So it was with the men who witnessed Wolf’s frenzied effort to take aid to the imperilled Boy.
Voice after voice repeated the cry. Men groped along the platform edge for stones to throw. The village policeman ran puffingly upon the scene, drawing his revolver.
Finding it useless to make a further attempt to drag the baggageman to the rescue, Wolf leaped back, facing the ever larger group. Back went his head again in that hideous wolf-howl. Then he galloped away a few yards, trotted back, howled once more, and again galloped lakeward.
All of which only confirmed the panicky crowd in the belief that they were threatened by a mad dog. A shower of stones hurtled about Wolf as he came back a third time to lure these dull humans into following him.
One pointed rock smote the collie’s shoulder, glancingly, cutting it to the bone. A shot from the policeman’s revolver fanned the fur of his ruff, as it whizzed past.
Knowing that he faced death, he nevertheless stood his ground, not troubling to dodge the fusillade of stones, but continuing to run lakeward and then trot back, whining with excitement.
A second pistol-shot flew wide. A third grazed the dog’s hip. From all directions people were running towards the station. A man darted into a house next door, and emerged carrying a shotgun. This he steadied on the veranda-rail not forty feet away from the leaping dog, and made ready to fire.
It was then the train from New York came in. And, momentarily, the sport of “mad-dog” killing was abandoned, while the crowd scattered to each side of the track.
From a front car of the train the Mistress and the Master emerged into a bedlam of noise and confusion.