Treve had watched with keen interest the opening of the crate. Now he came forward eagerly and touched noses with the bewildered pup. His plumed tail was wagging in friendly welcome.
“He won’t bite Nellie, will he?” asked Hibben, a trifle anxiously.
“No,” answered Royce Mack. “Man is about the only animal that mistreats the female of his race. Treve’s making friends with her. See, Joel? He’s making more friends with her than ever he’s made with any of the range collies. He acts like he knew she was helpless and that he had to protect her. He—”
Mack broke off in his lecture. The new puppy had begun to move about, on the porch, with a queer wariness. Now, coming to its edge, she did not observe that there was a two-foot drop to the yard below; and she was stepping out into space when a quick intervention of Treve’s shaggy shoulder turned her back to confused safety.
“Hold on!” exclaimed Joel, suddenly. “I knew there was a catch in it, somewheres. An’ her eyes have a funny look, too! Watch me.”
He struck a match and held it scarcely an inch from the puppy’s wide eyes; twitching the flame back and forth in the windless air, so close to her unflinching pupils that the lashes were all but singed. Nellie did not so much as blink.
“Blind!” diagnosed Joel, with grim satisfaction. “Stone blind. I knew there was suthin’ queer. There was bound to be. Been blind always, most likely, if she’s only six months old. Hibben, you’re stung all the way acrost the board. Your Cirenhaven Nellie couldn’t ever be learned to herd anything—without it was the three blind mice the feller writ the song about. You’re seventy-five dollars in the hole!”
The poor blind pup seemed to sense the ridicule in his tone. She shrank back a little in her groping approach toward the speaker. Instantly, Treve licked her face reassuringly, as though he were comforting a scared child. The big dog had known instinctively that this newcomer was afflicted and unable to look after herself. And his great heart had gone out to her in loving protectiveness.
Now, before Joel had fairly stopped speaking, the sensitive Nellie shrank even more appealingly against Treve’s shaggy side. For Chris Hibben was waking the echoes with a salvo of profanity that shook the house. Fenno listened with real interest to the outburst. He had the air of one who is acquiring many new and valuable words. As Chris paused for breath, Joel said sanctimoniously to Treve: