Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/91

Rh body. It might very easily cost him his life. It wasn't worth it. By all the dictates of good sense, the thing to do was to turn back, to leave the dog barking at the water's edge and the ewe mourning on the shore. There were no human spectators to praise him for the deed or condemn him for its omission. He knew that even if he were put on trial no sensible man on the broad earth would hold it against him if he left the lamb to its fate.

Yet in that moment of inner trial a great and a serene knowledge came to him. He knew—in one instant of vision—that it did not lay with the shepherd to consider abstract issues of life and death. It was not for him to try to balance the value of a lamb's life with his own. His business was to watch the flock. His work was to guard the sheep. Nothing could come between.

All the voices of prudence and good sense were stilled before the voice of his own soul. He was afraid, but his fear could not come between the shepherd and his work. He wanted to turn away; but a power greater than his own will made him stand fast. The laws of his own being had given their decree,—and they could not be denied.

"All right, old fellow," he said simply to the dog. "We'll get the little devil."

The dog plunged in. It was the voice he had awaited. The man dropped his coat, his gun,