"When morning came I found that the dream still weighed heavily on Karl's spirits. He seemed to be possessed of the idea that it 'meant something,' though precisely what he could not say. He was downhearted and anxious, and his thoughts naturally turned to the sheep. They meant so much to him, poor fellow! He proposed that we should both make a thorough tour of the run, and asked me to catch a couple of horses that we might the better do so. For we had a few 'scrubbers' about the place, finding them necessary as economizing our time and strength in getting about the extensive farm.
"We set off after breakfast, Karl riding along the top of the range and I along the bottom, with the dogs following us as of course. The first gully, the same in which the shanty stood, had nothing to show us. The sheep on the clearings in it were feeding about as usual. But when we crossed over the range, and came in view of the wide basin on the other side, where was nearly five hundred acres of grass, we were surprised to find no sheep at all visible. We traversed it in all directions, sending the dogs round all the standing bush, and then we crossed the further range into a gully where a narrow strip of pasture extended for some two miles. As we came out of a piece of bush into this, we perceived the sheep. They were not feeding about in scattered groups, as was usual, but were collected in one flock, huddled up together. Some were lying down, panting, and all looked distressed and scared. It was easy to see they had been driven, and that quite recently.
"Karl galloped down the slope immediately, but I reined in for a moment, looking to see if anything was visible to account for this. Then a shout from Karl made me hasten to join him. He had dismounted, and was kneeling beside a ewe that lay prostrate on the hill-side. As I came up he looked at me with a terrible despair in his eyes, and, pointing to the sheep, said quietly—
"I jumped down and examined the ewe. It was dead; and the mangled throat and torn wool plainly told the cause.
"'Wild dogs!' I ejaculated with a bitter curse.
"We remounted and rode slowly about the clearings, narrowly observing the condition of the flocks. We found seven-and-thirty sheep dead or dying, the work of the dog or dogs on the previous night. A good many more were apparently injured from the driving. We made every possible search for the beasts that had done this, but not a trace of them was discoverable.