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Early in July the hot weather caes of the Tonto it was hot desert The nights were cool, the earlyto endure When the white cuer and thicker and darker, here and there coalescing into a black thundercloud, Jean welco down from a canopy of black, and the roar of rain on the trees as it approached like a traes, the rocky slopes, the thickets of , throat-parching places under the hot suhts of the Rim, the shady pines, the dark sweet verdure under the silver spruces, the tinkle and , too, which he bitterly stifled

Jean's ally, the keen-nosed shepherd clog, had disappeared one day, and had never returned A men at the ranch there was a difference of opinion as to what had happened to Shepp The old rancher thought he had been poisoned or shot; Bill and Guy Isbel believed he had been stolen by sheep herders, ere always stealing dogs; and Jean inclined to the conviction that Shepp had gone off with the timber wolves The fact was that Shepp did not return, and Jeanat dawn Jean heard the cattle bellowing and trae point he was a a lone wolf Jean's father had seen such a spectacle as this, but it was a new one for Jean The as a big gray and black fellow, rangy and powerful, and until he got the steers all behind him he was rather hard put to it to keep out of their way Probably he had dogged the herd, trying to sneak in and pull down a yearling, and finally the steers had charged hie of the valley in the hope they would chase hie of a rifle But the olf saw Jean and sheered off, gradually drawing away from his pursuers

Jean returned to the house for his breakfast, and then set off across the valley His father owned one small flock of sheep that had not yet been driven up on the Ri the hot, dry su Evarts and a Mexican boy naular Mexican herder, a iven up his job; and these boys were not equal to the task of risking the sheep up in the enehold