There, as fast as they could beat off the furry demon that was rending their flesh and clothes, the two others joined him. Leaving the calves to run free, the men set the machine into rapid motion and rattled off down the road.
Buff did not follow. Already he was in the thickets again, rounding up the gawkily galloping cows. And presently he had them back in the highway, in orderly alignment and walking stolidly homeward.
Dropping back beside the still weeping child, Buff licked her frightened face with his pink tongue, wagged his tail and his entire body reassuringly, and then thrust his muzzle into her trembling little hand. Thus, her father, having witnessed the scene from afar, came hurrying up, to find his cattle safe and in the road, and his erstwhile terrified daughter hugging a huge collie frantically and kissing the silken crest of the dog’s head in an agony of gratitude and love.
But, as the farmer himself sought to catch hold of the dog, Buff showed his white teeth in a wild-beast snarl that made the man start back.
Taking advantage of this momentary check, the collie bounded off into the bushes and was gone.
Buff himself could not have explained the unwonted wildness and ferocity that seemed to have taken hold of him in his wanderings. For the first three years or so of his life—indeed, until Gates’s pistol shot had stunned him—he had known nothing but friendliness and good treatment. And, except toward tramps and like prowlers, he had never felt hatred. Though he had always been a one-man dog, he had shown no ill-temper toward those who sought to make friends with him.
Yet now, as evidenced by his snarl at the father of the child who was caressing him, he had neither lot nor part with mankind at large. His every hope and yearning were centred on the finding of his master. And the wolf strain in his make-up thrilled almost as keenly to his longing to encounter the men with whom he associated the disappearance of Trent.
For the rest of humanity he felt no interest. Not even toward Ruth Hammerton, who had reigned second to Trent in his heart.
Twice during his months as a tramp dog, Buff revisited Boone Lake—casting about the farm, trotting at midnight through the village, hanging wistfully around the Hammerton place for nearly an hour. But before dawn he was far away again.
Most of his travelling was done by night or in dusk and at grey daybreak. For experience had taught him that the open ways are not safe for an unattached dog by sunlight.