Here a scuffle and a vigorous whine outside the front door cuts short his ruminations. Quickly he opens it.
“Roy, you rascal, come in, sir. Humbugging after cats as usual?” This address, though irate in wording, is affectionate in tone, as the beautiful animal bounds past the instant the door is open, and draws up in the absent Venn’s room, wagging his bushy tail and looking perfectly satisfied with himself. His glossy red-brown coat breaks off at the neck in a white curling ruff which continues down his broad chest, whose normal snowiness is now grimy with railway travel. The soft brown eyes, set in dark circles, and the smooth velvety ears, betray his collie origin, ennobled and broadened as this is by the sturdier proportions engrafted upon it by the admixture of a larger and sterner race—peradventure of the real Newfoundland or Saint Bernard blood. After a few preliminary sniffs round the room the animal settles himself cosily on the rug, his soft, upturned eyes fixed affectionately upon his master. So much for the dog, and what of the man?
A tall and well-proportioned frame, which shows to advantage in its travel-worn suit of light tweed. A finely shaped head, carried high and erect and covered with dark clustering hair. A well-cut profile and regular features in which is an expression of quick readiness, render the face a striking and remarkable one, tanned as it is too by exposure to sun and weather. The eyes are very uncommon, and not at all in keeping with the dark complexion, being in fact violet blue; and there is that in their expression which, together with certain lines on the forehead, would to a physiognomist betray a stormy and unsettled spirit.
There is impatience in the gesture as he stands stroking his drooping moustache while gazing out into the rapidly darkening street. Suddenly Roy, raising his head, emits a threatening growl as a latch-key is turned in the front door. Then in a couple of strides a broad-shouldered, cheery looking fellow bursts into the room—
“Hallo!” is the startled greeting of the new-comer, pulling up short and wondering who the deuce was the intruder whose dog lay growling at him in right threatening fashion from his own hearth.
“All right, Venn. He won’t eat you,” is the stranger’s reply. “But don’t you know me?”
“Hanged if I do! No—yes—I do though. Why, Roland Dorrien, where on earth have you dropped from now?”
“‘The clouds’ you were going to say. No. The Rockies—game thing. Plenty of cloud, literal and metaphorical, besets the way of those whose lives are cast yonder.”
“By Jingo!” cried the other, passing his hand over his fair, closely cropped beard. “Why didn’t you say you were coming back? And did you get this splendid chap out West?”
For Roy, having sniffed the new-comer and pronounced him satisfactory, was now looking up gravely into that worthy’s face and wagging his brush as if desirous of an introduction.