No sooner had those three sheep disappeared over the edge of that pile of brush than the others streamed madly after them. The first rush swept the brush pile over the edge and that great mass of sheep poured after it. They crowded into the narrow neck of the cañon as though it had been a stable door and plunged over the edge of the cliff without the slightest hesitation.
Scott lay in his little clump of aspens paralyzed with horror. His body and limbs seemed to turn to ice, he could not move them. He wanted to cry out to the herders who could not see what was happening from where they were. He wanted to look away from that awful sight, but he could neither shout nor turn his head. He just stared with glassy eyes and horror in his heart.
The herders could not see past the neck of the cañon from where they were, but they knew sheep and with the first wild rush down the cañon they realized what was taking place. They scrambled madly along the edges of the cañon, fighting their way toward that narrow pass. Desperately they tried to stem that fatal tide. They might as well have tried to push back the tide of the ocean. One of them was nearly swept over the edge by the living stream. Rapidly and inevitably the big band sifted through that narrow pass like the sands of the hour glass.
Only a hundred of them were left. The men made a last frantic effort to head them off. They succeeded in turning them for a second, but only for a second. The bewildered sheep stopped for an instant, made a wild rush and disappeared after the others. One of the herders dived desperately into the bunch and succeeded in catching a small ewe. She struggled violently and the herder, exhausted by his exertions, lost his hold. The ewe seemed dazed at first and trotted a few steps up the cañon, but she quickly got her bearings and dashed wildly over the cliff.
The two herders lay alone on the trampled floor of the little cañon, exhausted, dazed by the sudden tragedy which had befallen them, and gazed despairingly at each other.
Scott felt like a man coming out of a trance. He passed his hand absently over his eyes. His forehead was clammy with a cold perspiration. He felt sick. Not a sound came from the valley below. The silence of death in the little cañon seemed uncanny after the pandemonium of the moment before. He could not think, he had no plan; he did not know where he was going; he just had a wild desire to get away from that loathsome place.