About noon
Eagerly Dummy peered through the falling snow the next day as the gray dawn came slowly into the east . The snow sweeping over the cliff from above had formed a drift that almost completely shut the sheep in as if with a fence and he knew there was no possibility of leaving the shelter where he was until the sky cleared off enough for him to get his bearings . Even then he doubted if it would be possible for the sheep to travel , so deep was the snow . About noon the snow stopped falling , and Dummy worked his way up to the top of the cliff from which as far as he could see there was but a broad expanse of snow-covered range . To his left the view was cut off by a small hill that stood close to the cliff . He went over to it and from its top saw below him in the open plain a small board shack with a rough shed stable near it . Instantly he remembered that , as they passed up with the sheep in the spring , a man and his wife were busy building the shack preparatory to taking up the land about it for dry farming purposes .