Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/259

Rh heart with fear for the man she loved. And he was the man: one of a breed that has ever been willing to die for an ideal. To her, the sheep no longer mattered. She only knew that the wall of fire was creeping toward this man, this tall, straight-eyed companion that held her heart. Yet she knew in the depths of her own heart that she could not turn him from his resolve, that she could not make him break his trust. She had longed to find strength in him, the strength of the mountains and the pines, the basic strength that has made men the rulers of the earth, and now she had found it,—only to have it break her heart.

The captain who stayed with his ship when his children at his hearth wept for his return, the soldier in his trench for an ideal that few women, in their heart of hearts, can really understand, and this shepherd, willing to stand the test of fire to save his flocks were simply three of one breed. Nor did they greatly differ from the whole race of men from which they sprung. They were only obeying the immutable laws of their own beings. They could not break trust with themselves.

They didn't know why. It was as blind faith as that which will make a mother—a woman useful to the earth—give her life to save her crying infant—not through love, not through a sense of duty, but just from the inexorable command of the soul. Common sense and the voice of reason go unheard: and only instinct, blind and