As Bronson stepped from his cabin the following morning he was startled to see the big Airedale leap from the veranda of Shoop's cabin and bound toward him. Then he understood. The camp had been Bondsman's home. The supervisor had gone to Criswell. Evidently the dog preferred the lonely freedom of the Blue Mesa to the monotonous confines of town.
Bronson called to his daughter. "We have a visitor this morning,
Dorothy."
"Why, it's Bondsman! Where is Mr. Shoop?"
"Most natural question. Mr. Shoop had to leave Jason on business.
Bondsman couldn't go, so he trotted up here to pay us a visit."
"He's hungry. I know it. Come, Bondsman."
From that moment he attached himself to Dorothy, following her about that day and the next and the next. But when night came he invariably trotted over to Shoop's cabin and slept on the veranda. Dorothy wondered why he would not sleep at their camp.
"He's very friendly," she told her father. "He will play and chase sticks and growl, and pretend to bite when I tickle him, but he does it all with a kind of mental reservation. Yesterday, when we were having our regular frolic after breakfast, he stopped suddenly and stood looking out across the mesa, and it was only my pony, just coming from the edge of the woods. Bondsman tries to be polite, but he is really just passing the time while he is waiting for Mr. Shoop."
"You don't feel flattered, perhaps. But don't you admire him all the more for it?"
"I believe I do. Poor Bondsman! It's just like being a social pet, isn't it? Have to appear happy whether you are or not."
Bondsman knew that she proffered sympathy, and he licked her hand lazily, gazing up at her with bright, unreadable eyes.