Lifting his head timidly, yearningly, Macduff stood up once more. Rearing himself, he placed his forepaws again on Clive’s chest and peered up into the man’s face. The collie was sobbing in pure happiness, sobbing in a strangely human fashion. His god had been brought back to him.
Clive laid two thin and trembling hands on the silken head.
“Mac!” he murmured huskily. “Mac, old friend!”
At sound of the dear voice the collie proceeded once more to go insane. Capering, dancing, thunderously barking, he circled deliriously about his master.
But Clive was no longer heeding him. His hollow gaze rested now on the three humans who were clustered about his dead brother—the three who still eyed him in vacant disbelief.
From them his glance strayed to Osmun Creede. And again Clive’s white lips parted.
“He’s dead,” he croaked. “He’s—he’s—frozen—frozen to death. I—”
He got no further. Attempting to take a forward step, he reeled drunkenly. As he pitched earthward Thaxton Vail sprang toward him, catching the inert body in his arms as it fell.
Chapter XVII
UNTANGLING THE SNARL
TWO days later, at Vailholme, Dr. Lawton stumped downstairs to the study where Thaxton and Doris and Miss Gregg awaited him. Miss Gregg, by the way, chanced to be in an incredibly bad humor from indigestion. Every one knew it.