g slid down a snowy slab and fell upon the first.
The sheep ran back, but the others stood and Kit saw the dog could not
stop them long. The Herdwicks knew the advantage was theirs on ground
like this.

Jumping from a boulder, he fell into the swollen beck and made his way up
the nearly perpendicular slab. At the top he found a dangerous ledge and
advanced upon the sheep, which had their backs to the stream. Twining his
fingers in a lamb's wool, he picked up the animal and balancing himself
precariously threw it as far as he could. It fell into the beck and
scrambled out on the other side, where the track led down the ghyll. The
effort had cost him much, for his heart beat and he gasped for breath,
but he doubted if he had done enough. Dragging another lamb from the
flock, he hurled it into the water, and then his foot slipped and he
rolled down the slab and fell in the snow.

He got up, badly shaken, and saw that his plan had worked. Sheep will
follow a leader and the flock was straggling down the ghyll behind the
lambs. Kit recrossed the beck and descended cautiously, keeping close to
the rocks. The ghyll is a rough climb in daylight, and summer tourists,
trying to cross the fells, often turn back at the bottom. There is no
path and one scrambles over large, sharp stones, some of which are loose
and fall at a touch. In places, banks of treacherous gravel drop to the
beck, which plunges over ledges into deep, spray-veiled pools. Now the
stones were slippery with snow, the wind raged, and mist and tossing
flakes hid the ground a few yards ahead.

Somehow he got down, but he was exhausted and breathless when he
reached the bottom, where he was forced to wait before he could whistle
to his dog. He heard its bark and stumbling forward, found the flock
bunched together in a hollow. Then he sat down in the snow while Tom
counted the sheep.

"They're aw here," said the shepherd. "A better job than I thowt we'd
mak! Weel, let's gan on."

Kit was tired, and bruised by his fall, but he went forward behind the
dogs. His troubles were over, for a broad smooth path led along the
hill-foot to Mireside.

CHAPTER VII

THE RECKONING

The morning was dark, and although the gale had dropped, a raw, cold
wind blew up the valley past Mireside farm, where three or four farmers'
traps and some rusty bicycles stood beneath the projecting roof of a
barn. The bleating of sheep rose from a boggy pasture by the beck, and
lights t