Save that there was a dark patch against the green of the grass, she had disappeared. Without any visible movement the patch drew nearer the hesitating sheep. It was pretty work, and the crowd marked their admiration by their dead silence. The sheep sighted the dog, backed round to face her, and crowded with their hind-quarters against the hurdle. Zubdil was silent, motionless, save for the slow movement of his arms. Nance slid a little nearer, nearer yet. The sheep crowded further back against the opening. She was not now a yard away. Suddenly she sat up and panted hard. One of the animals, turning sharply to escape, found an opening, pushed along it in dread haste. The other two struggled for next place, and the cross-roads were won. Again was l’ile Nance there to meet them as they gained the open, and collecting them smartly she raced them off towards the pen. They broke away, but their wild rush ended in their being brought up exactly against the opening of the pen. Zubdil was there, too, his arms going like the sails of a windmill on an almost breezeless day. They pushed past the opening, and Nance rose up out of the grass to greet them. They spun about and raced off, but in a trice she was doing trick running about their heads and flanks, and when they stopped for breath the mouth of the pen was again before them. Zubdil drew a cautious step nearer, arms outspread, his lips puckered. Just wide of him a pair of ears pricked up above the grass. There was a moment’s hesitation; one of the sheep poked its head through the mouth of the pen. Nance glided a little nearer, and the other two animals crowded against the first. Another step into the pen; the dog was only a yard away. There was a flurried movement about the opening. L’ile Nance sat up and lolled out a red tongue. She appeared to be laughing. There was a crush, a scramble, the sheep burst in, and Nance slid across the opening, lay down, and fixed her pearly eyes on her master. What wonder if she appeared to be grinning cheerfully? Before the cheering had subsided, a stolid-faced judge stepped towards Zubdil. The pink rosette which denoted the first prize was in his hand, and at the sight of it there was more cheering. The other Nance on the slope clutched the arm of Owd Zub. For his part he was smiling broadly, and ecstatically slapping his leggings hard with his ash stick. ‘Nine-an’-a-quarter minutes,’ said the judge, handing the rosette to the young farmer. ‘By gum, but it wor a near do. Shoo’s a rare ’un, that dog o’ thine, an’ nobbut a young ’un, too.’ But Zubdil’s greatest reward came later. It was not the hearty congratulations of so doughty an opponent as Ike, nor the incoherent remarks of Owd Zub. It was when an arm slid through his, when eyes dimmed with the moisture of genuine pride looked into his, and a low voice said: ‘I’se reight glad, lad. I is.’