“Oh,” she exclaimed, “there must be thousands of them; how can the ones in the center breathe?  Whoa, Nip, whoa now!  Do you think you are one of those lambs?  And there’s no chance to go around; it is fenced with barbed wire on both sides; we simply must drive through, No, let me, please.  Steady, now, Tuck, steady, whoa.”

They had passed the mounted herders, and the colts broke their way playfully, dancing, curveting with bowing necks, into the midst of the flock.  Soon the figures of the advance shepherds loomed through the dust.  They were turning the sheep into a harvested field.  They rolled in over the yellow stubble like a foaming sea.  Far away, outlined like a sail against an island rick, the night tent of these nomads was already pitched.

Tisdale laughed softly.  “Well, madam, that was skilful piloting.  A bidarka couldn’t have been safer riding in a skiddery sea.”

“A bidarka?” she questioned, ruffling her brows.

Tisdale nodded.  “One of those small skin canoes the Alaskan natives use.  And it’s touchy as a duck; comes bobbing up here and there, but right-side up every time.  And it’s frail looking, frail as an eggshell, yet I would stake a bidarka against a lifeboat in a surf.  Do you know?”—­he went on after a moment—­“I would like to see you in one, racing out with the whitecaps up there in Bering Sea; your face all wet with spray, and your hair tucked away in the hood of a gray fox parka.  Nothing else would show; the rest of you would be stowed below in a wonderful little water-tight compartment.”

“It sounds delightful,” she said, and the sparkles broke in her eyes.

After that there was a long silence.  The bays fell into an even trot.  The mountains loomed near, then before them, on the limits of the plain, a mighty herd of cattle closed the road.  The girl rose a little in her place and looked over that moving sea of backs.  “We must drive through again,” she said.  “It’s going to be stifling but there’s no possible way around.  No,” she protested, when he would have taken the reins, “I’m able.  I learned once, years ago, on a great ranch in southern California.  I’d rather.”  She settled in her seat smiling a little.  “It’s in the blood.”

Tisdale reached and took the whip.  They had passed the drivers and were pushing into the herd.  Sometimes a red-eyed brute turned with lowered horns and dripping mouth, then backed slowly out of the way of the team.  Sometimes, in a thicker press, an animal wheeled close to the tires and, stemming the current, sounded a protest.  But the young horses, less playful now, divided the great herd and came at last safely out of the smother.  The road began to lift, as they rounded the first rampart of the range, and Tisdale’s glance fell to her hands.  “Those gloves are done for, as I expected,” he exclaimed.  “I’ll wager your palms are blistered.  Come, own they hurt.”

She nodded.  “But it was worth it, though you may drive now, if you wish.  It’s my wrists; they have been so long out of practice.  You don’t know how they a—­che.”