ion and its surrounding pear trees were now
plainly visible.

Just beyond the Mission, the road bent abruptly eastward, striking off
across the Seed ranch. But Presley left the road at this point, going
on across the open fields. There was no longer any trail. It was toward
three o'clock. The sun still spun, a silent, blazing disc, high in the
heavens, and tramping through the clods of uneven, broken plough was
fatiguing work. The slope of the lowest foothills begun, the surface of
the country became rolling, and, suddenly, as he topped a higher ridge,
Presley came upon the sheep.

Already he had passed the larger part of the herd--an intervening rise
of ground having hidden it from sight. Now, as he turned half way about,
looking down into the shallow hollow between him and the curve of the
creek, he saw them very plainly. The fringe of the herd was some two
hundred yards distant, but its farther side, in that illusive shimmer of
hot surface air, seemed miles away. The sheep were spread out roughly
in the shape of a figure eight, two larger herds connected by a smaller,
and were headed to the southward, moving slowly, grazing on the wheat
stubble as they proceeded. But the number seemed incalculable. Hundreds
upon hundreds upon hundreds of grey, rounded backs, all exactly alike,
huddled, close-packed, alive, hid the earth from sight. It was no longer
an aggregate of individuals. It was a mass--a compact, solid, slowly
moving mass, huge, without form, like a thick-pressed growth of
mushrooms, spreading out in all directions over the earth. From it there
arose a vague murmur, confused, inarticulate, like the sound of very
distant surf, while all the air in the vicinity was heavy with the warm,
ammoniacal odour of the thousands of crowding bodies.

All the colours of the scene were sombre--the brown of the earth, the
faded yellow of the dead stubble, the grey of the myriad of undulating
backs. Only on the far side of the herd, erect, motionless--a single
note of black, a speck, a dot--the shepherd stood, leaning upon an empty
water-trough, solitary, grave, impressive.

For a few moments, Presley stood, watching. Then, as he started to move
on, a curious thing occurred. At first, he thought he had heard some one
call his name. He paused, listening; there was no sound but the vague
noise of the moving sheep. Then, as this first impression passed, it
seemed to him that he had been beckoned to. Yet nothing stirred; except