“All right!” grumbled Joel, as if to a human companion. “All right! I’m a-comin’, Trevy. I heard Royce call you a fool, jes’ now. Maybe it’s me that’s the fool for trailin’ along with you. And then ag’in, maybe not. You ain’t given to actin’ like this. Besides, with all this rustler-talk—”
He stopped short. Treve was no longer leading him on. The dog had halted at the fence edge, and was standing there, looking downward in drooping misery at something small and dark that lay at his feet. Joel pressed his flashlight button.
Almost instantly he released the pressure. But not before he had seen Nellie’s lifeless body and had taken cognizance of her writhen lips. Her attitude and her convulsed mouth told their own story.
“Pizen!” muttered Joel, aghast.
His first sharp thought was for Treve. He went over to the disconsolate collie and felt his head and jaws.
“Nope,” he said. “She was the only one that got it. If it was strong enough to git her as quick as that, it’d ’a’ got you, too, before now. An’—an’, Trevy, I’m thankin’ Gawd it didn’t! I’m a-thankin’ Him, reel rev’rent!”
The old brain was working and working fast. Now that the Dos Hermanos ranch was at peace with the Triple Bar outfit, there was no neighbor who would poison any of the collies. The only person to do such a damnable thing must be some one who desired to get the ranch guards out of the way in order to rob the place.
Rustlers!
Joel listened. Except for an occasional bleat or stir in the nearby fold, no sound broke the awesome stillness of the early spring night. The collie stood statuelike above his dead mate, his sorrowful dark eyes fixed on Joel in dumb appeal.
“We can’t bring her back, Trevy,” said Fenno, gently, caressing the bowed silken head with rough tenderness. “Only the good Gawd c’d do that. An’ in His wisdom, He don’t ever do it no more—nowadays.... He knows why. I don’t. We ain’t so lucky as them folks in Bible times.... But maybe we c’n git the swine that killed her, Trevy!”