It fascinated Donaldson with the allurement of the gruesome. It was such a restless, scarlet thing! It looked as though it were trying to get out of its prison and in baffled rage was shooting its fangs at the sides, like a bottled viper.
"See it, Sandy? It's trying to get at us. But it can't, if we keep together. It's only when a man's alone that those things have any power. And the little devil knows it. If it were not for you, Sandy, the thing might drive me mad—might make me mad before I had written my letter!"
He sprang to his feet in sudden passion, and the dog with all four feet planted stiffly on the sofa gave a sharp bark. This broke the tension at once.
"That's the dog," Donaldson praised him. "When the shadows get too close bark at 'em like that!"
The bellicose attitude of the tiny body brought a smile to Donaldson's mouth. This, too, was like a bromide to shaking nerves.
But in this position the dog did not so closely resemble that other dog which he had held upon his knee. He looked thinner, more angular. His ears were cocked like two stiff v-shaped funnels. Now he looked like an older dog. It was more reasonable to suppose, Donaldson realized, that Barstow had two dogs of this same breed than that a dead dog had come to life.
"Sandy!" he called sharply.
The dog wagged his stub-tail with vigor.
"Spike!" he called again.
The tail wagged on with undiminished enthusiasm.