Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/258

250 good time with both of us; it would just mean that both of us would die, caught between those two fires. One of us has got to stay here and try the best he can to head the sheep back in the direction that we've come—to follow you through the canyon. The wind might change—the fire might not be able to work down at once to the canyon floor—and we might all get through."

"There's no hope of that. It means death for you—that's all it means. And there's plenty of time for both of us if you'd just leave the sheep. Oh, please "

She looked down in desperate appeal, and she knew her answer when she found a strange little ghost of a smile at his white lips. "But a good herder—doesn't leave his sheep," he told her soberly. The tone was perfectly simple, wholly sincere, utterly free from emotionalism or self-pity. Yet it thrilled and moved her to the depths of her being.

She understood. At last she knew this man who stood before her. Perhaps with this knowledge there came an understanding of the whole great race of men,—the breed that has waged war with the powers of the wilderness, who have driven back the beast and plowed the fields, established a protectorate over the wild creatures, and followed the flocks at the dusky edge of the forest. No longer was she the employer and he the servant. She was simply the woman, sick at