Squib and His Friends

by Evelyn Everett-Green

But all this was soon to be changed.

One day Squib took a new route, and dropped almost perpendicularly, by a very tangled path, to the bottom of the valley, instead of skirting along its side as had been his fashion heretofore. It happened to be a very warm day, and this tangled woodland path had greater attractions than those which led through stretches of sunny meadow. The sound of the brawling torrent at the bottom made refreshing music in his ears as he descended, and when at last he found himself at the bottom of the ravine, he was delighted to see that a narrow bridge of planks had been thrown across the torrent there, by which he could easily cross to the other side.

It was a dizzy crossing for any one unused to such transits, but dizziness was a feeling unknown to Squib; nor was Czar in any way disturbed by the passage. He followed his little master soberly and carefully, and in another minute both were on the opposite side of the familiar valley.

This was quite a new world for Squib, for, as is so often the way amongst these hills, one side of a valley seems to open out quite a new region, and it is not easy to believe oneself so near to old haunts.

Squib clambered up the opposite bank of the torrent, which was rather rough and stony, and then found himself at the entrance of a little wood, through which a narrow footpath ran. He followed this upwards for some distance, and found himself at last out on a green shoulder of the mountain spur, with the top of the ridge only a little above him. He must climb up and look over, he said to himself, and a few minutes’ breathless clambering brought him to the top; and now a new world, of which he had never dreamed, lay spread out before him.

From the chalet he had fancied that the range of snow-peaks opposite rose directly from the bed of the torrent he had just crossed. Now, however, he found that a whole panorama of meadow, wood, and water lay between. Sloping gently away from where he stood were emerald-green meadows full of flowers, watered by little sparkling rills and foaming cascades tumbling down the hillsides into a lake at the base as blue as the sky overhead. To the right and left the valley seemed closed in by great snow-peaks, which stood like two silent sentinels looking down upon it; and opposite to Squib were patches of cultivated land, with here and there a little peasant’s chalet—the wooden roof weighted by heavy stones, piles of wood cut into lengths heaped up against the wall on the lee side, the whole house raised up on piles to keep it above the level of winter snow, and the overhanging eaves and protected gallery showing that it was lived in all the year round, and not just an abode for the summer months.

The tinkling of many bells was filling the air, and Squib’s attention was speedily attracted to a herd of brown goats feeding at a little distance. Seated on a green knoll, with (oddly enough, as it seemed to Squib) a piece of paper and a pencil in his hands, was a little boy in the rough, snuff-coloured clothes so common in the district, and a flapping felt hat a world too large for him. He sat with his back towards the little intruder, apparently intent upon some task.

At the boy’s feet lay stretched a rough-coated dog with his head on his paws. The dog seemed to be guarding both the goats and the boy, for he would rise sometimes and pursue a vagrant goat, who was in danger of straying away too far, and would make use of the opportunity for making a rapid circuit round the whole drove and addressing a word of admonition to them, after which he would return to his old position at his little master’s feet.

Squib was always interested in dogs, and looked at this one with approval, holding Czar by the collar so that their proximity might not be at once divulged. It was a good-sized dog with a shaggy blue-black coat, a square head, a strong shoulder, and a look of general benevolence and intelligence.

But he was too good a watch-dog to be long without scenting out the presence of intruders, and suddenly, sighting or smelling them, broke into a succession of short, sharp barks, running towards them bristling all over.