It was not the gleam of fire on his eyeballs nor the sound of guns in his ears that woke Rawlins when morning was breaking grey over the sheeplands. He heaved himself up suddenly when the sound of it struck through his heavy slumber, bewildered for a moment, sleep-cloyed, as one commonly feels on waking in strange surroundings, believing for a little while that it was the continuation of a dream.
Sheep. The tremulous, pleading, helpless babble of a band of sheep.
Rawlins took a cautious peep through the fringe of his hiding-place, seeing nothing of the complaining creatures which seemed to be near at hand in large numbers. There was a fog in the valley, or a skim of fog, which pressed close to the ground, common to that valley in the early morning. Rawlins often had seen it before, so shallow that the tops of the taller cottonwoods along the creek protruded above it. The sheep were bleating out of it beyond the creek; none of them was to be seen.
He came out of his hole cautiously, relieved to see his house and haystacks still there. He wondered whether this was a new scheme of Galloway's men, running their flocks over to his valley, hoping to drown
