"But not with your voice," returned Presley. "I knew that some
one wanted me. I felt it. I should have remembered that you
could do that kind of thing."

"I have never known it to fail. It helps with the sheep."

"With the sheep?"

"In a way. I can't tell exactly how. We don't understand these
things yet. There are times when, if I close my eyes and dig my
fists into my temples, I can hold the entire herd for perhaps a
minute. Perhaps, though, it's imagination, who knows? But it's
good to see you again. How long has it been since the last time?
Two, three, nearly five years."

It was more than that. It was six years since Presley and
Vanamee had met, and then it had been for a short time only,
during one of the shepherd's periodical brief returns to that
part of the country. During a week he and Presley had been much
together, for the two were devoted friends. Then, as abruptly,
as mysteriously as he had come, Vanamee disappeared. Presley
awoke one morning to find him gone. Thus, it had been with
Vanamee for a period of sixteen years. He lived his life in the
unknown, one could not tell where--in the desert, in the
mountains, throughout all the vast and vague South-west,
solitary, strange. Three, four, five years passed. The shepherd
would be almost forgotten. Never the most trivial scrap of
information as to his whereabouts reached Los Muertos. He had
melted off into the surface-shimmer of the desert, into the