"Of all the contrary—onery—say, Bill, there's them as says sheep is fools!"
It took a moment for this surprising assertion to sink into his helper's brain.
"They as says sheep is fools——" Bill, the herder's voice rang with scorn, "them as says sheep is fools——" great mental effort was visible upon his blank countenance as he groped for some word or combination of words sufficiently strong to express his opinion of those who doubted the intelligence of sheep—"is fools themselves," he added lamely, finding none.
"Guess we're about ready to pull out. Get aboard, Bill." The Sheep King, squinting along the track where the banked cinders radiated heat waves, was watching, not the signalling brakeman, but a figure skulking in the shade of the red water-tank. "It looks like——"
The heavy train of bleating sheep began to crawl up the grade. The Sheep King stood at the door of the rear car looking fixedly at the slinking figure so obviously waiting for the caboose to pass.
Dr. Harpe threw her black medicine case upon the platform.
"Give us a hand." The words were a demand, but there was appeal in the eyes upturned to his as she thrust up her own hand.
"Sure." The cordiality in the Sheep King's voice was forced as he dragged her aboard; and in his curious looks, his constraint of manner, the sly glances and averted, grinning faces of his helpers inside, Dr. Harpe read her fate.
"Your name," Essie Tisdale had said, "will be a byword in every sheep-camp and bunk-house in the country."
Sick with a baffled feeling of defeat and the realization that the prophecy of the girl she hated already had come true, Dr. Harpe sat on the top step of the caboose, her chin buried in her hands, with moody, malignant eyes watching Crowheart fade as the bleating, ill-smelling sheep train crept up the grade.