Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/276

 to look forward to, appealed to him strongly the more he considered it. Bowers craved a little of the warmth of romance in his drab existence and this was the only way he knew of obtaining it.

Smiling at the brash act he contemplated, Bowers threw the brake mechanically as the front wheels of the wagon sank into a chuck-hole and the jolt all but landed him on the broad rump of Old Peter.

As he raised his eyes he saw a sight charged with significance to one familiar with it.

Ncifkins's sheep were coming down the side of the mountain like a woolly avalanche. In the shape of a wedge with a leader at the point of it, they were running with a definite purpose and as though all the dogs in sheepdom were heeling them. The very thing against which he had come to warn the herders was about to happen — the band was making straight for Dibert's sheep, which were still feeding peacefully on the hillside.

With an imprecation that was not flattering to either herder, Bowers wrapped the lines around the brake and leaped over the wheel to head them if it w«re possible. But they seemed possessed by all the imps of Satan, as they came on bleating, hurdling boulders, letting out another link of speed at Bowers's frantic shoutings.

The leaders of the two bands were not fifty feet apart when Bowers, realizing he could not get between them, reached for a rock with a faint hope that he might hit what he aimed for. His prayer was answered, for the ewe in the lead of Neifkins's band blinked and staggered as the rock bounced on her forehead. With a surprised bleat she turned and started back up the mountain, the rest of the band following.

The perspiration was streaming from under Bowers's hat as his eyes searched the surrounding country. Not a