Shepherds of the Wild

by Edison Marshall

He did not graze easily, as did most of his followers. He skipped about across the whole front of the flock, now perching upon some lofty crag, now scampering up a narrow trail where the flock could scarcely follow. But in the hot, still late afternoon, as the sheep were beginning to stir after a long rest in the forest shade, Spot gave him even further cause to wonder.

To Hugh, it seemed the hottest hour of the day. His human sense, however, misled him: in reality, the highest point had been reached, and the cool winds from off the snow fields were on their way to bring relief. The sheep were still resting in a compact band: Spot, at the extreme front rank of the flock, had climbed upon a little rocky eminence on the hillside. It was such a promontory as is to be seen often in the high Rockies, an outcropping of the rocky skeleton of the hill emerging—like the end of a broken bone through the flesh—from the brown earth of the hillside. It was such a place as the wolf chooses for her lair, and the poison people—the gray speckled rattlesnakes whose bite is death—like to stretch out upon through the long, still afternoons. Because it overlooked the whole glen and was at the edge of the stony hillside where he had been doomed to live, Running Feet, the coyote, found it a convenient place to look for game.

Why Spot had chosen such a place for his rest Hugh could not guess. It was not shaded and comfortable like the glen beneath. Nor did he lie down like the ewes below him, but stood alert, head up, nostrils open to receive any message that the wind might bring. Hugh found himself watching him with fascinated interest. It seemed to him that the animal was on guard over the flock, even as he himself and the dog,—a watchful sentinel for any danger that might threaten them.

If it were true, he had a right to his wonder. The domestic animals do not ordinarily appoint one of their number as a sentinel. They have depended on the protection of men for so many generations that this habit has died from the breeds. The wild creatures, however, still retain it. If indeed the ram should detect danger for the flock, there was no conceivable refuge for them, so there could have been no conscious intelligence behind the act. It was obviously a long-remembered instinct. Any of the fleet-footed hunters of the wild could overtake them, and the slaying was easy even for a little lynx, biting sure and true.

No one knew this fact any better than Running Feet, the coyote, emerging from the brushy thickets of the hillside in late afternoon. His second name was Coward—cowardice was part of the curse that Manitou had put upon him—but even a seasonal fawn would be brave enough to attack a sheep. It might be, approaching in the shelter of the thickets, he could get close enough to the flock to steal a lamb or ewe from its flanks.

It was not that he had forgotten the shepherd dogs that kept watch, or the herder with his gun. Running Feet was never able to forget things like these. Part of his curse was a far-reaching and calculating intelligence almost equal to that of a dog, a trait that would have been a tremendous advantage if he had been blessed with courage to go with it, but which to a coward meant only realization of a thousand dangers to make life a torment. He understood perfectly what displeasing treatment would be his if the dogs came upon him at the killing. Not even Broken Fang, the puma, can always protect himself against the onslaught of the Barking One on guard over the flocks. He is fast as lightning and as terrible as the she-wolves at the lair mouth. And Running Feet knew quite well the deadly qualities of the glittering stick that the herder carried in the hollow of his arm.

To-day, however, there was only one dog, and he worked on the far side of the flock. The herder rested under a tree; if Running Feet kept to the shelter of the brush, there was nothing to fear from him. True, he would be obliged to dip out into the open to seize one of the lambs, but if fortune only permitted them to lie close enough to the edge of the thicket, he could do it without danger. Fortune wasn’t usually good to Running Feet; but to-day perhaps his luck had turned. And at that point in his wolfine thoughts he made out the figure of Spot, in tireless vigil on the highest point of the rock pile.

It was too good to be true. The distance was full two hundred yards from the herder; the dog was equally distant. The brush went clear to the base of the rocks; one or two little leaps into the open would put him within killing range. Then one or two slashing bites with his white fangs,—and that would complete a perfect afternoon.

Running Feet looked the ground over carefully. He didn’t want to make any avoidable mistakes. It might be that the young ram would dash down and into the flock at the first sight of him, and although he could overtake any domestic sheep in a short run, it might necessitate a chase into the clearing and some danger from the herder’s rifle. The wise course was to circle about the promontory, keeping as close as possible to the shadow of the thicket, and advance up the trail between Spot and his flock.

The wind was right, the shadows were long and strange, and even Running Feet the coward could see no chance of failure. He crept slowly from the thicket, a gray shadow few wilderness eyes were keen enough to see. His white fangs gleamed, the blood leaped in his veins. He made the stalk with complete success: Hugh had not been able to tell what living form had stirred the thicket at the base of Spot’s lookout. And then the gray killer came bounding up the rocky trail.