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.
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