er. It appeared to attack her whole
body. The forerunning qualm of seasickness was as nothing to this.
Carley gave a gasp, pinched her nose between her fingers so she could
not smell, and opened her eyes.

Directly beneath her was a small pen open at one end into which sheep
were being driven from the larger corral. The drivers were yelling. The
sheep in the rear plunged into those ahead of them, forcing them on. Two
men worked in this small pen. One was a brawny giant in undershirt and
overalls that appeared filthy. He held a cloth in his hand and strode
toward the nearest sheep. Folding the cloth round the neck of the sheep,
he dragged it forward, with an ease which showed great strength, and
threw it into a pit that yawned at the side. Souse went the sheep into
a murky, muddy pool and disappeared. But suddenly its head came up and
then its shoulders. And it began half to walk and half swim down what
appeared to be a narrow boxlike ditch that contained other floundering
sheep. Then Carley saw men on each side of this ditch bending over with
poles that had crooks at the end, and their work was to press and pull
the sheep along to the end of the ditch, and drive them up a boarded
incline into another corral where many other sheep huddled, now a dirty
muddy color like the liquid into which they had been emersed. Souse!
Splash! In went sheep after sheep. Occasionally one did not go under.
And then a man would press it under with the crook and quickly lift its
head. The work went on with precision and speed, in spite of the yells
and trampling and baa-baas, and the incessant action that gave an effect
of confusion.

Carley saw a pipe leading from a huge boiler to the ditch. The dark
fluid was running out of it. From a rusty old engine with big smokestack
poured the strangling smoke. A man broke open a sack of yellow powder
and dumped it into the ditch. Then he poured an acid-like liquid after
it.

"Sulphur and nicotine," yelled Flo up at Carley. "The dip's poison. If
a sheep opens his mouth he's usually a goner. But sometimes they save
one."

Carley wanted to tear herself away from this disgusting spectacle. But
it held her by some fascination. She saw Glenn and Hutter fall in line
with the other men, and work like beavers. These two pacemakers in the
small pen kept the sheep coming so fast that every worker below had a
task cut out for him. Suddenly Flo squealed and pointed.

"There! that sheep didn't come up," she