Again, and more imperatively, Frayne called him. With visible distaste, the collie turned and made his way back towards his master. Frayne had finished his own fruitless investigations and was starting homeward.
Half-way to the house he paused and looked back. Tam had ceased to follow him and was staring once more at the patches of trampled and dyed earth. A third and sharper call from Trask brought the collie to heel.
“I don’t blame you, old boy,” said Frayne, as they made their way towards the lighted kitchen. “But you can’t find him that way. To-morrow you and I are going to take a little trip through the mountains. I’d rather have your help on a hunt like that than any hound’s. You won’t forget his scent in a hurry. And you know, as well as I, what he’s done.”
On the way to the house, Frayne paused at the sheepfold; and made a careful detour of it. But the inspection satisfied him that the fence (built long ago with special regard to the mountainpack’s forays) was still too stout to permit of any dog’s breaking through it. And he passed on to the house; again having to summon the newly-furtive collie from an attempt to go back to the river.
“He won’t pay us another visit to-night, Tam,” he told the sullen dog, as they went indoors. “He’s tricky. And if he’s really on the rampage, here in the Valley, he’ll strike next in some place miles away from here. Wait till to-morrow.”
But once more Tam did not follow his overlord’s bidding. For, at dawn of the morrow, when Trask came out of the house, shotgun in hand, the dog was nowhere to be found. Never before had Tam forsaken his duties as guardian of the farm to wander afield without Frayne.
The jingle of the telephone brought Trask back into the house. On the other end of the wire was an irate farmer.
“I’m sending word all along the line,” came his message. “Last night a dog bust into my hencoop and killed every last one of my prize Hamburgs and fifty-three other chickens, besides. He worked as quiet as a fox. ’Twasn’t till I heard a chicken squawk that I came out. That must have been the last of the lot; and the dog had got careless. I had just a glimpse of him as he sneaked off in the dark. Great big cuss he was. As big as a house. Looked something like a wolf by that bum light; and something like a collie, too. Last evening I got news that Gryce, up Suffern-way, lost a lamb, night before, from some prowling dog. D’you s’pose the dogs from the mountains is loose again?”
“One of them is,” returned Frayne. “I’m going after him, now.”
He hung up the receiver, and, gun under arm, made his way to the scow lying at the side of the dock. Crossing the river, he explored the bank for a half mile in both directions. Failing to find sign or trail of the Black, he struck into the mountains.