"O no, I don't think that," said Ned. "If 'twas in the fall, I should think it might be, for there are some folks down at the Corners that have been laid in stealing sheep. But let's see whether it's sheep or lambs that's gone, and whose 'tis, whether it's ours or Murches'. Now all our sheep have got two slits in the right ear and a crop off the left; but Murches' have a crop off both ears; and all our lambs have got red paint across the fore shoulders, but Murches' have got red on the rump." This necessitated a new count and a much more difficult one. "I'll count the ones with slits and crops," said Ned; "and you count the ones with two crops." But we were nearly half an hour establishing the fact that one of the "two crops" was missing. "It is one of Murches' sheep that's gone," said Ned; "I'm glad it isn't ours." We then counted the lambs and found also that the missing ones were two of the Murches'. "It's an old sheep with twins," said Ned. "Isn't she off by herself somewheres?" I asked. "Not very likely to be unless she's got hung; they always keep together," replied Ned. "But she may have got hung in the brush, or else has tumbled in between big rocks and can't get out. I suppose we ought to look her up if that's so. "I'll tell you what we will do," continued Ned; "we will walk clean round the pasture, in the first place, keeping where we can see the fence, for she may be hung in it." Thereupon we set off to walk around the pasture, going along the farther side to the northwest and the southwest first. The fence skirted the thick bushes and woods. Toward the southwest corner there was a long, craggy ledge a little within the pasture fence. It fell off, rough, rocky and almost perpendicular on that side, from a height of fifteen or twenty feet, and about the foot of the crag were many of the low, black spruces, but from the upper side one could walk out on the bare, smooth rocks to the very brink of the ledge. We approached from this upper side, and as we came out on it, to look down into the corner of the pasture, a crow cawed suddenly and sharply, and we saw three crows rise, flapping, off the ground, below the crag. "Hoh!" Ned exclaimed. "What are those black chaps up to there?" We stopped and looked down attentively into the partly open plat of pasture, inclosed around on the lower side by the seared, reddish line of the now dried hedge fence. "Why, Ned, see the wool down there on the ground!" I cried, as a white mass caught my eye. "Something's killed the sheep there!" replied Ned, in a low tone. "See the head there and the meat and bones strung along. Something's killed her and eaten her half up; and there looks to be part of a lamb farther along by that little fir."