It was not the first nor the tenth time that the collie had “gone overboard” to rescue a sheep. For there is no limit to the quantity and quality of mischances into which sheep can entangle themselves. Falling off bridges is one of their recognized accomplishments. But never in his two years of life had the young dog found himself in a torrent like this. At his first immersion into it, he was bowled over, then sucked under water; then he was spun dizzily about;--all before he could get his bearings. Rising to the surface and taking instinctive advantage of the current, he shook the water from his eyes and struck downstream after the bobbing gray-white body of the sheep. At the end of fifty yards--during which a whirling log had well nigh stove the collie’s ribs in, and two successive eddies had pulled his head under water--he saw a twist of the erratic current pick up the sheep’s body and sling it high on a patch of stony beach at a bend in the stream. There it sprawled. And thither the collie fought his breath-tortured way. But when he dragged himself up out of the water and sniffed at the wet huddle of wool and flesh, a single instant’s inspection told him he had had his hazardous swim for nothing. The sheep was dead. Panting from his stupendous efforts, Treve started at a canter along the far bank of the stream, toward the forty-seven wethers that had crossed in safety. His sole duty, now, was toward them; and he realized it. He must get them back to the other side of the river and thence down to the main flock, a mile below. The sheep had been grievously affrighted by the splash of the log and by the mishap to their fellow-imbecile. They were scattering, with loud bleats, through the rock-strewn underbrush. But they did not scatter far. After them, in front of them, on every side of them, swept a golden-tawny and loud-mouthed whirlwind; that gave them no peace until they consented to turn back from their four-direction flight and bunch themselves as he decreed. Then, his strays rounded up and submissive, Treve undertook to get them out of their predicament. But this was a task beyond his collie brain. He did not seek to drive them across the tossing little river. The death of the one sheep that had fallen into the flood told him the futility of such a move;--even could he have forced them to the terrifying passage. He must find some better way to get back to the flock. The river, in its descent, waxed ever wider. Moreover, its course continued steadily to travel farther and farther from the trail. Perhaps for this reason, perhaps by mere instinct, Treve began to drive his scared sheep up the mountain; keeping ever as near as possible to the stream; and watching for a safe way to cross. Again and again he tested its bottom in hope of a ford. But he found none. Nor was the river bridged, farther up, by any tree.