Rather than accept a marriage, Ammon declares that he simply wants to be a servant. King Lamoni accepts, and he sends Ammon on a perplexing task. The problem was not simply to take the flocks to water, but that the events that occurred were part of a pattern that surely the King understood would be repeated. Other Lamanites scatter the flocks. The other servants are concerned because they fear the king will slay them. He has done that with other servants to whom the same thing had happened.
The King certainly knew that the scattering of the flocks occurred and knew that he had executed other servants for their failure to protect the flocks. Ammon was intentionally sent on a mission where the outcome was probable that he would be executed.
As the story unfolds, it is important to remember that the flocks were scattered. There will be an insinuation that those doing the scattering were thieves, but their actions belie that idea. They didn’t take the flocks away, but rather scattered them.
We may also ask what kind of flocks they were. Arnold Friberg’s famous painting shows sheep, but sheep will move together rather than scatter, so they clearly were not sheep. If this were a Mesoamerican setting, a possibility is deer, which were known to have been kept. Deer would certainly scatter when frightened.