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Page 289

| crying, running in crazed circles as they tried to shake the large black birds off. |

| Ashton reined in his horse as Sasha led Cloud quickly up beside him. |

| ''Ashton, do you see?" Sasha said, looking wildly over at him. |

| "My God!" he gasped, almost paralyzed by the sight as the crows began pecking at the eyes of the sheep. He drew his rifle and along with his men rode in a hard gallop away from Sasha toward the sheep. Gunshots filled the air, and the crows flopped every which way off the wounded sheep's bloody bodies. |

| Sasha turned her eyes away, tears streaming down her cheeks, but as she did, one of the blinded sheep came running madly toward her horse and ran into its legs, bleating noisily. The blood and the clumsiness of the sheep knocking against Cloud's legs caused the horse to rear up on its hind legs, its wide nostrils flaring and its eyes wild. |

| Sasha screamed. She tightened her knees against her horse's sides and clung desperately to the reins. "Cloud, please calm down!" she cried, looking down at the pitiful sheep that was not aware of the havoc it was causing. |

| Nothing Sasha could say or do eased the dilemma she had found herself in. She lost her grip on the reins and the saddle when Cloud reared again, his hooves landing on the blind sheep. Slipping backwards, she fell from the horse and landed painfully on her backside on the hard, cracked ground. She rolled quickly away from Cloud, who was now bucking his hindlegs up in the air, his teeth tearing |

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