Wh-e-e-e—Pang! His pack jumped from his shoulders as a bullet clipped a beech and sung off at a tangent with a mournful ping—ouing—ing.
From the hillside above him, again came the sharp Pang! Pang! of a high-power rifle. He flung up both arms, whirled half round, and dropped on the frozen trail. Smoke bristled and growled, pacing with stiff forelegs round his master. He nuzzled the limp hands and whined. He trembled and a ridge of hair rose along his spine. He was not afraid, but the rage of an impotent avenger shook him. This man-thing had been struck down—from where?—by whom?
He sniffed back along the trail till he came to the tracks that swung off into the firs. He leaped to the hunt, following the scene over knoll and hollow. An empty brass shell lay melting the thin snow around it. He nosed it, then another and another. They were pungently disagreeable to his nostrils. The tracks circled back to the trail again. They were leading him to where his master lay—he knew that. Near the fringe of undergrowth that edged the trail the big white terrier stiffened and raised his homely nose. A new man-smell came to him and he hated it instinctively. With the caution and courage of the fighter who loves battle for its own sake, he crept through the low, snow-powdered branches noiselessly. He saw a dark figure stooping above his master.
Smoke gathered his haunches beneath him and shot up, a white thunderbolt, straight for the naked, swarthy neck. The man heard and whirled up his arm, but that hurtling death brushed it aside and the wide straining jaws closed on the corded throat and crunched. The man fumbled for his knife, plunging about on his knees. It had slipped round in front. With a muffled scream he seized the dog’s throat. Smoke braced his hind legs in the man’s abdomen, arched his back, and the smooth thigh muscles jumped to knots as he tugged, once—twice—
Blotched with crimson, muzzle dripping, he drew back from the twitching shape, lay down and lapped his steaming breast and legs. His work was done.
Finally he arose and sniffed at that silent nothing beneath the firs. Then he went over and sat beside the other man-thing, waiting—waiting—
Presently David stirred, groaned, and raised tremblingly on his elbow. Smoke stood up. “Home, Smoke!” he murmured inarticulately, but the dog understood. He sprang up the trail in long leaps, a flying horror of red and white.
“Must have—hurt—himself.” David was gazing stupidly at the dead man. This thing was a joke—everything was a joke—Swickey, her father, Jim Cameron, Smoke, David Ross-ung-gh! His grinning lips drew tense across his clenched teeth. A lightning whip of pain shot through his temples, and the white trail, worming through the dark-green pit of the forest, faded, and passed to the clouds. A smothering blackness swooped down and enveloped him.
CHAPTER IX—JIM CAMERON’S IDEA
Below, at the Knoll, Fisty Harrigan and Barney Axel, one of his foremen, had entered Cameron’s camp.