Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/204

196 day, "you are a wonderful herder. We owe you more than we can ever pay."

No praise had ever meant so much. "I have to be a good one," the man replied, glowing. "I have to make up for the years I've wasted. Besides—it seems to come naturally to me."

He had never spoken a truer word. It seemed to him that this was his ordained place,—behind the flocks as they fed through the forest.

He liked the long still nights in which he knew the solace of the fire, and the whispering and the mystery that crept to him from the forest. He felt that he had lost all love of pretentious things. His standards were true at last, and the little, simple joys that came to him now meant more than all the luxury of his former life. His pipe—no longer tasting of varnish but cool and sweet—his simple meals, the little triumphs of his day's work, his refreshing rest after the day's fatigue gave him unmeasured joy. He had the lasting satisfaction of work well done, of time profitably spent. Already, he reflected, he had some hundred dollars to show his friends in the Greenwood Club! But that famous organization seemed infinitely distant now. It was as if it had never been real: that all his days he had roamed behind the sheep.

Strangely, he no longer even missed the old days. The love of strong drink was gone from his body. He didn't look a great deal like the man that the Old Colonel had sent forth from the