if it were being visited by the drunken spirit of its owner.
At intervals the solitude found expression in a sheep's automatic
_baa_. The birds, which were buzzards, wheeled round and round as the
time passed and brought them nothing. One of them, tired of wheeling
round and round, sat on one of the posts of the corral and waited for
something to happen. These were the dusky angels that carried away the
lamb's body of the day before; she had seen its little white bones down
at the foot of the knoll. The present watcher, a stoop-shouldered,
big, rusty-black bird, was quite indifferent to human presence; he sat
on his post like a usurer on his high stool, calculating and immovable.
Janet knew what was in his mind. She drew the lamb a little closer and
tucked her skirt in around it. Again she fell to contemplating the
prairie--and the sky. The birds above seemed connected with the
machinery of Time. At unexpected moments a sheep gave voice to it all
"in syllable of dolour."

No, she would not really want to be a sheepherder; at least not alone.
Last night, or whenever Steve Brown was about, everything looked quite
different. Even now, she reflected, it was not so bad as it might be,
and she did not really mind it much; it was his place; he was just over
the horizon somewhere; and as long as it was his place she did not feel
so lonesome. He had long ago turned the flock about; she could picture
him as he followed them along, nearer and nearer. After a while he
would be home.

She sat holding the lamb till the sun began to redden; then it occurred
to her that, under the circumstances, it was her duty to get supper.
It was a welcome thought; she would see what she could do. She put the
orphan at the foot of the bunk, drew the quilt over it and set to work.

It had now become apparent that she was destined to spend another night
at the shack; this, however, gave her no serious concern. It entered
her mind only in the form of the pleasant reflection that nobody would
be worried by her absence; the farmer's family would think she had gone
to the county-seat and then reached her destination at Merrill; the
folks at Merrill would think she was still at the school, all of which
was very fortunate, and so she thought no more about it. She was
mainly concerned with the lambs, and particularly, at the present
moment, with supper. She spread down her two white napkins, which had
not seen service the night before, plac