The gray dog it was who found Cyril Gilbraith by the White Stones, with a cigarette and a sprained ankle, on the night the whole village was out with lanterns searching for the well-loved young scapegrace. It was the Tailless Tyke and his master who one bitter evening came upon little Mrs. Burton, lying in a huddle beneath the lea of the fast-whitening Druid's Pillar with her latest baby on her breast. It was little M'Adam who took off his coat and wrapped the child in it; little M'Adam who unwound his plaid, threw it like a breastband across the dog's great chest, and tied the ends round the weary woman's waist. Red Wull it was who dragged her back to the Sylvester Arms and life, straining like a giant through the snow, while his master staggered behind with the babe in his arms. When they reached the inn it was M'Adam who, with a smile on his face, told the landlord what he thought of him for sending his wife across the Marches on such a day and on his errand. To which: “I'd a cauld,” pleaded honest Jem.
For days together David could not cross the Stony Bottom to Kenmuir. His enforced confinement to the Grange led, however, to no more frequent collisions than usual with his father. For M'Adam and Red Wull were out, at all hours, in all weathers, night and day, toiling at their work of salvation.
At last, one afternoon, David managed to cross the Bottom at a point where a fallen thorn-tree gave him a bridge over the soft snow. He stayed but a little while at Kenmuir, yet when he started for home it was snowing again.
By the time he had crossed the ice-draped bridge over the Wastrel, a blizzard was raging. The wind roared past him, smiting him so that he could barely stand; and the snow leaped at him so that he could not see. But he held on doggedly; slipping, sliding, tripping, down and up again, with one arm shielding his face. On, on, into the white darkness, blindly on sobbing, stumbling, dazed.
At length, nigh dead, he reached the brink of the Stony Bottom. He looked up and he looked down, but nowhere in that blinding mist could he see the fallen thorn-tree. He took a step forward into the white morass, and 'sank up to his thigh. He struggled feebly to free himself, and sank deeper. The snow wreathed, twisting, round him like a white flame, and he collapsed, softly crying, on that soft bed.
“I canna—I canna!” he moaned.
Little Mrs. Moore, her face whiter and frailer than ever, stood at the window, looking out into the storm.
“I canna rest for thinkin' o' th' lad,” she said. Then, turning, she saw her husband, his fur cap down over his ears, buttoning his pilot-coat about his throat, while Owd Bob stood at his feet, waiting.
“Ye're no goin', James?” she asked, anxiously.