No observer could make any mistake about Spot’s position in the flock.
Through all the maneuvers of the great band he kept the foremost place;
and the other sheep followed him without question. The young and
inexperienced herdsman thought at first that he was the old “bellwether”
of the flock.
But in a very few moments he had to reconstruct some of his ideas. In
the first place Spot was not old, and in the second he was obviously not
a wether. He was not wrinkled and withered like the old ewes: sheep that
had yielded their wool for many seasons. To Hugh’s eyes he looked like a
yearling ram; and rather amazing horns had begun to curve from his bold,
rugged head.
Hugh was considerably puzzled. He was not a sheepman, but for the simple
reason that there were no other yearling rams in the flock he believed
that most of the previous season’s crop of male lambs had been sold as
wethers to the markets. The mature lambs were obviously kept apart until
the breeding season in late fall or winter. Some exception had thus been
made in the case of Spot. And Hugh found himself watching the sturdy
sheep with a singular interest.
In the first place the animal lacked the uniform color of the other
sheep. His basic color was neither white nor black, but a decided dark
brown with white at the backs of the legs and the rump. This variation
of color immediately won him his name. He was the only sheep in the
flock with horns, and in some vague way the man realized that the
outline of his figure was entirely different from that of the ewes.
Although he was massively and boldly built, there was an actual grace
about his motions not to be seen in the ewes. His form looked lean and
hard, for all its massive development, and he stood several good inches
above the tallest ewe in the flock. Hugh found it hard to believe,
however, that he was some imported, high-bred yearling ram that would
later be used to help build up the standard of the flock. In spite of
his exceptional height and strength, his trim body probably weighed less
than some of the fat ewes, his wool was not unusual, and certainly one
of his rugged, agile form would not yield tender mutton. The man found
it increasingly difficult to explain his presence in the flock.
Hugh tried to head him off, only to find that he was surprisingly quick
on his feet. Only because his flock were unable to follow him and the
young ram whipped back to join them was Hugh able to round him up at
all. And when he darted off in a half-circle the whole band came
pell-mell after him as if, young as he was, they were afraid to trust
themselves without his guidance.
The longer Hugh looked at him, the more he was marked from all the other
sheep in the flock. Of course it was possible that the mere fact that he
was a male of the species was enough thus to distinguish him; yet
ignorant though he was of the ways of sheep, Hugh found this explanation
insufficient. In the first place Spot was just a yearling and evidently
not yet mature. He could not imagine some of those strong-minded old
ewes trusting their lives and fortunes to any ordinary immature ram. But
this creature had a carriage not to be seen in the others, seemingly a
spirit and pride and self-reliance that didn’t quite fit in with the
nature of domestic sheep. His very stride revealed a bold, fearless,
domineering disposition.
He did not graze easily, as did most of his followers. He skipped about
across the whole front of the flock, now perching upon some lofty crag,
now scampering up a narrow trail where the flock could scarcely follow.
But in the hot, still late afternoon, as the sheep were beginning to
stir after a long rest in the forest shade, Spot gave him even further
cause to wonder.
To Hugh, it seemed the hottest hour of the day. His human sense,
however, misled him: in reality, the highest point had been reached, and
the cool winds from off the snow fields were on their way to bring
relief. The sheep were still resting in a compact band: Spot, at the
extreme front rank of the flock, had climbed upon a little rocky
eminence on the hillside. It was such a promontory as is to be seen
often in the high Rockies, an outcropping of the rocky skeleton of the
hill emerging—like the end of a broken bone through the flesh—from the
brown earth of the hillside. It was such a place as the wolf chooses for
her lair, and the poison people—the gray speckled rattlesnakes whose
bite is death—like to stretch out upon through the long, still
afternoons. Because it overlooked the whole glen and was at the edge of
the stony hillside where he had been doomed to live, Running Feet, the
coyote, found it a convenient place to look for game.
Why Spot had chosen such a place for his rest Hugh could not guess. It
was not shaded and comfortable like the glen beneath. Nor did he lie
down like the ewes below him, but stood alert, head up, nostrils open to
receive any message that the wind might bring. Hugh found himself
watching him with fascinated interest. It seemed to him that the animal
was on guard over the flock, even as he himself and the dog,—a watchful
sentinel for any danger that might threaten them.
If it were true, he had a right to his wonder. The domestic animals do
not ordinarily appoint one of their number as a sentinel. They have
depended on the protection of men for so many generations that this
habit has died from the breeds. The wild creatures, however, still
retain it. If indeed the ram should detect danger for the flock, there
was no conceivable refuge for them, so there could have been no
conscious intelligence behind the act. It was obviously a
long-remembered instinct. Any of the fleet-footed hunters of the wild
could overtake them, and the slaying was easy even for a little lynx,
biting sure and true.
No one knew this fact any better than Running Feet, the coyote, emerging
from the brushy thickets of the hillside in late afternoon. His second
name was Coward—cowardice was part of the curse that Manitou had put
upon him—but even a seasonal fawn would be brave enough to attack a
sheep. It might be, approaching in the shelter of the thickets, he could
get close enough to the flock to steal a lamb or ewe from its flanks.
It was not that he had forgotten the shepherd dogs that kept watch, or
the herder with his gun. Running Feet was never able to forget things
like these. Part of his curse was a far-reaching and calculating
intelligence almost equal to that of a dog, a trait that would have been
a tremendous advantage if he had been blessed with courage to go with
it, but which to a coward meant only realization of a thousand dangers
to make life a torment. He understood perfectly what displeasing
treatment would be his if the dogs came upon him at the killing. Not
even Broken Fang, the puma, can always protect himself against the
onslaught of the Barking One on guard over the flocks. He is fast as
lightning and as terrible as the she-wolves at the lair mouth. And
Running Feet knew quite well the deadly qualities of the glittering
stick that the herder carried in the hollow of his arm.
To-day, however, there was only one dog, and he worked on the far side
of the flock. The herder rested under a tree; if Running Feet kept to
the shelter of the brush, there was nothing to fear from him. True, he
would be obliged to dip out into the open to seize one of the lambs, but
if fortune only permitted them to lie close enough to the edge of the
thicket, he could do it without danger. Fortune wasn’t usually good to
Running Feet; but to-day perhaps his luck had turned. And at that point
in his wolfine thoughts he made out the figure of Spot, in tireless
vigil on the highest point of the rock pile.
It was too good to be true. The distance was full two hundred yards from
the herder; the dog was equally distant. The brush went clear to the
base of the rocks; one or two little leaps into the open would put him
within killing range. Then one or two slashing bites with his white
fangs,—and _that_ would complete a perfect afternoon.
Running Feet looked the ground over carefully. He didn’t want to make
any avoidable mistakes. It might be that the young ram would dash down
and into the flock at the first sight of him, and although he could
overtake any domestic sheep in a short run, it might necessitate a chase
into the clearing and some danger from the herder’s rifle. The wise
course was to circle about the promontory, keeping as close as possible
to the shadow of the thicket, and advance up the trail between Spot and
his flock.
The wind was right, the shadows were long and strange, and even Running
Feet the coward could see no chance of failure. He crept slowly from the
thicket, a gray shadow few wilderness eyes were keen enough to see. His
white fangs gleamed, the blood leaped in his veins. He made the stalk
with complete success: Hugh had not been able to tell what living form
had stirred the thicket at the base of Spot’s lookout. And then the gray
killer came bounding up the rocky trail.
Hugh saw him then. It was only a gray glimpse: by no possible chance
could he have found a target for his rifle. The distance was far, the
coyote’s body half-obscured. He had only one thought: that Spot was
doomed beyond any power of his to save him. Already, it seemed to him,
he had developed a real affection for the self-reliant, spirited ram;
and he had a sense of acute personal loss as he read its doom. To lose
the brave leader of the flock in his first day of service! No event in
his life had ever caused more regret.
No instruments may measure the speed of the human mind in a second of
crisis. The glimpse of the charging coyote was of infinitesimal
duration, yet Hugh had time in plenty for an overpowering wave of regret
and rage. The time he lacked, however, was that for muscular response.
There was none whatever to raise his rifle and take aim.
And at that instant his regrets were cut short. He suddenly shouted with
delight. Spot was not to die so tamely,—in the fangs of Running Feet.
All at once the young ram snapped about in the trail, making no attempt
whatever to flee into the thickets on the other side of the rock pile.
And he lowered his head in a posture of defense.
For long seconds he stood motionless, statuesque, his horns ready for
the coyote’s onslaught. There was something masterful, noble about the
posture, not at all to be expected in the timid and defenseless domestic
sheep. And the coyote drew up short in the trail.
The other sheep had sprung up, by now, and were crowding away from the
rock pile: the dog sprang forward, barking, at the other side of the
flock. Hugh stood waiting for a chance to aim his weapon. And still the
tableau on the rocks remained unchanged: the young ram with lowered
head, the coyote—his blood turning to milk inside of him—on the trail.
Hugh’s astonishment was nothing compared to the coyote’s own. He had
expected flight, panic,—anything on earth except an actual attitude of
self-defense. Just for a moment he stood motionless, snarling, trying to
find courage to attack. But not for nothing had Manitou put his curse
upon him.
All at once it came to him that he had made a mistake. There was
something familiar about the sturdy figure, the lowered head, the
curling horns. He remembered certain passes in the High Rockies,—and
various trim, horned creatures that might occasionally be met there.
Even Broken Fang did not care to meet these people on a narrow
trail,—and Running Feet remembered with some haste that he had an
appointment on the other side of the hill.
At that instant Hugh shot. The distance was far; the bullet whizzed hot
along Running Feet’s shoulder. He didn’t wait for a second shot. He
turned and fled at the fastest pace he knew. And with the air whizzing
past him he wholly missed the curious words that the herder
uttered,—the strange remark that he made to Spot, still standing
defiantly with lowered horns on the trail.
“Good Lord, Spot,” he cried, “you’re not just a sheep. Sure as I live,
you’re a——” But he didn’t finish telling what Spot was. Perhaps he
didn’t know; and the ideas that were glowing dimly in his brain did not
yet take the form of a concrete thought. But more likely his attention
was merely called away. For at that instant he saw his camp-tender
advancing slowly up the trail.