He ruminated pleasantly on this sudden coming round the corner into the fields of romance as he went to the top of the hill at sunset to see what Swan Carlson was about. Over in the next valley there spread a handful of sheep, which the shepherd was ranging back to camp. Mackenzie could not make sure at that distance whether the keeper was woman or man.

Reid had not returned when Mackenzie plodded into camp at dusk. His absence was more welcome, in truth, than his company; Mackenzie hoped he would sulk a long time and stay away until he got his course in the 182 sheep country plainly before his eyes. If he stayed his three years there it would be on account of sheep, and whatever he might win in his father’s good graces by his fidelity. Joan was not to figure thenceforward in any of his schemes.

Three years on the sheep range with no prospect of Joan! That was what Reid had ahead of him now.

“I think I’d take mine in the pen,” Mackenzie said, leaning back to comfort with his pipe. Night came down; the dogs lay at his feet, noses on forepaws. Below him the sheep were still. So, for a long time, submerged in dreams.

One of the dogs lifted its head, its bristles rising, a low growl in its throat. The other rose cautiously, walking away crouching, with high-lifted feet. Mackenzie listened, catching no noise to account for their alarm. A little while, and the sound of Hertha Carlson’s singing rose from the hill behind him, her song the same, the doleful quality of its air unmodified.

Na-a-fer a-lo-o-one, na-a-fer a-lone,
He promise na-fer to leafe me,
Na-fer to leafe me a-lone!

“Strange how she runs on that,” Mackenzie muttered, listening for her to repeat, as he had heard her the night her singing guided him to her melancholy door. A little nearer now the song sounded, the notes broken as if the singer walked, stumbling at times, so much sadness in it, so much longing, such unutterable hopelessness as to wring the listener’s heart.

Swan was beating her again, neglecting her, subjecting 183 her to the cruelties of his savage mind; there was no need for the woman to come nearer to tell him that. Only grief for which there was no comfort, despair in which there was no hope, could tune a human note to that eloquent expression of pain. Perhaps she was wandering in the night now for the solace of weariness, pouring out the three lines of her song in what seemed the bitterness of accusation for a promise unfulfilled.

The dogs came back to Mackenzie’s side, where they sat with ears lifted, but with no expression of hostility or alarm in their bearing now. They were only curious, as their master was curious, waiting to see if the wandering singer would come on into camp.

There was no glow of lantern to guide her, and no moon, but she came straight for where Mackenzie sat. A little way off she stopped.