Hugh had not heard the shot that had killed the horse. The distance was not far and in the silent summer nights he would have heard the sharp sound with ease, but to-night the forest was full of the roar of the fire. And perhaps his senses had already lost some of their acuteness. It seemed to him that a curious stupor was stealing over him, a sadness and a despair that he could not fight off. In the first place he was terribly fatigued. As the moments had passed, one by one with a dreadful slowness that only men in the peril of death may know, the chances for his escape seemed ever less. The fire steadily encroached upon him, the heat increased, the red glow over the wilderness brightened until the world no longer seemed that into which he was born. And now the sheep had begun to “balk,” refusing to be driven. It was a development that a more experienced herder might have expected and dreaded, and it always means that the spirit of the flock is broken. The animals refused to move, standing like forms in stone with legs braced and heads down, and it was a sign that the dread spirit of the wilderness was about to claim its own. When the sheep despair of saving themselves, the herder knows that the end is very near indeed. They would run forward a little way as the dog barked at their heels, but would halt at once. Hugh could not urge them on at all. The fire swept ever nearer. There seemed no use of further effort now: he couldn’t save the flock. And the crudest thing of all was that the shot had gone unheard,—and he could not even turn his strength to the aid of Alice. And just for an instant Hugh shook off his weight of despair to wonder at the dog. The animal was standing motionless—almost like a bird dog at the point—one foot lifted, ears alert, staring away into the thickets whither Alice had gone. He seemed to have forgotten the sheep. The firelight bathed him, finding a curious reflection in the garnet glare in his eyes. He swung about to eye the sheep and as quickly returned to his rapt contemplation of the forest in front of the flock. And to Hugh it might have seemed that a grim and savage battle was being waged in the dim depths of the faithful creature’s soul. He seemed to be torn between two great impulses. One of them was his ancient trust,—to stay and guard the sheep. The other would lead him into the forest ahead. He was growling now, with a savagery that Hugh had never seen in him before. He turned to his master with a look that was to haunt the man even in those wild moments following, in which he would make his last effort to drive the flock on to safety,—an expression of wistful and unutterable appeal. And then he raced away—just as on a summer day he had sped when one of the lambs had been menaced by Running Feet—into the deep thickets beyond.