country who does not know what may be when a water-spout bursts on a range-top, and, without any possible doubt, there was water in these black low-bellied clouds. Ted Douglas was on the high shingle faces, where a man carries a stick and places his feet with cunning. Here were a score little flowering heaths to mark danger, for the hillsman knows that they grow only on running shingle. Below, tussock lived on two inches of earth. Below that sprang rocks that sank to tussock and shingle again. But the Mains sheep grew fat on it, and the merciless heat had wearied them; so that they strung along the slim tracks in a slowness that no dog could hasten. One moment Ted stood drawing sharp breath.
“If any of them boys goes back on me Mains’ll limp nex’ lambin’,” he said. Then his up-flung arm sent his dogs forward to nose out stragglers from behind rocking boulders.
A tense hum sounded over the tops, as though someone plucked the strings of a bass-viol. A sudden jolt of thunder came sheer underfoot before the whistle of the lightning was past. Then, deliberate and separate, and so solid that Ted looked to see them roll down hill, followed the rain-drops.
On the hog-backed top beyond all men Tod quailed for an instant and covered his eyes. For the thunder walked the ranges with shaking feet, and each flash of the lightning sang
