When she reached her room she lay down on her bed to rest, but she could not sleep. In her mind she could still see those limping sheep struggling across the hot sand, the looming figures of the men toiling in the dust-fog, the blood-stained butchers at their gruesome work, and the heaped piles of dripping skins on the carts. Her ears still echoed to the monotonous scuffling of feet, the bark and rush of the dogs, and scurry of the driven brutes, the thudding hoof-beats and the hoarse shouts of the men, and reports of the whip-cracks and—steady, unceasing, and unbroken—the long-drawn quavering bleat of the sheep.
She rose at last, and went to find Blazes. He was busy in the cook-house preparing meat and boiling water. “Likely the men’ll take it in turns to ride up when they gets as far as the gate. I thought some o’ them would ’ave been ’ere by now. It’s near sundown, an’ they’ll ’ave to come up to water their ’orses.”
“I think I’ll ride down to the gate and see if they are near there,” said Ess; “I feel I can’t wait here, I’m so anxious to know if they’re going to get through.”
“I ’ears someone comin’ now,” said Blazes, and presently she too heard the rattle of stones on the track, and three or four of the men came in sight. They rode their horses straight down to the little dam, and Ess went out and watched the poor brutes wade into the water up to their girths, and bury their muzzles almost up to the eyes. She saw them drink, and drink, and drink again, and reluctantly lift their dripping muzzles and stand, and dip them again and drink till they could drink no more, and even then stand, unwilling to leave the water.
As the men rode up again, Whip Thompson grinned to Ess.
“Decent sort o’ drink they takes when they’re at it,” he said. “Reckon they was pretty near what you might call thirsty then.”
Ess thought to herself that the men themselves must be “pretty near thirsty,” but she noticed that they had sat patiently on the horses till they were satisfied they would drink no more, and that they gave them their feed after it, before ever they thought of drinking or eating themselves.
“How far are the sheep?” asked Ess, anxiously.
“’Bout a mile from the gate,” said Whip. “But they’ll take all of an hour to get to it, an’ some more hours ’fore they’re all through it, and fit to start climbin’ the hills. We’re puttin’ them up the slope across the road if they’ll climb. There’s some feed an’ a few trickles o’ pools beyond there. They’ll have to come on up the valley else, and that’ll be further, though it’s an easier grade.”
“Are you going back now?” asked Ess.