After the manner of their breed, the remaining sheep of this advance band wheeled into the underbrush behind him. After the first few hundred feet, some of them balked at a narrow brooklet which the leader had crossed at a single jump. They turned again toward the trail, leaving the rest—forty-eight in all—to run on and to become hidden in the undergrowth.
Zit, following close behind, came to the brook. There, the scent veered to the left; and he pursued it; presently coming up with the contingent which had not crossed; and herding them skillfully back to the main body.
The forty-eight strays continued their onward and upward course, at last slackening their gallop to a trot and stopping now and then to snatch at a mouthful of herbage, but always resuming their journey, farther from the trail. There was no sense at all in their doing so. This, probably, was why they did it;—being sheep.
Treve had gone after a half-score sheep that broke trail lower down the mountain. He rounded them up and sent them into the main flock. Then, scenting or hearing or guessing the presence of other sheep, higher on the mountain, he cantered up the steep slope to investigate. His straight line of progress brought him out on the track of the strays, a few rods to the right of the brooklet. He followed; only to catch the scent of Zit’s flying feet, where they had passed by, a few minutes earlier. The scent proved that Zit had rounded up this particular bunch of strays, and that Treve’s climb had gone for nothing.
Thirsty from his fast ascent, he stopped at the brook to drink. Here the sheep had arrived. Here, some had turned and had been overtaken by Zit. But here, too, Treve’s scent told him, other sheep had crossed the trickle of water; and Zit had not followed this lot.
As he stooped to drink, Treve’s nose was not eighteen inches from the opposite bank. There, the leader and his remaining followers had planted their feet as they bounded across. The scent was fresh. To the trained collie it told its own story. Zit had missed the clue because of following the remnant that they had not crossed. In following the stronger and nearer scent he had taken no note of the other. Treve himself might well have overlooked it, but for the chance of his stopping to drink.
Hot on the track of the escaped forty-eight wethers, the collie sprang across the narrow brook and up the hill after them. Bad as was the going and uncertain as was the runaways’ course, it was a matter of only a few minutes for him to overhaul them.
They had just come to a huddled pause in their flight. Detouring, to avoid climbing a high ridge of rock which arose in front of them, they had followed this barrier of stone to rightward, with some idea of going around its end. But this they could not do. The ridge ended abruptly in a cliff that jutted out above the Chiquita River.
The Chiquita was in flood. This, because a spell of warm weather, had replaced a spell of snow and chill on the summit; sending millions of gallons of melted snow cascading down the peak. The Chiquita and the Pico alike were changed from modest creeks to turbulent torrents. Even the usually dry stream beds along the slope were now full of water, as in the case of the brooklet which some of the sheep had crossed and which others of them had avoided.