Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/176



tried to approach the sheep camp with some caution. It was an instinctive effort: he had not the slightest idea that the lone human occupant of the little meadow could waken from his deep sleep to hear him. Nevertheless, Fargo didn't believe in taking unnecessary chances. He rode slowly, trying to avoid the whip of dry brush against the horse's body. Yet it was to be noticed that the coyotes, lingering hungrily at the flanks of the flock, slipped from the trail when he was still two hundred yards distant.

The thickets were unusually dry: they cracked and popped as the horse passed through. Miniature explosions of popping twig and crackling brush followed every step of the horse.

Still there was no one to hear him. The forest was breathless. And all at once, through a rift in the underbrush, he saw the gleam of Hugh's camp fire.

For an instant Fargo's human faculties simply and utterly deserted him; and he stood gaping like a beast at the guttering flame. A strange little shiver of cold and fear crept over him. He had expected only moonlight and