This meeting was scheduled to be the most pathetic or the most humorous point in the story the reporter was planning. Would Fenno be as glum in that big moment as in the moment of his release from the cell? Gladden hoped so. He hated to think that the keynote of the story was to be spoiled by Fenno slopping babyishly over his restored collie chum.
Down the crowded aisles sped Joel; Gladden close in his wake. They reached the collie section. There Fenno came to a standstill with an abruptness that all but threw him off his balance and sent Gladden colliding against him.
Treve’s straw-cluttered bench was empty.
It was the same bench, with the same printed number tacked to it; the same splintered pine footboard that Fraser Colt had kicked. But Treve was no longer there.
Gladden’s trained reportorial eye fixed itself upon another detail of the deserted bench, a fraction of a second earlier than did Fenno’s. The stout chain, affixed to the bench staple, was pulled to its full length and hung over the splintered top of the footboard. From the chain’s snap hung a dog collar—broken. The collie’s frantic plunges had at last made the decaying leather give way.
A man, working over a dog on the adjoining bench, glanced up at sound of Gladden’s ejaculation. He noticed the reporter and the horror-petrified old ranchman. He addressed them, impersonally; though keeping a wary eye on Joel, as though fearing a fresh outbreak of assault and battery on the part of the newly released prisoner.
“He’s gone,” announced the man. “Kept lunging and tugging at his chain all the time the cop was taking you out. Kept it up afterward, too. All at once, the collar bust; and he was off after you, quicker’n scat. I made a grab for him as he went past me. But I missed him. I thought it’d be kind of neighborly to catch him for you. When I got to the front door, though, he wasn’t anywheres in sight. The doorman told me the dog had gone whizzing out into the street, like greased lightning. No sign of him anywheres. That must ’a’ been—le’s see—that must ’a’ been about three or four minutes after you was took away by the cop. Er—I’m glad to see you back,” he ended politely, as Fenno did not cease from staring in blank despair at the empty bench and the riven collar.
Gladden made as though to speak. But he had no time to form the well-meaning words he was groping for. With a galvanic start, Joel wheeled and headed for the armory doorway. Gladden made after him, once more taxing his own young speed to keep close to the oldster.
At the front steps, he overhauled the ranchman.