Shepherds of the Wild

by Edison Marshall

She swung about, she saw their huge, dark forms in the moonlight. No man could look into their yellow-green eyes and doubt the madness that was upon them. The pack seemed to divide, some of them closed in, the others circled about and arrested the flight of the sheep. They drew up, wholly enclosed by the savage ring. And Alice reached for her pistol.

Through its long years that forest had never beheld a stranger scene: the huddled band of white sheep, the girl—the eternal shepherdess of the wilderness—standing guard over them, the savage pack in its grim circle. Over it all abided the mystery of the moon, and ranged about were the tall, impassive pines. The high range behind was a sweep of incredible beauty. But just an instant the tableau endured. It broke, the enchanted immobility of the forms gave way to lightning movement, the shadows leaped—met—sprung apart with the sense of infinite motion, the whole scene was in an instant the wild confusion and stress of a nightmare. The hounds sprang toward the sheep.

Alice screamed, cried out, then fired her pistol. Her aim was none too good the first shot. Her terror cost her the steadiness of her hand. Yet at once she recalled the dreadful fact that the only shells she carried were in her pistol, her reserve supply having been packed among her camp supplies, and she must not waste one. But the leaping dogs were an almost impossible target: her second shot succeeded only in scratching along the shoulder of Old Ben, the pack leader, arousing his savagery all the more.

The sheep were dying now. Already the scene was one of unspeakable carnage. Yet it was true that the full madness of the feast of death was not yet upon them. They lingered to worry their dead before springing to a fresh victim. And such times gave Alice her only feeble chance to use her pistol.

The third shot went true: the dog fell kicking in the dry pine needles. Two of the others, maddened by the sight of the death struggle, sprang with revolting fury upon his defenseless body. She fired at them, sobbing when she saw she missed again. It was her fourth shot; and only two remained.

A pistol has never the power of a rifle. It lacks the ability to shock and stun, and, worse, has nothing of its deadly accuracy. And it was all too plain that she had not succeeded in terrifying the pack. Still they plunged at the sheep, avoiding only those that were crowded about her knees, and their fury was increasing with every instant. Every breath saw more of their domestic instincts fall away from them, giving way to the deadly passions of the wild.

She fired the fifth time, and once more she shot true. The dog died in the pine needles. Then she heard the pistol’s sharp sound again.

Then, at the darkest thought of all, a sob caught at her lips. Perhaps she should not have fired that last, little remaining pistol ball. For she looked and saw that a new madness, a more terrible ferocity had come upon the pack.

Perhaps it was just that they were launching full upon the feast of death at last. Perhaps the sheep died too tamely, and in their pack strength they were swept with new desires. The pungent smell of blood, the shots, the casualties in their own ranks, and the sight of this slight, sobbing figure in the middle of the white band filled their canine brains with fury and their veins with lust. Their excitement was at the highest pitch: and she raised her voice in a frantic scream for help.

For her eyes had dropped down to Ben, the terrible leader of the pack; and his glowing eyes were no longer fixed upon the sheep. Instead he was crouched, snarling,—just out of leaping range in front of her; and white foam was at his fangs. And then he came creeping toward her, across the blood-stained pine needles.