Explore "The Shepherds' Dance: with the Lamb Markers of the Paroo" by Edward S. Sorenson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When the mob drew close to the yard the men on foot met the musterers, and helped to get the sheep into the enclosure. Then commenced the shepherds' dance, to the accompaniment of an earsplitting din. While some swung bags and bushes, others beat a tattoo on an old kerosene tin with a stick, or rattled pebbles in a jam tin, anything that would make a surprising noise when it broke out suddenly against the ears of a half-drowsing mass of sheep. No animal drops so quickly into a drowsy mood, and so soon becomes oblivious to its immediate surroundings when its persecutor temporarily retires from its vicinity, as a weary sheep. When five hundred of them drop their heads and set to dreaming right in the gateway, and the liveliest ones on the outside, unable to go forward, are continually breaking back for freedom, the dancers execute their most weird and wonderful performance, leaping, jumping, running, and capering about generally like a lot of aboriginal hunters at a battue. They shout and "shoo," and yell and yodel until they are hoarse, and wave their various banners and play on their fearful instruments of sound until their arms ache.
Half a dozen dogs add to the pandemonium, those that make most noise being the most valued at such times. A couple are sent across the backs of the shrinking sheep to the corners, where a few sharp yelps loosens the packed mass of wool; a man creeps along inside the yard, and hauls in a few of the stubborn creatures; then the mob streams in under a smothering cloud of dust.