“And,” continued the Boy, “the kid who owned him seems to have had a regular knack for getting into trouble all the time. And his dog was always on hand to get him out of it. It’s a true story, the magazine says. The kid’s father was so grateful to the dog that he bought him a solid silver coller. Solid silver! Get that, Wolfie?”
Wolf did not “get it.” But he wagged his tail hopefully, his eyes alight with bewildered interest.
“And,” said the Boy, “what do you suppose was engraved on the collar? Well, I’ll tell you: ‘This dog has thrice saved his little master from death. Once by fire, once by flood, and once at the hands of robbers!’ How’s that for a record, Wolf? For one dog, too!”
At the words “Wolf” and “dog,” the collie’s tail smote the floor in glad comprehension. Then he edged closer to the Boy as the narrator’s voice presently took on a sadder note.
“But at last,” resumed the Boy, “there came a time when the dog couldn’t save the kid. Mount Vesuvius erupted. All the sky was pitch-dark, as black as midnight, and Pompeii was buried under lava and ashes. The dog could easily have got away by himself,—dogs can see in the dark, can’t they, Wolf?—but he couldn’t get the kid away. And he wouldn’t go without him. You wouldn’t have gone without me, either, would you, Wolf? Pretty nearly two thousand years later, some people dug through the lava that covered Pompeii. What do you suppose they found? Of course they found a whole lot of things. One of them was that dog—silver collar and inscription and all. He was lying at the feet of a child. The child he couldn’t save. He was one grand dog—hey, Wolf?”
The continued strain of trying to understand began to get on the collie’s high-strung nerves. He rose to his feet, quivering, and sought to lick the Boy’s face, thrusting one upraised white forepaw at him in appeal for a handshake. The Boy slammed shut the magazine.
“It’s slow in the house, here, with nothing to do,” he said to his chum. “I’m going up the lake with my gun to see if any wild ducks have landed in the marshes yet. It’s almost time for them. Want to come along?”
The last sentence Wolf understood perfectly. On the instant he was dancing with excitement at the prospect of a walk. Being a collie, he was of no earthly help in a hunting-trip; but, on such tramps, as everywhere else, he was the Boy’s inseparable companion.
Out over the slushy snow the two started, the Boy with his light single-barrelled shotgun slung over one shoulder, the dog trotting close at his heels. The March thaw was changing to a sharp freeze. The deep and soggy snow was crusted over, just thick enough to make walking a genuine difficulty for both dog and Boy.
The Place was a promontory that ran out into the lake, on the opposite bank from the mile-distant village. Behind, across the highroad, lay the winter-choked forest. At the lake’s northerly end, two miles beyond The Place, were the reedy marshes where, a month hence, wild duck would congregate. Thither, with Wolf, the Boy ploughed his way through the biting cold.