The pistol-wielder, luckily for Treve, chanced just then to be nearest the can-brandisher. He halted and took aim at the momentarily moveless dog. Providence sent an eddying breeze from heaven which gathered up a spoonful of ashes from the tilted can and whirled them blindingly into the marksman’s eye. The bullet sped skyward.
A policeman, then another, appeared from nowhere and joined the chase.
It dawned on Treve, belatedly, that it was a chase; and that he was its quarry. With no fear, but with a strong determination not to let these people catch him and thus prevent him from continuing his search for Fenno, the dog quickened his swinging wolf-trot into a hand-gallop.
One of the policemen was stopping at every third jump to rap for reënforcements. In response to these raps and to the clamor of the pursuit, a bluecoat rounded a corner, on the run, just in front of Treve. He made a noteworthy effort to brain the collie with his club. Treve saw the blow coming and he dodged it with perfect ease. Then, diving between the policeman’s threateningly outstretched legs, and upsetting him, the dog continued on his way; though at a faster pace. Passersby, in front, gave him a world of room.
Pausing only at street crossings, to avoid passing motors, he fled at a mile-eating run; leaving the chase far behind. He was hot and worried and cruelly thirsty. Yet the sound of pursuit warned him not to slacken pace.
At last, this sound grew fainter. For no running men can hope to keep within hailing distance of a running collie.
Treve slackened speed. He glanced around him. The houses had grown few and straggling. He was on the compact little city’s outskirts. Ahead of him arose green foothills. Toward them he bent his pavement-bruised feet.
Assuredly there was no sense in trying to find Joel Fenno in that hell of unfriendly humans behind him. There was no trace of the old man. And Treve did what the wisest of lost collies usually do. He headed for home.
On he went, until he had breasted the nearest green slope of the ridge which divided the fertile valley from the desert beyond. Almost at the summit, he found a little trickle of water, from a hilltop-spring not yet dried by the approaching summer. There he paused; and drank long and greedily. His thirst assuaged, he stretched himself and clambered to the crest of the ridge.