In giving the Cup away, Lady Eleanour made a prettier speech than ever. Yet all the while she was haunted by a white, miserable face; and all the while she was conscious of two black moving dots in the Murk Muir Pass opposite her—solitary, desolate, a contrast to the huzzaing crowd around.
That is how the champion challenge Dale Cup, the world-known Shepherds' Trophy, came to wander no more; won outright by the last of the Gray Dogs of Kenmuir—Owd Bob.
Why he was the last of the Gray Dogs is now to be told.
PART VI THE BLACK KILLER
Chapter XXVI RED-HANDED
THE SUN was hiding behind the Pike. Over the lowlands the feathery breath of night hovered still. And the hillside was shivering in the chillness of dawn.
Down on the silvery sward beside the Stony Bottom there lay the ruffled body of a dead sheep. All about the victim the dewy ground was dark and patchy like dishevelled velvet; bracken trampled down; stones displaced as though by straggling feet; and the whole spotted with the all-pervading red.