“I hope he will,” I said to myself. “I’ll keep awake till he does.”
The consequence of making this determination was that in a very few minutes after I was fast asleep.
Just as before I was wakened some time in the night by feeling something touch me, and raising my arm for the first time made the faithful beast utter low whines of joy as I softly patted his head and pulled his ears, letting my hand slip lower to stroke his neck, when my fingers came in contact with the dog’s collar, and almost at the same moment with a stiff scrap of paper.
For a moment my heart stood still. Then, sitting up, I caught the dog to me, holding his collar with both hands, touching the paper all the while, but afraid to do more lest the act should result in disappointment.
At last I moved one hand cautiously and felt the paper, trembling the while, till a joyous throb rose to my lips, and I rapidly untied a piece of string which tightly bound what was evidently a note to the dog’s collar.
Gyp whined in a low tone, and as I loosened him, grasping the note in my hand, I knew that he gave a bit of a skip, but he came back and nestled close to me directly.
I needed no thought to know that the note was from the doctor, who must be near. Perhaps, too, Gyp had been night after night with that same note, and I had been too helpless to raise a hand and touch his neck where it had been tied.
The doctor was close by, then. There was help, and I would once more be free to get back safe to my dear mother.
I stopped there and said half aloud:
“Not yet—safe to try once more to find him.”