"Carley, are you game to see the dip?" asked Flo, with good nature that

yet had a touch of taunt in it.

"That's my middle name," retorted Carley, flippantly.

Both Glenn and this girl seemed to be bent upon bringing out Carley's

worst side, and they were succeeding. Flo laughed. The ready slang

pleased her.

She led Carley along that log fence, through a huge open gate, and

across a wide pen to another fence, which she scaled. Carley followed

her, not particularly overanxious to look ahead. Some thick odor had

begun to reach Carley's delicate nostrils. Flo led down a short lane and

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climbed another fence, and sat astride the top log. Carley hurried along

to clamber up to her side, but stood erect with her feet on the second

log of the fence.

Then a horrible stench struck Carley almost like a blow in the face, and

before her confused sight there appeared to be drifting smoke and active

men and running sheep, all against a background of mud. But at first it

was the odor that caused Carley to close her eyes and press her knees

hard against the upper log to keep from reeling. Never in her life had

such a sickening nausea assailed her. It appeared to attack her whole

body. The forerunning qualm of seasickness was as nothing to this.

Carley gave a gasp, pinched her nose between her fingers so she could

not smell, and opened her eyes.

Directly beneath her was a small pen open at one end into which sheep

were being driven from the larger corral. The drivers were yelling. The

sheep in the rear plunged into those ahead of them, forcing them on. Two

men worked in this small pen. One was a brawny giant in undershirt and

overalls that appeared filthy. He held a cloth in his hand and strode

toward the nearest sheep. Folding the cloth round the neck of the sheep,

he dragged it forward, with an ease which showed great strength, and

threw it into a pit that yawned at the side. Souse went the sheep into

a murky, muddy pool and disappeared. But suddenly its head came up and

then its shoulders. And it began half to walk and half swim down what

appeared to be a narrow boxlike ditch that contained other floundering

sheep. Then Carley saw men on each side of this ditch bending over with

poles that had crooks at the end, and their work was to press and pull

the sheep along to the end of the ditch, and drive them up a boarded

incline into another corral where many other sheep huddled, now a dirty

muddy color like the liquid into which they had been emersed. Souse!

Splash! In went sheep after sheep. Occasionally one did not go under.

And then a man would press it under with the crook and quickly lift its

head. The work went on with precision and speed, in spite of the yells

and trampling and baa-baas, and the incessant action that gave an effect

of confusion.




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