Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/213

Rh love for her did not make him forget his sheep. The great test by which his metal was tried lay in his degree of success as herder of the flocks.

Never did he get away from a haunting feeling that here—beside the white sheep—he was face to face with life at last. Here, not in his cities, were the realities, the essentials of life: the feeding flock, the shelter, the circle of firelight into which the powers of the wilderness dared not stalk. Fresh and fresh he felt the age-old appeal of the soil, the love of the throbbing earth, the inner warmth, an undying and wondrous communion with nature. He waged his war against the forces of the wild, and the sense of destiny fulfilled was ever with him. And why not,—for were men strangers to the sheep? Could their ancient acquaintance be forgotten in a few little centuries of exile in cities? Had they not been out—through the long course of the ages—under the same stars, felt the same winds, endured the same dangers? In the first dawn of civilization, dim and far away through the mists of the past, the herdsman cared for his sheep in the green pastures,—and it was in the blood.

Sometimes this old acquaintance, was recalled to Hugh in dreams. There was one dream in particular that came to him night after night. It never seemed to vary, and its spell always endured a few moments after wakening. So real it was, so vivid, it was almost as if it had been some actual experience in his own life, rather