ols and
stumbling across banks of stones, and soon stopped again. He had come
down the slope, so to speak, blindly, and now stood on the edge of a
vast, dark pit. One could not see beyond the edge, but the confused
noises that came up hinted at profound depth. The gale shrieked, but he
heard the roar of falling water and the rattle of stones the wind
dislodged.

"Do you think this is Beatarn ghyll?" he asked.

"I dinna ken," Tom answered; and added hopefully, "if it's t'ither, we'll
mayhappen find oot before we step over Ling Crag."

They went down at a venture, whistling vainly for the dogs. The drop was
very sharp, and now they were leaving the wind-swept pass, the snow had
begun to pack among the stones and boggy grass. Still, so far as they
could see, there were no marks of little feet and they wondered what had
happened to the flock, until a faint bark came out of the mist. The noise
got louder and Kit knew the dogs were running round the stopping sheep.

"We're right," he said. "They've gone through the broken wall and the
dogs are holding them at the top of the force."

A few minutes afterwards he scrambled over a pile of fallen stones,
shouted to Tom, and began to run, for he understood what had happened.
The broken wall marked the boundary of the Mireside heaf and the sheep
were now on familiar ground. It was his business to drive them to the
farm, but they were trying to turn off to look for shelter among the
crags. At the force, where the Bleatarn beck leaps in linked falls to the
valley, one could get down between the water and the rocks; on the other
side, a path about a foot wide led across the face of a precipice. In
daylight, if the stones were dry, a man with steady nerves could use the
path, but when slab and scree were packed with snow nothing but a
Herdwick could cross it safely. The dogs knew this and were trying to
hold the flock.

When the men came up they saw an indistinct, woolly mass on the other
side of the beck. The mass was not level but slanted sharply, and the
sheep at the bottom sent down showers of stones as they surged to and
fro, with heads turned to the dogs. It was obvious that they did not mean
to go down the ghyll, and Herdwicks born among the crags can climb where
no dog can follow.

"The dogs canna turn them," gasped Tom. "They'll be away ower Eel Scar;
they're brekkin' noo."

The flock began to open out and three or four sheep straggled forward,
but Kit's bob-tailed do