They seemed very happy, and loud were the joyous shouts and peals of laughter over the failures; but after seeing the performance once or twice, I generally became tired and bored, and used to slip away to the house and my quiet corner by the fire.

Rose considered it her duty to remain at her master's heels as long as possible, but after a time she too would creep back to silence and warmth, though she never deserted her post until the noise grew altogether too much for her nerves; and then, with a despairing whimper, sometimes swelling to a howl, poor little Rose would tuck her tail between her legs, and dash out, through the storm, to seek shelter and quiet with me.
Whenever Rose appeared thus suddenly in my quiet retreat, I felt sure some greater uproar than usual was going on down at the wool-shed, and, more than once, on inquiry, I found Rose's nerves must have been tried to the utmost before she turned and fled.
As for the intelligence of sheep-dogs, a volume could be written on the facts concerning them, and a still more entertaining book on the fictions, for a New Zealand shepherd will always consider it a point of honour to cap his neighbour's anecdote of _his_ dog's sagacity, by a yet stronger proof of canine intelligence.

I shall only, briefly allude to one dog, whose history will probably be placed in the colonial archives,--a colley, who knows his master's brand; and who will, when the sheep get boxed, that is mixed together, pick out; with unfailing accuracy, all the bleating members of his own flock from amid the confused, terrified mass.

As for the patience of a good dog in crossing sheep over a river, I have witnessed that myself, and been forced to draw conclusions very much in favour of the dog over the human beings who were directing the operation.

Some dogs again, who are perfectly helpless with sheep, are unrivalled with cattle, and I have stood on the edge of a swamp more than once, and seen a dog go after a couple of milch cows, and fetch them out of a herd of bullocks, returning for the second "milky mother" after the first had been brought right up within reach of the stockman's lash.
Then among my horse friends was a certain Suffolk "Punch," who had been christened the "Artful Dodger," from his trick of counterfeiting lameness the moment he was put in the shafts of a dray.