Trent had left the car. That was evident. But doubtless he would return to it. Every day he used this car. And, of course, he would come back to it, soon or late. Wherefore, as Trent’s trail led no farther, there seemed nothing for Buff to do but to wait for him here.
Accordingly, the collie stepped up on the running board, and through the open doorway of the tonneau. Stretching himself out there, as close as possible to the space where Trent had lain, Buff began his vigil—waiting in worried patience for the return of the man whom he had chosen as his deity.
And so in time he fell asleep; worn-out nature renewing itself in his tired body and building up again the strong young tissues and the wonted vigour of frame and of brain.
Fast as the dog had run, and with as few delays, yet he had arrived far too late to ameliorate or even share his master’s doom. Fast as a collie can run—and no dog but the greyhound can outstrip him—yet a new and desperately driven motor-car can cover thrice the same ground in far less time than can he.
Moreover, Buff had wasted many precious minutes in senselessness, in the waterless well, and many more in gnawing through the rope, and in casting about the farmhouse and in the yard for Trent’s trail. More than an hour ahead of him, Gates and Hegan had reached their destination. They had disposed of the stolen car, borne off the valuables they had taken from Trent’s home and from his body, and did all else they had planned in advance to do. The only creature with a clue to the victim’s whereabouts had come up an hour too late.
It was daylight when Buff awoke. He was stiff and drowsy. The bullet graze 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 force of habit, as the crunching of human feet reached his sleeping senses.
He lifted his head. Steps were clumping up to the garage door, and a key was at work in the padlock. Buff was keenly interested.
A dog awakens instantly and with all his faculties acute. With him there is none of the owlish stupidity and dazedness which marks the transition from sleep to awake, among humans. At one instant he is fast 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 of the two men whose tread he heard might be Michael Trent. But at once he knew it was not. Trent’s step was as familiar to Buff as was Trent’s scent. And neither of these two approaching persons had a semblance to Trent’s light, springy stride. Indeed, before the garage door opened more than an inch, Buff’s nostrils told him that these newcomers were total strangers to him.
One of the two men was elderly and disreputable. The other, a mere boy, had not lived long enough to look as thoroughly disreputable as did his companion, but very evidently he had done his best along that line in the few years allotted him.