Joel Fenno was awake at grayest dawn. He woke with a vague memory of unpleasantness. Then he located the cause.
Treve had strayed away after supper, the night before; and had not showed up as usual at bedtime. This was not the dog’s habit. Always he was in the house and on his mat beside Royce Mack’s bunk, before the partners went to sleep.
Royce had asked Chang if he knew what had become of their collie. Chang said he had given Treve his supper and that the dog had then strolled out of the kitchen, into the yard; and had not returned. Fenno had sneered ostentatiously at his partner’s solicitude over the beast. But, secretly, he had worried.
Now, waking, he peeped into Mack’s room. No, Treve was not lying on his mat at the snoring Royce’s feet. Joel dressed and went out into the dim morning.
A very few miles up the coulée was the southern boundary of the Triple Bar cattle range. Chris Hibben’s Triple Bar outfit, like most cow-men, had no use for sheep ranchers or for sheep-ranchers’ dogs. If, by any chance, Treve had strolled over their line and should be seen by any gun-packing puncher—
Joel set off at a worried walk, towards the coulée. The farther he went the faster he walked; the while cursing himself for a silly old fool, for wasting good sleep and good exercise on such a wild-goose chase.
At last, giving up the idea of squandering his energy by a trudge to the boundary of the Triple Bar, he stopped and made as though to turn back. As a salve to his feelings, he peeped over the wooded edge of the coulée, on the chance that Treve might be coursing jack rabbits somewhere along its dry bed. At the same time he bawled, perfunctorily:
“Treve!”
To his amaze, there was an answering bark, from somewhere along the coulée’s upper sides, not a hundred yards ahead of him. Joel broke into a shambling run.
Around the sharp turn in the road, just in front of him, appeared Treve. After a glance of appeal at his master, and a pleading bark, the collie turned and vanished into the chaparral along the lip of the gorge. Joel knew enough of the dog to read this plea aright. He followed, and, at the road-turn, he peered once more over the edge, along the general direction in which the dog had disappeared.