She went toward the chow, pushing the other dogs out of her way with both hands; stumbling, stepping over them as they crowded about her feet.
"Down!" She murmured breathless.
It was not until she got well within a couple of strides of the chow that the other dogs dropped away from her. It was the same thing that she had witnessed a hundred times from her window. The animals had always given China-Ching a wide berth; had always respected his magnificent, majestic aloofness. And as she reached him she fell to her knees.
"China-Ching;" she whispered brokenly. "China-Ching!"
Her arms went around the dog's neck. Her hands stroked the thick ruff at his throat. She felt a cold nose on her cheek. A slow, deep sniffing; a second later two heavy paws were on her shoulder, and a warm, moist tongue curled again and again about her ear.
In the moonlight she looked into his eyes. The great, liquid brown eyes met hers with all their unutterable sadness.
"D'you want to go, China-Ching?" She murmured; "d'you want to go and be free?"
Her fingers were working swiftly at his collar. As it clanked to the ground she felt him stiffen rigidly beneath her touch. She saw his ears go back flat against his head; she saw his upper lip pulled so that the long, sharp teeth showed glisteningly in the huckle-berry, blue gums. She followed the set stare of his eyes, and what she saw sent a shiver down her spine.
Coming across the waste that had once been a garden, running stumblingly in the full path of the moonlight, came James. And the other dogs had seen him. She realized that when she heard the growling, the snarling, the low, infuriated snorts.
She rushed back to the gate.