But even though the Fraynes did not see their cherished collie when they arose next morning, they did not lack for news of him. In the middle of a silent and doleful breakfast a telephone ring summoned Trask from the table.
“That you, Frayne?” queried a truculent voice. “This is Trippler,—at Darlington. I got rotten news for you. But it’s a whole lot rottener for me. Last night my cow-yard was raided by a dog. He killed two of the month-old Jersey calves and pretty near ripped the throat out of one of my yearlings. I heard the racket and I ran out with my gun and a flashlight. The cow-yard looked like a battlefield. The dog had skipped. Couldn’t see a sign of him, anywheres.
“But about half an hour later he came back. He came back while I was redding up the yard and trying to quiet the scared critters. He came right to the cow-yard gate and stood sniffing there as bold as brass; like he was trying to catch the scent of more of my stock to kill. I heard his feet a-pattering and I turned the flashlight on him.
“He was your dog, Frayne! That big dark coloured collie dog of yours. I saw him as plain as day. I upped with my gun and I let him have it. For I was pretty sore. But I must have missed him, clean. For there wasn’t any blood near his footprints, in the mud, when I looked. He just lit out. But I’m calling up to tell you you’ll have a big bill to pay on this; and——”
“Hold on,” interrupted Frayne, quietly. “I’ll be up there, in twenty minutes. Good-bye.”
As fast as his car could carry him, Trask made his way up the Valley to Darlington, and to the Trippler farm. There an irately unloving host awaited him.
“Before you go telling me the whole story all over again,” Trask broke in on an explosive recital, “take me over to the exact spot where you saw Tam standing and sniffing. The ground all around here is soaked from the shower we had last evening. I want to see the tracks you were speaking of.”
Muttering dire threats and whining lamentations for his lost calves, Trippler led the way to the cow-yard; pointing presently to a gap in the privet hedge which shut off the barns from the truck garden. Frayne went over to the gap and proceeded to inspect the muddy earth, inch by inch.
“It was here Tam stood when you turned the light on him?” he asked.