left leg, right leg forward, foot turned out to the right. They recognize her tutu, her shoes and her perfect posture.

"It looks like she's standing in rehearsal," Yevoli says.

They also notice the young girls hands, clasped firmly behind her back. "Maybe showing respect," Durant says, "but also just sort of the way that we're supposed to stand in class."

Little Dancer is charming, even entrancing, yet the French had a less flattering nickname for the Paris Opera Ballet corps. "They called the students rats," curator Alison Luchs says. "They were little; they were thin; they scampered; they came in from the streets."

Luchs sees determination in the young ballerina's face — one writer called her "Miss Bossy Pants" — but conservator Shelley Sturman sees a bit of mystery. "Her eyes are half closed, her head is tilted," Sturman says. "She's ready to rise above that rat of the opera mystique."

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Degas used a real bodice, tutu, ribbon and even real hair in his sculpture. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon/ Courtesy of the National Gallery hide caption

itoggle caption Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon/ Courtesy of the National Gallery

Degas used a real bodice, tutu, ribbon and even real hair in his sculpture.

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon/ Courtesy of the National Gallery

Degas' Disappearing Muse

Degas made many sculptures, but Little Dancer is the only one he ever exhibited, and he worked on it for years. He made dozens of drawings before he began to sculpt with clay and beeswax, shaping and re-shaping this National Gallery original. X-rays show he stabilized the 39-inch figure with lead pipe wrapped in rope, and used wire for her arms.

"And to make them stiffer and firmer, he actually put in old paint brushes," Sturman says. To tilt her head, he put a spring coil — maybe from a chair or mattress — inside her neck. And then, he dressed her. It was totally unconventional: He gave her a real cotton bodice, waxed so it looks bronzy; a real tutu; a real silk ribbon tied around a braid made of real, blond human hair; and real linen slippers – pink and also waxed.

How did critics react in 1881? "A lot of them thought it was awful," Sturman says. "They were stunned by the realism. They were used to seeing sculptures of women in marble and bronze."

They were also used to seeing goddesses, not a flat-chested, skinny, coltish adolescent like Marie Van Goethem, the ballerina who posed for the sculpture.

"[Her name is] written on a Degas drawing," Sturman says. "[Her] parents came from Belgium. The father was a tailor; the mother was a laundress."

Marie started modeling for Degas around 1878. Curator Allison Luchs says her dance career ended four years later. "She was dismissed from the ballet. The implication is that she was missing rehearsals or getting something wrong. And she disappears. We don't know what became of her."

The new musical Little Dancer imagines Marie's life.

A Talented Street Urchin

Lynn Ahrens, who wrote the book and lyrics for the musical, says she got the idea for Little Dancer when she saw a bronze replica of the statue at the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts. Curious about the story behind it, Ahrens did some research on Degas and Marie.

"I began to see a story emerging about an artist who was beginning to go blind, who was frightened that he was losing his power to paint," she says. "And into his life, somehow, walks a little girl who inspires him, in some way, because she is such an urchin, such a spirit and a stubborn soul, and he begins to sketch her and suddenly decides that he wants to sculpt."

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Tony Award-winning actor Boyd Gaines plays Edgar Degas opposite the New York City Ballet's Tiler Peck, as Marie Van Goethem, during a Manhattan rehearsal. Paul Kolnik/Courtesy of the Kennedy Center hide caption

itoggle caption Paul Kolnik/Courtesy of the Kennedy Center

Tony Award-winning actor Boyd Gaines plays Edgar Degas opposite the New York City Ballet's Tiler Peck, as Marie Van Goethem, during a Manhattan rehearsal.

Paul Kolnik/Courtesy of the Kennedy Center

Ahrens and her collaborator, composer Stephen Flaherty, have created a musical that's both historically informed and highly speculative. In a Manhattan rehearsal studio, many of Degas' most famous paintings and sketches are taped to the wall — ballerinas slumping in exhaustion, rich men in black hats checking out the girls, absinthe drinkers. Director and choreographer Susan Stroman has put them all onstage, but says the heart of Little Dancer is the story of a prickly artist finding his equally prickly young muse in one of those ballet rats.

"You want to believe that she had language," Stroman says, "and she, you know, was like an Artful Dodger almost. And so that's what we have created, in essence."

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Peck says she sees her character, the young Marie Van Goethem, as a survivor. Matthew Karas/Courtesy of the Kennedy Center hide caption

itoggle caption Matthew Karas/Courtesy of the Kennedy Center

Peck says she sees her character, the young Marie Van Goethem, as a survivor.

Matthew Karas/Courtesy of the Kennedy Center

New York City Ballet star Tiler Peck plays young Marie as a street urchin — a very talented street urchin, but one who has no qualms picking people's pockets, including Monsieur Degas', to get money for pointe shoes.

"What I see her as is just like a survivor," Peck says. "She does anything to make her ends meet. You know, there's no hope for her at home. She goes home and her mom's drunk all the time, her mom's asking her for her money. And I feel like the ballet is the one sort of happy hope that she has in her life."

She's caught between many things, says composer Stephen Flaherty. "She's not a child; she's not an adult. She's sort of in between, in the cracks, and that's one of the things we really wanted to capture." It's that "in between-ness" that attracts Degas.

While the musical comes up with the reason Marie is dismissed from the Paris Opera, it doesn't exactly say what happened to her afterwards. There's a dream ballet which offers a variety of possible paths, and the character of older Marie quite literally haunts the show.

"By having an adult Marie and a young Marie, we're saying that she survived," director Susan Stroman says. "And that's a good thing. And that's what we would hope for.

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