is master, now creeping stealthily
forward.

"Ma word! theer's summat wrong yonder!" cried Jim, and jerked the
post-bags off his shoulder. "Coom on, Master! "--and he set off running
toward the dog; while James Moore, himself excited now, followed with an
agility that belied his years.

Some score yards from the lower edge of the spinney, upon the farther
side of the ridge, a tiny beck babbled through its bed of peat. The
two men, as they topped the rise, noticed a flock of black-faced
mountain-sheep clustered in the dip 'twixt wood and stream. They stood
martialled in close array, facing half toward the wood, half toward
the newcomers, heads up, eyes glaring, handsome as sheep only look when
scared.

On the crest of the ridge the two men halted beside Gyp. The postman
stood with his head a little forward, listening intently. Then he
dropped in the heather like a dead man, pulling the other with him.

"Doon, mon!" he whispered, clutching at Gyp with his spare hand.

"What is't, Jim?" asked the Master, now thoroughly roused.

"Summat movin' i' th' wood," the other whispered, listening
weasel-eared.

So they lay motionless for a while; but there came no sound from the
copse.

"'Appen 'twas nowt," the postman at length allowed, peering cautiously
about. "And yet I thowt--I dunno reetly what I thowt."

Then, starting to his knees with a hoarse cry of terror: "Save us!
what's yon theer?"

Then for the first time the Master raised his head and noticed, lying in
the gloom between them and the array of sheep, a still, white heap.

James Moore was a man of deeds, not words.

"It's past waitin'!" he said, and sprang forward, his heart in his
mouth.

The sheep stamped and shuffled as he came, and yet did not break.

"Ah, thanks be!" he cried, dropping beside the motionless body; "it's
nob'but a sheep." As he spoke his hands wandered deftly over the
carcase. "But what's this?" he called. "Stout* she was as me. Look at
her fleece--crisp, close, strong; feel the flesh--firm as a rock. And
ne'er a bone broke, ne're a scrat on her body a pin could mak'. As
healthy as a mon--and yet dead as mutton!"

*N.B. Stout--Hearty.

Jim, still trembling from the horror of his fear, came up, and knelt
beside his friend. "Ah, but there's bin devilry in this!" he said; "I
reck'ned they sheep had bin badly skeared, and not so long agone."

"Sheep-murder, sure enough!" the other answered. "No fox's doin'--a
girt-grown two-sh