The sun was about two hours past the meridian; the red walls of the desert were closing in; the V-shaped split where the Colorado cut through was in sight.  The trail now was wide and unobstructed and the distance short, yet August Naab ever and anon turned to face the canyon and shook his head in anxious foreboding.

It quickly dawned upon Hare that the sheep were behaving in a way new and singular to him.  They packed densely now, crowding forward, many raising their heads over the haunches of others and bleating.  They were not in their usual calm pattering hurry, but nervous, excited, and continually facing west toward the canyon, noses up.

On the top of the next little ridge Hare heard Silvermane snort as he did when led to drink.  There was a scent of water on the wind.  Hare caught it, a damp, muggy smell.  The sheep had noticed it long before, and now under its nearer, stronger influence began to bleat wildly, to run faster, to crowd without aim.

“There’s work ahead.  Keep them packed and going.  Turn the wheelers,” ordered August.

What had been a drive became a flight.  And it was well so long as the sheep headed straight up the trail.  Piute had to go to the right to avoid being run down.  Mescal rode up to fill his place.  Hare took his cue from Dave, and rode along the flank, crowding the sheep inward.  August cracked his whip behind.  For half a mile the flock kept to the trail, then, as if by common consent, they sheered off to the right.  With this move August and Dave were transformed from quiet almost to frenzy.  They galloped to the fore, and into the very faces of the turning sheep, and drove them back.  Then the rear-guard of the flock curved outward.

“Drive them in!” roared August.

Hare sent Silvermane at the deflecting sheep and frightened them into line.

Wolf no longer had power to chase the stragglers; they had to be turned by a horse.  All along the flank noses pointed outward; here and there sheep wilder than the others leaped forward to lead a widening wave of bobbing woolly backs.  Mescal engaged one point, Hare another, Dave another, and August Naab’s roan thundered up and down the constantly broken line.  All this while as the shepherds fought back the sheep, the flight continued faster eastward, farther canyonward.  Each side gained, but the flock gained more toward the canyon than the drivers gained toward the oasis.

By August’s hoarse yells, by Dave’s stern face and ceaseless swift action, by the increasing din, Hare knew terrible danger hung over the flock; what it was he could not tell.  He heard the roar of the river rapids, and it seemed that the sheep heard it with him.  They plunged madly; they had gone wild from the scent and sound of water.  Their eyes gleamed red; their tongues flew out.  There was no aim to the rush of the great body of sheep, but they followed the leaders and the leaders followed the scent.  And the drivers headed them off, rode them down, ceaselessly, riding forward to check one outbreak, wheeling backward to check another.