Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/223

Rh to lead them. And because of the eternal instinct toward gregariousness, he had to stay back with them. It would have been easy for him to whip past the dog, gaining quickly the high passes where such beasts as Cry-in-the-night could scarcely follow. But the others could not keep pace.

The dreams were always real and lifelike, but one night in late September they swept him with unutterable vividness. The flock had bedded down at the highest camp in the range: Crowson's holdings ended in the fringe of timber immediately above them. And all at once he leaped straight out of his dream into wakefulness.

He was trembling all over with excitement; his blood simply racing in his veins. The night throbbed, his heart swelled as if it would burst. At first he only saw the moonlight, fragile and silvery, over the sleeping sheep. He raised his head.

One of the wilderness traits that even the domestic sheep have not altogether lost is the ability to stand absolutely motionless until human eyes get tired of watching. Not a hair twitched on the young ram. It was such a posture as his followers had often seen in him when the flock was menaced by some approaching beast of prey; yet Spot was not thinking of enemies now. And all at once a wild flood of ecstasy passed through his frame.