he dogs suddenly decide that they have done enough for the day.
Watching their opportunity, they silently steal over the fence, and
hide in any cool place they can find. After a while the men notice that
hardly any are left, and operations are suspended while a great hunt is
made into outlying pieces of cover, where the dogs are sure to be found
lying low and looking as guilty as so many thieves. A clutch at the
scruff of the neck, a kick in the ribs, and they are hauled out of
hiding-places; and accompany their masters to the yard frolicking about
and pretending that they are quite delighted to be going back, and
only hid in those bushes out of sheer thoughtlessness. He is a champion
hypocrite, is the dog.

Dogs, like horses, have very keen intuition. They know when the men
around them are frightened, though they may not know the cause. In a
great Queensland strike, when the shearers attacked and burnt Dagworth
shed, some rifle-volleys were exchanged. The air was full of human
electricity, each man giving out waves of fear and excitement. Mark now
the effect it had on the dogs. They were not in the fighting; nobody
fired at them, and nobody spoke to them; but every dog left his master,
left the sheep, and went away to the homestead, about six miles off.
There wasn't a dog about the shed next day after the fight. The noise of
the rifles had not frightened them, because they were well-accustomed to
that.*

* The same thing happened constantly with horses in the
South African War. A loose horse would feed contentedly
while our men were firing, but when our troops were being
fired at the horses became uneasy, and the loose ones would
trot away. The excitement of the men communicated itself to
them.

Dogs have an amazing sense of responsibility. Sometimes, when there are
sheep to be worked, an old slut who has young puppies may be greatly
exercised in her mind whether she should go out or not. On the one hand,
she does not care about leaving the puppies, on the other, she feels
that she really ought to go rather than allow the sheep to be knocked
about by those learners. Hesitatingly, with many a look behind her, she
trots out after the horses and the other dogs. An impassioned appeal
from the head boundary rider, "Go back home, will yer!" is treated with
the contempt it deserves. She goes out to the yards, works, perhaps half
the day, and then slips quietly under the fences and trots off ho