It was Tam,—long before Trask,—who discovered that Mildred was weeping. And this phenomenon, for the instant, turned his attention from his vain search for Wisp and from the confusingly menacing scents which had just assailed his nostrils.
Departing from his lifelong calm, the big dog whined softly, as he came up with Mildred; and he thrust his cold muzzle sympathisingly into her loose-hanging hand. Within him stirred all his splendid race’s pitiful yearning to comfort a human in grief. So poignant was this craving that it almost made him forget the increasingly keen scents which had put him on his guard when he came in through the gateway.
“Hello!” called Trask, cheerily, as he neared his wife. “Tired, dear? You shouldn’t have bothered to walk all this way out to meet me. After a rotten day like this, you ought to be resting.... Where’s Wisp? Is he ‘disciplining’ me for making him stay home? I——”
Then he, too, saw Mildred was crying. And before he could speak again, she had thrown her arms around his neck; and was sobbing out an incoherent story, broken by an occasional involuntary shiver. Holding her close to him and asking eagerly futile questions, Trask Frayne, bit by bit, drew forth the reason for her grief.
Harry and Janet, the two older children, had gone down to the river, that noon, to fish, off the dock, for perch. Mildred, at an upper window where she was sewing, had watched them from time to time. For the river was high and rapid from recent rains.
But Wisp was with them; and she had experience in the little collie’s sleepless care over the youngsters. More than once, indoors, Wisp had thrust his own slight body between a Frayne child and the fire. Again and again, at the dock, he had interposed his puny bulk and had shoved with all his force; when one or another of the babies ventured too close to the edge.
To-day, as she looked up from her sewing, she had seen the trio leave the dock and start homeward. Janet had been in the lead; swinging the string of perch and sunfish and shiners they had caught. They had skirted a riverside thicket on their way to the home-path.
Out from the bushes had sprung a gigantic lean dog, jet black except for a zig-zag patch of white on one shoulder. The wind had been strong in the other direction. So no scent of the dog had reached Wisp, who was dawdling along a bit to the rear of the children.
The black had made a lightning grab at the carelessly swung string of fish; and had snatched them away from Janet. As he turned to bolt back into the thicket with his stolen feast, Harry had caught up a stick and had charged in pursuit of the string of laboriously-caught fish. The child had brought his stick down with a resounding thwack on the head of the escaping beast.
The blow must have stung. For, instantly, the Black dropped the fish and leaped upon the tiny chap. All this in a single second or less.