“You poor beastie,” the ranger called, pityingly, and the dog leaped up in a frenzy of joyous relief, putting his paws on his breast, then dropped to the ground, and, crouching low on his front paws, quivered and yawned with ecstasy of worship. It seemed that he could not express his passionate adoration, his relief, except by these grotesque contortions.
“Come in, Laddie!” Ross urged, but this the dog refused to do. “I am a creature of the open air,” he seemed to say. “My duties are of the outer world. I have no wish for a fireside—all I need is a master’s praise and a bit of bread.”
Cavanagh brought some food, and, putting it down outside the door, spoke to him, gently: “Good boy! Eat that and go back to your flock. I’ll come to see you in the morning.”
When Cavanagh, a few minutes later, went to the door the dog was gone, and, listening, the ranger could hear the faint, diminishing bleating of the sheep on the hillside above the corral. The four-footed warden was with his flock.
An hour later the sound of a horse’s hoofs on the bridge gave warning of a visitor, and as Cavanagh went to the door Gregg rode up, seeking particulars as to the death of the herder and the whereabouts of the sheep.
The ranger was not in a mood to invite the sheepman in, and, besides, he perceived the danger to which Wetherford was exposed. Therefore his answers were short. Gregg, on his part, did not appear anxious to enter.
“What happened to that old hobo I sent up?” he asked.
Cavanagh briefly retold his story, and at the end of it Gregg grunted. “You say you burned the tent and all the bedding?”
“Every thread of it. It wasn’t safe to leave it.”
“What ailed the man?”