The Heart of a Dog

by Albert Payson Terhune

For the past half-mile he had been carrying the vixen, her helpless hindlegs dragging along the ground. Very tenderly, by the nape of the neck, he had borne her along. Yet the wrenching motion had forced cries from her, so that once and again he had set her down and stared in pitiful sorrow at her.

Now, Pitchdark took matters into her own hands. At the base of the cliff was an alcove niche of rock, perhaps two feet deep and eighteen inches wide; roofed over by a slant of half-fallen stone. It was bedded with dead leaves. There were worse holes into which to crawl to die, than was this natural den. Into it, painfully, wearily, the vixen dragged her racked body. There she laid herself down on the leaf-couch; spent and in torture. She had come to the end of her journey; though still a mile on the hither side of the den where she and Ruff were wont to hide.

It was no hiding place, no safe refuge, this niche of rock wherein she lay. But it was the best substitute. Panting, she settled down to bear her anguish as best she might. Above her, at the opening of the niche, stood the heartsick dog that loved her.

Puzzled, miserable, tormented, he stood there. At times he would bend down to lick the sufferer, crooning softly to her. But she gave him scant heed.

A rabbit scuttled across the snowy open space in front of the cliff. With a dash, Ruff was after him. A few rods away the chase ended in a reddened swirl of the snow. Back to Pitchdark trotted Ruff, the rabbit in his mouth. He laid the offering in front of her. But she was past eating or so much as noticing food.

Then, as he watched her, his deepset dark eyes sick with pity and grief, he stiffened to attention; and his lip curled away from his curving white teeth. The morning breeze bore to him a scent and a sound that had but one meaning.

The scent was of dogs. The sound was of multiple baying.

Instinctively he glanced at the cliff-trail—the trail he could surmount so quickly and easily, to the safety of the peak’s upper reaches. Then his unhappy gaze fell on Pitchdark. The baying and the odour had reached her even more keenly than it had reached Ruff. She read it aright; and the realisation brought her out of the pain-daze into which she had fallen. She tried to get to her feet. Failing, she fell to whimpering softly.

Once she peered up, questioningly, at Ruff. The big collie was standing in front of the niche, shielding it with his strong body. His head was high and his eye had the look of eagles. Gone from his expression was the furtiveness of the wild. In this crisis he was all collie. The sun blazed on his flaming red-gold coat and his snowy mass of ruff and frill. Every muscle was tense. Every faculty was alert.

Zeb Harlow knew nothing about fox-hunting. Indeed, he knew little enough about anything. But at the store conclave, the preceding night, his fancy had been fired by tales of the silver foxhunt. He had an inspiration.