"Find the dog!" came his voice from above. Macbeth barked again in answer to Mary's call, so they hurried along the little track which twisted and turned between the bracken and heather. Suddenly Macbeth hurled himself at them, jumped up, licked their knees and urged them both to follow him. A few more yards and they shared his unpleasant discovery, which was a dead sheep lying beside the track.

"It looks very dead, twin," Mary said at last.

"Not very long, I should think," Dickie replied doubtfully. "Somehow it looks sort of newly dead. I don't like it much."

"It's got a big A.D. painted on its side," Mary added. "I'm sorry for the poor thing. I wonder what killed it? Or p'raps it was just ill?... Mackie, darling! You made a lot of fuss about one dead sheep, didn't you?... Come on, Dickie. Let's get back. I don't like this."

"All right," her brother said slowly. "I don't like it either... Mary, just a sec! I think Mackie is interested in something else. He keeps on fidgetin' around... Shall we explore a bit further down this path?"

Mary shivered. "No. Let's go back and find Mr Cantor. I don't like this place and I hate the wind."

Before Dickie could answer Mr Cantor hailed them.

"What have you found, children? What about the dog?"

Dickie turned and called, "All right, sir. We're coming back. Only a dead sheep."

Mr Cantor shouted back.

"Stay where you are. I'm coming down."

But Dickie was still looking uneasy and puzzled. Macbeth too was very restless, and although he came back when he was called, he kept ranging round and sniffing along the track as if there was something else that he had to discover.

Suddenly he cocked his head, whined softly and barked just once.

Dickie looked down at him with interest.

"He can hear something, Mary! Listen!"

They stood still. Above them the bitter wind stirred the dead bracken fronds and rustled through the dry heather. Once, twice came the distant sound of Mr Cantor's descent into the ditch. Macbeth whined again, and then they heard what he heard. Faint, from very far away it seemed, there came to them on the wind the sound of sheep bleating. They looked at each other without words as Macbeth barked again and dashed away down the track. Then Mr Cantor called to them. Mary answered in rather a shaky voice and Dickie said, out of the side of his mouth, "What shall we do, Mary? Shall we tell him? We must follow Mackie and get him back."

Mr Cantor was puffing rather heavily when he joined them. When he saw the sheep he took off his glasses and looked at it very carefully.

"So that is what your dog found? Where is he now?"

"He's run off down the path there," Mary said. "He's excited... P'raps he's found something else."