and lay back with his head in the saddle. He folded his hands and
waited, looking straight up. In a little while the world receded and
he was only conscious of sundry stars. Thus, looking heaven in the
eye, his hands clasped across his chest, Steve Brown sunk to sleep, his
head and feet sticking up at the ends. Again Eternity held sway; and
only Shep was left.

Shep turned round and round till he had trampled a place among the
flowers, his usual way of winding up the day. He lay down in it with
his chin on his paws. But soon he got up and went at it again. He
milled round and round, with several pauses as if he were not quite
satisfied; then he dropped down with a decisiveness that settled the
matter for good. With his chin on the brink of the wallow he went to
sleep; or rather he went as near asleep as a dog with such great
responsibilities allows himself to do.

CHAPTER VIII

The sheep, having several times broken the silence of the dawn, were
growing impatient to be let out. Now that the sun had appeared and the
bars were not let down, there was unanimous expression of opinion in
the corral, an old wether stamping his foot sternly and leading the
chorus with a doleful note. It was very much as if he had put the
question and they had all voted "aye." What was the matter with the
man who was running this part of the world?

Steve Brown was otherwise engaged. He was sitting on the ground behind
the storm-shed with a lamb in his lap. He was trying to remove from
its back the pelt of another lamb which had been neatly fitted on over
its own. This was a trick on the mother of the dead lamb intended to
get her to care for the present lamb, who was an orphan; which is to
say, the extra pelt was the lamb's meal-ticket, and she had given him
several meals on the evidence of smell. The deception had worked all
the more readily because she had not had time to become familiar with
her own lamb's voice; and now that a sort of vocal relationship had
been established between the two, things promised to go along
naturally, with probably a little insistence upon the lamb's part.

In accordance with the usual practice in such cases, the pelt, with
head and legs removed, had been fastened on by means of holes cut at
the corners, through which the live one's legs were inserted, care
being taken to leave on the tail, which part, when a lamb is nursing,
is most convenient to smell.

As Steve Brown was not used