CHAPTER THREE: MASTERLESS!
Now this is the story of the masterless wanderings of Buff.
Long and unavailingly did Buff follow the track of the car which hadborne away the man who was his god. Dizzy from his wound, faint fromloss of blood, heart-broken and frantic at the vanishing of hismaster, the collie sped in pursuit. The scent was fresh in hisnostrils--the scent of the kidnapped man and of his abductors, and thefamiliar odour of Trent's car.
Mile after mile galloped Buff through the summer night; trustingwholly to his sense of smell. With the peculiar mile-eating canter ofhis wolf-ancestors, he stuck to the trail, even when the car's trackceased to furrow the dusty country road and passed clean through abusy little city.
Through the city's myriad odours and distractions, Buff stuck to thescent of his master's car. Other cars--hundreds of them--had laced thetrail. The asphalt's smell of gasoline and grease was sickeninglyacute in the dog's nostrils, confusing and sometimes all but blottingout the scent he was following. Yet never quite did Buff lose thetrack.
Under the lamps of motor-trucks and trolley cars he flashed, swervingbarely far enough out of their way to save himself from death; thenever picking up the scent again.
Once a troop of small boys gave chase, realising the chances of rewardthat lay in the capture of so fine a dog. But Buff, with that odd andchoppy wolf-stride of his, soon out-distanced them. And they threwstones, futilely, in the wake of the flying tawny shape.
Again, a Great Dane whirled out of a dooryard and pursued the passingcollie. Buff was aware of the larger dog's presence only when a springand a snarl warned him to wheel, in bare time to avoid the full shockof the Dane's charge.
Buff had no time for fighting. Paying no further heed to the attackinggiant, he swerved from the assault, caught the trail again, andincreased his pace. But the Great Dane would not have it so. Hisinstincts of a bully were aroused by the meek flight of this strangerdog from his onset. And he pursued at top speed.
A motor-bus, whirring out from a side street, checked Buff's flightfor an instant, by barring the way. Before he could get into hisstride again, the Dane had hurled himself upon the fugitive, bearinghim to the ground, in the slime and mud of the greasy street.
By the time Buff's tawny back smote the asphalt, he was master of thesituation. Furious at this abominable delay he reverted to type--or totwo types.
It was his wolf-ancestry that lent him the wit and the nimbleness tospin to his feet, under the big assailant's lunging body, and to findby instinct the hind leg tendon of the lumbering brute. All this, inone lightning swirl, and before the Dane could slacken his own pace.
But it was his pit terrier strain that made him set his curvedeye-teeth deep and firmly in that all-important tendon, and to holdhis grip with a vise-like steadfastness and might, while he ground hisjaws slowly together.
Almost before the smitten mongrel could shriek forth his agony andfear, before the toppling gigantic body could crash to the ground, thefierce-grinding jaws had met in the centre of the thing they gripped.And, leaving behind him the crippled and howling bully, Buff slippedthrough the human crowd that had begun to collect; and was castingabout once more for the ever-fainter trail of Trent's car.
In a moment he had found it. And he sped along in renewed zest.
Through the city and out into its straggling suburbs galloped Buff.There, a mile beyond, was a wayside garage, with one or tworamshackle buildings on either side of it. Behind them a rotting docknosed its way out into the river. Here, at times, tugs and tenders andlighters touched; on their way between the city and the ocean harbour,eight miles to southward.
At the garage the trail ended. Here had halted Michael Trent's car.
Buff ran twice around the closed garage. His nostrils told him the carwas inside that dark and deserted building. He had followed it twentymiles or more. He was worn out from the run. Yet here the scent of hisadored master was stronger than it had been anywhere along the way.
The dog scratched imperiously at the garage door. The sagging woodshook and grumbled under the impact. But it held firm. Nor did anyonecome from inside to answer the summons. Frightened at the silence, yetcertain of the scent he sought, Buff circled the building once more,nose to earth, steps uncertain, head darting from side to side.
The quest did not bring to his senses any trace of Trent. But it didbring to him a dual odour that set the dog's ruff to bristling, andhis teeth to glinting from under his uncurled lip. For here, side byside, had trodden Hegan and Gates. Not more than an hour earlier theyhad walked here, their heels striking deep in the dirt, as thoughthey carried between them some heavy weight. They had walked thus tothe dock and to its outer edge.
Baffled, the collie made his way back to the garage. There, distinctthrough the reek of gas and oil and dead tobacco and dried grease, hecaught again the scent of his master. With a little whimper ofeagerness, Buff paused beneath a shut and locked window, some threefeet from the ground. He gathered his waning strength for one moreeffort, and sprang upward.
Through the thin and cracked glass and the rotting sash he clove hisway, alighting on the slimy concrete floor of the garage amid a showerof window particles.
The glass, by some minor miracle, scarce cut the dog. Apart from ascratch or two on his pads and a shallow cut on the nose, he was nonethe worse for his dive through the shaky casement.
The instant he touched ground, Buff was in new search of his master'sscent. And at once he found it.
There were three cars in the garage. Two of them were old and batteredand in parlous condition. The third was still new. And to this new carBuff ran.
It was Michael Trent's car. Empty as it was now--even of cushions anddashboard equipments, and shorn of its license numbers--Buff knew itat a single sniff. He knew more. He knew that in this car's muddiedtonneau, little over half an hour ago, Trent had been lying. Yes, andthat Gates and Hegan had been occupying the front seat. Also that thenasty smell of some medicine or drug was strong in the tonneau.
But the one thing that interested Buff was Michael Trent's recentpresence there. Being only a real-life dog and not a story-bookdetective, it occurred quite naturally to Buff that where Trent had solately been, he would in time be again.
Trent had left the car. That was evident. But doubtless he wouldreturn to it. Every day he used this car. And, of course, he wouldcome back to it, soon or late. Wherefore, as Trent's trail led nofarther, there seemed nothing for Buff to do but to wait for him here.
Accordingly, the collie stepped up on the running board, and throughthe open doorway of the tonneau. Stretching himself out there, asclose as possible to the space where Trent had lain, Buff began hisvigil--waiting in worried patience for the return of the man whom hehad chosen as his deity.
And so in time he fell asleep; worn-out nature renewing itself in histired body and building up again the strong young tissues and thewonted vigour of frame and of brain.
Fast as the dog had run, and with as few delays, yet he had arrivedfar too late to ameliorate or even share his master's doom. Fast as acollie can run--and no dog but the greyhound can outstrip him--yet anew and desperately driven motor-car can cover thrice the same groundin far less time than can he.
Moreover, Buff had wasted many precious minutes in senselessness, inthe waterless well, and many more in gnawing through the rope, and incasting about the farmhouse and in the yard for Trent's trail. Morethan an hour ahead of him, Gates and Hegan had reached theirdestination. They had disposed of the stolen car, borne off thevaluables they had taken from Trent's home and from his body, and didall else they had planned in advance to do. The only creature with aclue to the victim's whereabouts had come up an hour too late.
It was daylight when Buff awoke. He was stiff and drowsy. The bulletgraze and the glass cut on his head were throbbing. He was thirsty,too, and hungry. He did not wake, of his own accord, but through forceof habit, as the crunching of human feet reached his sleeping senses.
He lifted his hea
d. Steps were clumping up to the garage door, and akey was at work in the padlock. Buff was keenly interested.
A dog awakens instantly and with all his faculties acute. With himthere is none of the owlish stupidity and dazedness which marks thetransition from sleep to awake, among humans. At one instant he isfast asleep; at the next he is wide awake. And so it was with Buff.
He was interested now at the sound of steps, because he hoped one ofthe two men whose tread he heard might be Michael Trent. But at oncehe knew it was not. Trent's step was as familiar to Buff as wasTrent's scent. And neither of these two approaching persons had asemblance to Trent's light, springy stride. Indeed, before the garagedoor opened more than an inch, Buff's nostrils told him that thesenewcomers were total strangers to him.
One of the two men was elderly and disreputable. The other, a mereboy, had not lived long enough to look as thoroughly disreputable asdid his companion, but very evidently he had done his best along thatline in the few years allotted him.
The older man was approaching Trent's car, talking over his shoulderto the youth.
"Put them new license plates on this, first thing you do," hecommanded. "Then get a chisel and see what you can do with the motornumber. And we'll have to----"
He stopped with much abruptness. As he had been speaking he hadadvanced to Trent's car and had laid a careless hand on the swingingtonneau door. At the same moment he was aware of a tawny shape, bloodyof head, that arose from the depths of the tonneau; teeth bared andeyes menacing.
This car belonged to Michael Trent as much as did the Trent farmhouse.Long since, Buff had learned that it was his sacred duty to guard theone as rigidly as the other. And here this stranger was laying animpious hand on the machine!
At the apparition of the threatening head and at the sound of theequally threatening growl, the man recoiled from the car, jerking backhis dirty hand from the door as suddenly as if the latter had turnedinto a snake.
Open-mouthed, the two men surveyed Buff. Quietly, but not at allfriendlily, the collie returned their stare. He had no quarrel witheither of them. For all he knew or cared, this might be their rightfulhome. So long as they should abstain from touching or otherwisemolesting Trent's car, he was content to let them alone. But his poseand expression made it very clear that he expected the same sort oftreatment from them and that he was calmly ready to enforce suchtreatment.
"It's--it's--why, it's a dog!" cleverly observed the youth, breakingthe momentary silence of surprise. "It's----"
"It's a collie," amended his senior, finding his voice, and his witstogether. "A top-notcher, at that. Must have sneaked in here while wewas closin' up last night. A dog like that is worth a big heap ofcash. And most likely there'll be a reward offered for him. See, he'sgot a good collar on. And he's chawed his rope through. He's worthkeepin' till called for. Go, catch him, sonny. And tie him up yonder,till we c'n take him over to the house."
The man spoke wheedlingly to his young companion. But the lad hadnoted his sire's own reception from Buff. And, modestly, he hung back.At the other's repeated and sterner mandate, the youth remarked:
"Think I'll run up home for breakfast. I'll be back in ten minutes.You might tie him up, yourself, while I'm gone. I ain't much used todogs."
The older man scowled; then his brow cleared.
"We'll both go up to breakfast," he decreed. "We'll lock this fellerin here while we're gone. On the way back I'll stop for Joe Stears.He's got a passel of dogs; and he und'stands handlin' 'em. Come on."
Compromising thus, they departed, closing and locking the garage doorbehind them. Neither of them having gone to the far side of the room,they did not see the broken sash and the mess of glass on the floor--abit of wreckage hidden from their view by the three cars.
For a few minutes after they left him, Buff lay still. Then he got up,stretched fore and aft, collie fashion, and stepped down to theconcrete floor. Making his way across to a water-tub, he drank longand deep. Then he stood irresolute.
He had been in this ill-smelling place for many hours. Michael Trenthad not returned to his car. Michael Trent's odour had grownfaint--almost imperceptible. There was no reason, after all, tobelieve that Trent would come back here. A few months ago he had takenhis old car to a garage and had never gone back for it. Perhaps thatwas what he would do in the present case.
Meanwhile, Buff was bitterly homesick for his master. And Buff wasworried, to the depths of his soul, as to what might have befallenTrent at the hands of the two men with whom the dog associated hismaster's departure--the men he was learning to hate with a mortalhatred because he knew them for his master's enemies.
By loitering here, he could get no trace of Trent, nor of the men whohad carried him away. Refreshed and once more alert, he prepared totake up his quest again.
An easy leap carried Buff out through the smashed window, and tofreedom. As he stood in the road, hesitant, he saw bearing down towardhim at a run the two men who had just left the garage, and with them athird man, who carried a rope and a club.
As the trio very evidently meant to seize him, and as he had no reasonfor staying there in the road to be caught, the collie set off acrossthe nearest field at a hard-gallop, heading for a distant patch ofwoods. The men gave chase. But, without bothering to increase hisspeed, he soon left; them panting and swearing, far in the rear.Presently, they gave up the pursuit.
Midway in the field, Buff scared up an unwary young rabbit. At sightof the pneumatically bouncing cottontail, the collie remembered hehimself had eaten nothing in nearly twenty-four hours. Like a furrywhirlwind, he was after the rabbit. Fifty yards on, a swirl in thelong grass and a few red-stained leaves marked the abrupt end of therace. And Buff found himself supplied with a toothsome breakfast.
Thus began the collie's first day of utter loneliness; a day of bleakmisery and bewilderment, of biting grief. He ranged the country formiles on either side for a trace of his master. He followed severalmotor-cars, on various highways, because of their vague resemblance toTrent's.
Once he ran rapturously for a quarter-mile, in pursuit of awell-set-up man who was taking a cross-country tramp; and whom, in thedistance, his near-sighted eyes mistook for his master. The wind beingin the wrong direction, Buff was not aware of his error until he hadcareered to within fifty feet of the stranger. Then, head and brushdrooping, he slunk away, heavy of heart and heedless of the man'skindly hail.
Under cover of darkness, that evening, the collie made a detour thatbrought him back to the garage where last he had seen Trent's car.Whether he hoped Trent might have come back there, or whether perhapsthe desolate dog craved the faint scent of his master on the tonneaudoor and flooring--in any event, he leaped in through the unmendedwindow of the garage, and sought to locate the stolen car.
The car was no longer there. After the deft underground methodemployed by professional automobile thieves and receivers of suchbooty, the car had already been passed along the line to its nextresting-place.
A boy, coming home late from the near-by city, chanced to be passingthe unlit garage. From the cavernous depths of the building burstforth into the still night a hideous sound--the anguish howl of awolf or of a masterless and wretched collie.
While the boy still stood shivering in terror at the eerie sound, adark shape hurtled out through the window and vanished into thesurrounding blackness.
And now began Buff's tortured experience as a stray--as a leal one-mandog whose master is gone. Goaded on ever by that vague hope ofsomewhere finding Trent, and the scarce lesser hope of finding andwreaking vengeance on the men he associated with Trent'sdisappearance, the great collie wandered aimlessly over the face ofthe countryside.
Unhappiness and the nerve-wrack of his endless quest lent him astrange furtiveness, and made him revert in a measure to the wild.Always searching--always avoiding his own kind and humans--he grewgaunt and lean. Living by his wits, in summer the forests gave himenough food to support life. He became craftily adept in catchingrabbits and squirrels, and
even occasional young birds. He did notstarve, for the wolf-brain lent him the gift of foraging; although hisfarm training held him aloof from hen-roost and stall and fold, in hisfood-hunts.
Almost at once he skirted the city and guided himself back to BooneLake, nearly thirty miles from where the trail had ended. The featwas not difficult, and he consumed less than a single night on thejourney.
Reaching his master's farm at grey of dawn, Buff found the house andoutbuildings deserted. The weeds had crept thick among the once trimcrops, and there was an air of desolation brooding over the land.
Buff could not know that of all Boone Lake, Ruth Hammerton alone hadrefused to accept as true the report that Michael Trent had left homeof his own accord. She had visited the deserted farm with her father,as soon as the story had been repeated to her, and had prevailed onMr. Hammerton to send one of his farm-hands to transfer to theHammertons' place Trent's suffering livestock for safe-keeping.
It was enough for the collie to know his master was not at home, andthat he had not been at home since the night of his kidnapping. Buffdid not belong to the silly and professionally loyal type of dog thatcurls itself on its owner's vacant doorstep and starves to death.
There was no time to think of such selfish matters as death, whileMichael Trent remained to be found and his two enemies to be trackeddown.
So, aimlessly, he took up his search.
That night he circled Boone Lake, investigating every house and paththat Trent had been wont to frequent, visiting first the Hammertonplace and last the market square--the scene of his triumph over Bayne,the drover.
Dawn found him miles away, ever seeking, ever wandering, living onslain forest creatures, obsessed and haunted by his overmasteringimpulse to find Trent.
Once, as he trotted along the ridge of a wooded hill, Buff saw in thevalley below a farmer trying with pitiable ill-success to round up aflock of sixty sheep that had bolted through the pasture gate and werescattering over the surrounding fields and woods; instead of marchingtoward their distant fold, whose gate stood invitingly open.
Moved by an instinct he did not stay to define or to resist, thecollie swept down the ridge and into the valley below. The harassedfarmer beheld descending on his stampeded flock a bolt oftawny-and-white lightning that whirled in and out among the gallopingstrays as if bent on their wholesale destruction.
While the man was yelling his lungs out and seeking a stone wherewithto brain the marauder, he suddenly came to a foolish halt, and stoodgaping at the spectacle before him.
The supposedly rabid and murderous dog was rounding up the scatteredflock with uncanny skill and speed, marshalling them into the narrowroad, driving strays back into the column and moving the whole woollythrong steadily and decorously toward the fold.
Arrived at the gate, one wether bolted past it, and ten other sheepfollowed his lead. The wether did not go forty feet before he and hisfellow-truants found themselves confronted by a large and indignantcollie, who forced them with gentle relentlessness to wheel in theirtracks and rejoin the flock.
Tongue out, tail wagging, Buff stood at the gate of the fold, holdinghis prisoners from passing out again until the puffing and marvellingfarmer came running up.
The man paused to fasten the gate before turning his full attention onthe wonderful collie. But by the time the gate was made fast the dogwas a hundred yards down the road, trotting lazily back toward theridge. Not by so much as a turn of his classic head did he show heheard the frantic and cajoling shouts the farmer sent after him.
On another late afternoon, ten miles from there, a farmer's child waspiloting her father's eleven cows and two calves home along the roadfrom pasture. Three men, passing in a small motor-truck, halted,jumped to the ground, seized the pair of calves and prepared to slingthem into the truck.
The child screamed in terrified appeal, and caught hold of one of themen by the arm, while the herd of cows ran in panic through fields andwoods.
The man shook off the child's convulsive hold with a vehemence thatsent her flat in the dust of the road.
And on the same instant a huge and lean and hairy beast burst througha roadside thicket and flung himself on the man, bearing him to earthby the sheer weight of his assault.
By the time the thief had landed, rolling and yelling, in the roadway,Buff had deserted him, and was at another of the trio. And this wasthe collie of it. A bulldog secures his grip and holds it tilldoomsday. A collie, fighting, is everywhere at once. The collie strainin Buff told him his opponents were three, and that there was no sensein devoting himself over-long to any one of them at the expense of therest. So he was raging at the second man's throat before the firstfairly realised what had attacked him.
The third man, however, had a trifle more time on his hands than hadeither of his companions. And, wisely, he utilised that second of timein dropping the calf he had caught and in making one flying leap forthe seat of the truck.
There, as fast as they could beat off the furry demon that was rendingtheir flesh and clothes, the two others joined him. Leaving thecalves to run free, the men set the machine into rapid motion andrattled off down the road.
Buff did not follow. Already he was in the thickets again, rounding upthe gawkily galloping cows. And presently he had them back in thehighway, in orderly alignment and walking stolidly homeward.
Dropping back beside the still weeping child, Buff licked herfrightened face with his pink tongue, wagged his tail and his entirebody reassuringly, and then thrust his muzzle into her tremblinglittle hand. Thus, her father, having witnessed the scene from afar,came hurrying up, to find his cattle safe and in the road, and hiserstwhile terrified daughter hugging a huge collie frantically andkissing the silken crest of the dog's head in an agony of gratitudeand love.
But, as the farmer himself sought to catch hold of the dog, Buffshowed his white teeth in a wild-beast snarl that made the man startback.
Taking advantage of this momentary check, the collie bounded off intothe bushes and was gone.
Buff himself could not have explained the unwonted wildness andferocity that seemed to have taken hold of him in his wanderings. Forthe first three years or so of his life--indeed, until Gates's pistolshot had stunned him--he had known nothing but friendliness and goodtreatment. And, except toward tramps and like prowlers, he had neverfelt hatred. Though he had always been a one-man dog, he had shown noill-temper toward those who sought to make friends with him.
Yet now, as evidenced by his snarl at the father of the child who wascaressing him, he had neither lot nor part with mankind at large. Hisevery hope and yearning were centred on the finding of his master. Andthe wolf strain in his make-up thrilled almost as keenly to hislonging to encounter the men with whom he associated the disappearanceof Trent.
For the rest of humanity he felt no interest. Not even toward RuthHammerton, who had reigned second to Trent in his heart.
Twice during his months as a tramp dog, Buff revisited BooneLake--casting about the farm, trotting at midnight through thevillage, hanging wistfully around the Hammerton place for nearly anhour. But before dawn he was far away again.
Most of his travelling was done by night or in dusk and at greydaybreak. For experience had taught him that the open ways are notsafe for an unattached dog by sunlight.
A lesser dog might readily have attached himself to one of the variousfriendly folk who chanced to meet him and to give him a kindly wordor call. A lesser dog, too, might have chosen a home at one of thefarms scattered through the broad stretch of country Buff traversed.At any of a dozen places his beauty and his prowess at herding wouldhave won for the collie a warm and lasting welcome.
But none of this was for Buff. He had known but one master. LosingTrent, he was fated to be forever masterless, unless he should chanceto find the man he had lost. And, being only a dog, he knew no betterway of finding him than by this everlasting and aimless search.
On a late September afternoon, he was roused from a troubled nap inthe long grass
and bushes at the verge of a field, by the sound of amad-galloping horse and of a woman's brave yet frightened calls to therunaway. Looking over the fringe of grass, towards the road, a furlongdistant, he saw a fast-moving cloud of yellow-grey dust, whichresolved itself into a hazy screen for a horse and light buggy.
The horse--a young and nervous brute--had taken fright at the runningof a woodchuck across the road under his feet, and had sprung forwardwith a suddenness that snapped his check-rein. The swinging checksmote him resoundingly again and again, on the neck and across theface, turning his first fright into panic, and making useless theefforts of the driver to bring him down.
A woman was driving. She was neither young nor beautiful. She hadself-possession, and she had a more than tolerable set of drivinghands. She was keeping the maddened horse more or less in the road,and was sawing with valorous strength on one rein while she held theother steady. Which was all the good it did her. For the brute had thebit between his teeth.
Buff arrived at the road-edge just as one of the two light reins brokeunder the undue strain put on it.
Before the driver could lighten the pull on the remaining rein itsimpulse had jerked the horse's low-laid head far to one side. Hisrushing body prepared to follow the lead of his head towards a steeproadside bank some ten feet deep, with a scattering of broken rock atthe bottom.
Then it was that the horse became dimly aware of a furry shape whichwhizzed in front of him on that side, and of a flying head that struckfor his nose. A stinging slash on the left nostril sent the runawayveering from the bank-edge, and plunging toward the telegraph pole onthe other side of the road. He was met and turned again by a secondslash from one of the collie's curved eye-teeth. On the same momentBuff stopped slashing and let his bulldog ancestry take control.
Thus the horse was assailed by a full double set of teeth that buriedthemselves in his bleeding nostrils, and that hung on.
The wild steed sought to fling up his head to shake off thisanguishing weight of seventy odd pounds. But he could not shakehimself free. He checked his furious pace and reared, striking outwith his forefeet, and threatening to pitch backward into the buggy.
But a fierce wrench of the hanging jaws and a wriggle of theintolerable weight brought him down on all fours again. At once Buffreleased his grip and stood in front of the trembling horse. Therunaway made as though to plunge forward. But he flinched at thememory of the dog's attack and at the threat of its renewal.
While he hesitated, dancing, pawing, and in momentary cessation of hisrun, the woman slipped from the seat to the ground and ran to hishead. With practised strength she shook the bit into place and heldfast. The horse jerked back. Buff nipped his heel, and instantly wasat his bloody nose, again.
The runaway, conquered and shivering, lashed out with one foreleg in alast hopeless display of terrified anger. His shod hoof smote theunprepared collie in the side. With a gasping sound, Buff rolled overinto the ditch, two ribs broken and a foot crushed.
Tying the horse to a telegraph pole, the woman went over to where thewounded collie lay. In strong, capable arms, that were wondrousgentle, she lifted him and bore him to the buggy. Laying him tenderlyon the floor of the vehicle, she returned to the horse's head, untiedthe cowed and trembling steed, and began to lead him homeward.
Ten minutes later she turned in at a lane leading to a rambling, lowfarmhouse. And in another five minutes Buff was reclining on thekitchen floor, the woman's husband working skilfully over hisinjuries, while the matron poured out the tale of his heroism andcleverness.
"I know what dog this is, too," she finished. "I'm sure I know. Itmust be the same one that fought those thieves away from Sol Gilbert'scows over to Pompton, last week, when Sol's girl was driving themhome. Mrs. Gilbert told me about it at the Grange, Monday. And he'slikely the dog that rounded up those sheep for Parkins--or whateverhis name was--at Revere. You read me about it in the _Bulletin_, don'tyou remember? The letter Parkins wrote to the editor about it? I knowit must be the same one. It isn't likely there's more than one dog inPassaic County with the sense to do all three of those things. He mustbe like those knight-errant folks in Sylvia's school book, who used togo through the country rescuing folks that were in distress. The bestin the house isn't any too good for him."
"He'll get it," curtly promised her husband, without looking up fromhis task. "It's lucky I've had experience, though, in patching upbusted critters. Because this one is needing a lot of patching. Say!Notice how he don't even let a whimper out of him? This rib-settingmust hurt like fury, too. Acts more like a bulldog than a collie. I'mgoing to advertise him. And if the owner shows up, I'll offer him ahundred dollars for the dog. He'll be worth it, and a heap more, tome, herding and such. _So_, old feller! Now for the smashed foot.Don't seem to be any big bones broke there."
The weeks that followed were more nearly pleasant to Buff than hadbeen any space of time since Trent's disappearance. He was perforce atrest, while his fractured ribs and then his broken foot slowly mended.And all that time he was fed up and petted and made much of, in a waythat would have turned most invalids' heads.
It was well, after his months of restless searchings, to come to ahalt here in this abode of comfort and kindliness; to be petted againby a woman's soft hand, to eat cooked food once more, to be praisedand to feel himself gloriously welcome.
Buff's craving ambition, to find Trent and to run to earth his twoenemies, was less acute in these drowsy days of convalescence. Hissick soul seemed to be returning to normal along with his sick body.
By the time Buff could walk with any degree of comfort again, themorning frost lay heavy on the fields. The dog went out for a briefstroll with the farmer and his wife. To their delight, he did not tryto run away, but accompanied them home and lay down contentedly on thedoorstep.
After that, no further guard was kept over him. It was understood thathe would stay with the people who had succoured and healed him.
One cold night in late autumn the dog accompanied his host, as usual,on the evening rounds of barns and outbuildings. As they werereturning towards the warm red glow of the lamplit kitchen windows,Buff came to a dead stop.
A slight shudder ran through him. He lifted his delicate nose andsniffed the frosty air. He smelt nothing. He sniffed merely in aneffort to corroborate in some way by scent the strange impulse whichwas taking possession of him--an impulse he could not resist.
"Come along, Shep, old boy!" coaxed the farmer, arriving at thedoorstep and turning back towards the collie. "Supper's ready. What'sthe matter?"
Slowly, very slowly, Buff approached the man. Timidly, almostremorsefully, he licked the outstretched hand. Then, throwing back hismagnificent head, he made the frost-chilled stillnesses of the autumnnight re-echo with a hideously discordant and ear-torturing wolf-howl.
"Why, Shep," exclaimed the farmer in amaze, "whatever ails you?What's----"
He broke off in the midst of his bewildered query and raised his voicein a shout of summons to the dog. For, like a streak of tawny light,Buff had whirled out of the dooryard and was fleeing up the road.
He heard the eager call of the man who had cured him and befriendedhim and given him a happy home. But he heard--far more clearly--asoundless call that urged him forward.
Guided only by mystic collie instinct and by that weird impulse whichhad taken possession of him, he fled through the night at breakneckspeed, headed unswervingly for Boone Lake, full thirty miles away.
On the same night--after a cautious absence of several months--ConHegan and Billy Gates ventured to return to their former homes in theBoone Lake suburbs.