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Evening, with the sheep homing to the bedding-ground, brought reflections of a different hue. Since the raid on his flock Mackenzie had given up his bunk in the wagon for a bed under a bush on the hillside nearer the sheep. Night after night he lay with the rifle at his hand, waiting the return of the grisly monster who had spent his fury on the innocent simpletons in his care.
He could steal an hour or two from the sheep in the early morning, he told himself, as he felt the sweet restfulness of slumber sweeping over him; the helpless creatures would remain on the bedding-ground long after sunrise if he did not wake, waiting for him to come and set them about the great business of their lives.
Dusk was thickening into darkness over the sheeplands; the dogs were driving the straggling sheep back to the bedding-ground, where many of them already lay in contentment, quickly over the flurry of Swan Carlson's passing. Joan stood at her stirrup, her face lifted to the heavens, and it was white as an evening primrose under the shadow of her hat.
Even before daybreak Pete was up and building a fire. The sheep poured from the bedding-ground and pattered down to the cañon stream. Later they spread out across the wide cañon-bottom and grazed, watched by the dogs. Full-fed and happy, Young Pete helped Pedro clean the camp-utensils.
Tails were thinned, hoofs trimmed, manes cleared of witches' bridles, and ears swabbed to free them of ticks. The start was made before dawn. Stars were shining by thousands when the chuck-wagon rolled down the road. The blatting of cows could be heard as the riders moved the phantom cattle from their bedding-ground. The dogies were long-legged and shaggy, agile and wild as deer.
That was the way it looked to John Mackenzie that evening. Trouble will put things over on a man who is bent to compromise, every time. Undoubtedly it looked that way. But he had killed a man. It was a heavy thing to carry on his soul. This depressing shadow thickened over him as the sun drew down to the hills, and he went working his flock slowly to the night's bedding-ground.
There was a certain slow progressiveness about it, however, that saved it from absolute monotony. Each day the sheep grazed out, the distance being automatically adjusted by the coming of night, when they were bunched and slowly drifted back to the bedding-ground.
She would take the herd in to the bedding-ground by the river, to a landing-point on the opposite side, never twice the same, and drift noiselessly through the canebrake, choosing blowy hours when the swish of cane over woolly backs was like the run of the wind.
"It's sundown; don't you think you'd better be going back to camp, Joan?" But Joan was in no haste to leave. She walked with him as he worked the sheep to their bedding-ground, her bridle-rein over her arm. She could get back to camp before dark, she said; Charley would not be worried. Joan could not have said as much for herself. Her eyes were pools of trouble, her face was anxious and strained.
There was no one in sight nor human habitation within her range of vision; the slow drag was monotonous; the flies were bad and the heat was great; she was both drowsy and irritable. "Lord! how I hate the smell of sheep!" she said fretfully as the odor rose strong from a bedding-ground, "and their everlastin' bleat would set me crazy. Gosh! it's hot!
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