"It wouldn't have lasted but a few days longer anyhow," Bruce murmured half apologetically as he divided the salt and spread it on the rock. He added: "I suppose Slim will be sore."
He returned to his work at the river, and the sheep licked the rock bare; then they lay down in leisurely fashion beside the cabin, their narrow jaws wagging ludicrously, their eyelids drooping sleepily, secure in their feeling that all was well.
Bruce had thrust a cold biscuit in the pocket of his shirt, and this he crumbled for the little bush birds that twittered and chirped in the thicket of rosebushes which had pushed up through the rocks near the sand bank.
They perked their heads and looked at him inquiringly when it was gone.
"My Gawd, fellers," he demanded humorously, "don't you ever get filled up?"
As he rocked he watched the water ouzel teetering on a rock in the river, joyously shaking from its back the spray which deluged it at intervals. Bruce observed.
"I'd rather you'd be doing that than me, with the water as cold as it is and," with a glance at the fast-clouding sky, "getting colder every minute."
The sheep sensed the approaching storm, and started up the gulch to their place of shelter under a protecting rim rock close to the peak.
When they were no longer there to watch and think about, Bruce's thoughts rambled from one subject to another, as do the minds of lonely persons.
While the water and sand were flowing evenly over the apron he fell to wishing he had a potato. How long had it been--he threw back his head to calculate--how many weeks since he had looked a potato in the eye? Ha!--not a bad joke at that. He wished he might have said that aloud to some one. He never joked with Slim any more.
He frowned a little as he bent over the grizzly and crushed a small lump between his thumb and finger. He wandered if there was clay coming into the pay streak. Clay gathered up the "colors" it touched like so much quicksilver. Dog-gone, if it wasn't one thing it was another. If the tunnel wasn't caving in, he struck a bowlder, and if there wasn't a bowlder there was---"Bang! bang! Bang! bang!" Then a fusillade of shots. Bruce straightened up in astonishment and stared at the mountainside.
"Boom! boom!" The shots were muffled. They were shooting in the cañon. Who was it? What was it? Suddenly he understood. The sheep! His sheep! They were killing Old Felix and the rest! Magnificent Old Felix--the placid ewes--the frisking lamb! What a bombardment! That wasn't sport; 'twas slaughter!