“The Little People show the way,” was the saying of a more credulous
race in an older West; and Hugh knew its truth at last. This was no
blind lead,—the westward course of the bighorn ram in the van of the
sheep flock. He led them straight to a pass that only the wild creatures
knew, a course already taken by such of the animals as had been trapped
between the converging walls of flame and through which Broken Fang had
pursued him. The instincts of the lesser folk had served when Hugh’s own
conscious intelligence and knowledge had failed.
After a half-mile’s wild run Spot turned into a narrow-mouthed canyon,
leading in a long course clear to the high peaks. A creek had flowed
through it in some past age and carved its banks, but through some
geological catastrophe its waters were diverted and only a dry bed of
stones remained. Half-hidden by heavy brush thickets, neither Fargo nor
Alice had ever dreamed of its existence: it was just one of many unknown
gorges in the unlimited mountain spaces of the American West.
Spot—perhaps wholly unaware of the fire—had sped down it before the
pursuit of Broken Fang, and now that his enemy was slain he was simply
taking the same course back to his own people in the mountains.
The flame had not yet crept down its rocky, barren walls. It was such a
place as the rattlesnakes love, but not a feeding ground for sheep; and
the little herbage that grew between its bowlders had not offered a
swift passage for the fire. The flames raged above them on each side,
but the fiery walls had not yet converged and made the impassable
barrier on which Fargo had counted. And Spot’s whole flock sped behind
him into its sheltering depths.
They were none too soon. Within a few minutes the advancing tide of
flame would have covered its mouth if indeed it had not crept down over
the steep walls into the canyon floor itself. But the straight road to
safety was open at last. Far beyond, leading him like a star, Spot could
see the glorious white peaks of his home. The domestic sheep could not
follow him all the distance, yet the way was clear and safe for them
completely beyond the outer reaches of the fire. And all that Hugh and
Alice had to do—with Shep running and barking with joy beside them—was
to follow the white flocks.
The lesser folk had shown the way,—just as many times before in the
long roll of the ages. No man could have followed Spot out from the
terror of the fire that night and still thought—in monstrous
arrogance—that the wild things of the world were created only for his
own blood-lust and his own pleasure. The comradeship of men and beasts
is of ancient origin, and its utility is not yet gone. The bighorn
ram—exiled by birth among strangers and lost to his brethren once more
because of the cougar’s hunting—was headed back to his own snow-capped
peaks—and Hugh and Alice and the surging flocks had simply followed his
lead. And the way he had shown was that of life and safety when all
other paths were closed.
Just before the dawn broke, Hugh and Alice stood behind the flock, safe
and far from the ravages of the fire. Already Spot and his two ewes had
sped up a precipitate trail—where, because of the steep rocks and the
interference of Shep, the domestic sheep could not follow—and now all
three thousand of them were quietly grazing at the very foot of the high
mountains. And no man may say whether or not—like the lame child of
Hamlin town—they gazed with wistful eyes toward the misty mountain
realms where their leader had gone. They had been of the mountains too,
when the world was young, and perhaps they found themselves longing for
the steep ways and the hard days and the fierce delights that constitute
the lives of those mountain monarchs, the bighorn sheep.
The dawn grew in the east. The white peaks glowed and gleamed. And the
girl’s brown hand crept into Hugh’s.
“Did you know,” she asked him, whispering, “that we’ve won? That we’re
safe, after all? The rangers are probably already on the way to fight
the fire, and we’ve nothing more to fear.”
He turned to her, and they had a moment of laughter in which they
rejoiced at each other’s appearance. Their clothes were torn and half
burned away; the man’s eyebrows and lashes were singed; and their skins
were smudged with soot. But the perils and the stress had left no weight
upon their spirits. They were blistered, hungry, desperately fatigued,
but they were gloriously happy and triumphant.
“We’ve won,” he echoed. “A few fatalities—but not enough to count.” He
had engaged in much folly in his time, but it was to be said of Hugh
that he wasted no emotion or maudlin words over the dead body of José in
the burning brush behind. “And we can get Fargo too—on a charge of
arson, at least. There will be some way to handle him. And the only
thing left to talk about is you and I.”
“Shep, too,” she reminded him soberly.
The man glanced down into the loving brown eyes of the shepherd dog. He
also was dirty and disheveled,—a shocking thing to be seen in a
drawing-room but beloved past all utterance here. “Heaven forgive me,
Shep, for forgetting you,” the man cried, dropping to his knees. He was
quite sober as he held the dog a long moment in his strong arms. His
bronzed face was intent. It was enough reward for Shep. His master
released him, and he circled round the two of them, barking in mad joy.
And after all they attended to Shep’s destinies very swiftly. No wealth
on earth could take him from them. And because their thought was clear
and their understanding great, they did not even consider banishing him
to a life of ease,—a chimney corner where he might doze away the days.
Shep was of the world of toil; until his noble spirit departed from his
body he would still have his guard of honor over the sheep. He would
still know the hard labor, the long grinding hours, the nervous sleep in
the firelight beloved of long ago, and perhaps—for reward—a plain meal
and a caress at the end of the day.
“And if you’re going to stay with Shep,” the girl went on, her eyes
averted, “it means—that you’re going to stay with the sheep?”
He smiled strangely. “Could I ever leave them, Alice?” He groped for
words, but none had ever been invented that could reveal the sudden,
moving impulses of his soul. “I can’t tell you how much it has all
meant—how much it will mean in the future. Don’t you see, Alice—that
this is my rightful place? With the sheep? In the wilderness? I couldn’t
go—even if you sent me away, I’d have to go into the sheep business on
my own account.”
“That’s right—you could. You could raise money——”
He suddenly laughed,—in sheer delight. His wealth—forgotten in the
great vaults in an Eastern city—would be of use to him, after all. In a
few breathless sentences he told her of his past life, his wasted days,
and his regeneration. They would fill the hills with the feeding flocks,
these two. Still they would know the comradeship of the camp fire, the
night wind whispering through the secret places. It was their heritage,
and they would not forego it. They were the shepherds, and this was
their destiny.
“And if we’re both going to have old Shep, and both follow the
flocks—there’s another consideration, too,” Hugh went on. “Maybe it’s
too much to ask. But the soldier has seen _some_ service; and he can’t
restrain himself any longer. We’ve got to have each other, too.”
A strong man’s love looked out to her from his eyes, and his face was
sober and wistful with entreaty. There was just one instant in which the
whole world hung suspended over a pit of darkness. And then, with a glad
little cry, she stole into his arms.
“Each other—always,” she told him. “Oh, shepherd of my heart!”
* * * * *
And perhaps the spirit of the Old Colonel—sitting in the Greenwood Club
and dreaming of the mountain realms he loved—came wandering over peak
and plain and saw these two, their arms about each other and their eyes
lighted with fond dreams—and swiftly stole back to make its report to
its master. And thereupon the old man smiled in his half-doze, wondering
at the mighty ways of worlds and men,—and the calm spirit of the
flocks, grazing in the forest.
THE END
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious
punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note.
Where multiple spellings were found, majority use has been employed.
[End of _Shepherds of the Wild_ by Edison Marshall]