Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/148

140 with his employer, yet he found no pleasure in thinking of it now. The herder had simply looked amazed,—not afraid, not awed by the Gates of Darkness that had rushed up to him, nothing at all but deeply bewildered and unbelieving. He hadn't seemed to realize that José had shot him, that even as the blank expression of astonishment had come upon his face the lead ball had forced a passage through his breast. Perhaps he died too quickly for any sort of realization. And José could not forget the queer swaying and staggering with which he fell back upon his tree-bough pallet,—just as if he were drunk and falling into bed.

The pictures came in a series, one after another. First this falling, then the glimpse of the still form on the fir boughs. The black shepherd dog had come bounding toward him, and José had drawn his pistol for this work. It was just as good at close range. And he remembered with amazing clearness how the light had died, slowly and unmistakably, in the dog's eyes. He had watched the sheep for the last time.

Even now José didn't understand how he had missed the other, larger shepherd dog. He had shot, the animal had rocked down, he had looked back once to the dead herder in the tent (perhaps to see how he was taking this slaughter of his pets) and when he had turned his eyes again, the animal had risen and was fleeing from him about the flank of the flock. The cur was