“All ready.”
“Strip and into it, then,” and, the first to obey his own command, he hurried off his clothes and plunged into the frigid river.
Sims, who had devised this scheme from memory of an Indian custom, stood at the head of the leaders to superintend the crossing.
Now the men entered the water by tens, and stretched out in a double line all the way from bank to bank, facing each other and leaving but a scant yard between them.
“Ready?” yelled Sims.
“Ready! Let ’em go!” sang out Larkin.
The chief herder and others heaved the leading sheep into the water between the first two men. 287 These lifted it along to the next pair who shoved it on, swimming all the time. So it came snorting and blatting to the other side and climbed up the bank.
After it came the next, and then the next, and as the work became easier the sheep caught the notion that man had suggested and incorporated it into the flock mind. They took to the water because their predecessors had.
And now the stream of sheep was steady and continuous. The current was swift and the men’s bodies ached and grew numb in the intense cold, but they stood their ground. Only in one place was the water too deep to work, and here they lost a few terror-stricken animals who turned aside from the chain and were swept downstream.
The river between the men was churned like that of a rapid; there was heard the constant slap-slap! of their arms as they smote the water in pushing the sheep along. A man took cramp and clung to a companion until he could kick it out of himself.