"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
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.