He washed the wound on the head and poured iodine into it. He did the same with the hole in the leg, cleansing it from the dried blood and hair. It had stopped bleeding. He disinfected it, stitched it, closed it, bound it with adhesive tape and strengthened it with a bandage adjusted as expertly as any surgeon could have done. He pried open the jaws with but little resistance and let the tongue slip back before he poured in a measure of Scotch and water between the canine and incisor teeth. He tilted Grit's limp head, shut off his muzzle, stroked his throat and let the restorative trickle into the gullet. For a moment there was no response, then Grit coughed, choked, swallowed. Sandy repeated the dose with less water. It went down naturally. Almost immediately he felt the heart stroke strengthen. Grit sneezed, opened his eyes and feebly thumped his tail as he licked Sandy's hand.
"Grit, ol' pardner," said Sandy seriously, the dog's head between his hands, "yo're sure mussed up a heap an' I hate to do it, but I got to call on you, son. Mebbe it won't be such a long trick, but I can't git by without yore nose, Grit. It's worth more'n all I've got. An' I know yo're game. I'm goin' to give you some mo' of Keith's special Scotch, which I sure had a hunch w'ud come in handy, an' then we'll try it."
Grit wagged his tail more vigorously and tried to get on his feet, but Sandy prevented him until the third dose was administered. Then he carried the dog outside to save him every foot of unnecessary progress, and set him down. The collie stood up, wabbly on one foot but able to stand, looking eagerly at Sandy, commencing to snuff the air. Sandy let him smell the coin, the strand of hair, the piece of cloth and, with his keenest sense stimulated with the perfume that stood to Grit for love, the dog wrinkled his nose and cast around. But he led direct to Blaze and stood by the horse uncertain while Blaze nosed down at him.
"Carried out of the cabin, son," said Sandy. "We'll guess at Plimsoll. He's got clear of the locality. Blaze knows but he can't tell. We've got to cast about." He picked up the dog again, puzzled, and looked about him in the gulch, suffused with moonlight. "There sh'ud be soft dirt under those asps, let's give a look-see there."
They had not gone five feet into the trees before man and dog made a simultaneous discovery. For Sandy it was a heel-mark left by Plimsoll, treading heavily under his burden, a slight depression enough, but plain to Sandy. Grit began to struggle in his arms. Molly's hair or body must have brushed against lower boughs at the same height that Sandy carried the wounded Grit and the scent still clung.
"They c'udn't go fur in this direction by the looks of the place, Grit," said Sandy. "See what you can make of it." He put him down by the heel-print. Grit uttered a low growl deep back in his throat, his ruff lifted. Hatred replaced love, but the two odors and emotions were inextricably linked for Grit that day. He started off, hobbling along, leading truly over rock or sand, into the cove where the split rock lay, its crevice black, the vine curving down into it like a serpent. Where Plimsoll had laid her down Grit halted and raised his head, his tongue playing in and out of his jaws in his triumphant excitement, his eyes luminous, his tail waving like the plume of a knight. Sandy gently patted him, pressed him down to a crouch.
"Down charge, Grit," he whispered in his ear. "You've got it. You stay here." Sandy had left his rifle at the cabin when he carried Grit out, now he spun the two cylinders of his Colts, lowered himself into the split, holding on to the vine, looking straight into Grit's lambent eyes.
"Stay here, son," he said softly, and Grit licked the face now on a level with his own. "I'll be back."
Sandy doubted whether he would find Plimsoll in this rock hollow, or any one but Molly. There had been the one horse saddled and grazing free, but that might have belonged to the dead man by the withered tree. It made little difference. There was, to him, the certainty that Molly was there and there was no other way of finding out or getting to her. He had adventured more dangerous chances than this.
He felt his legs dangle into space and his hands found a curving loop in the vine trunk that sagged slightly under his weight. Extended at full length, his toes touched bottom. Letting go, he dropped lightly and stood in blackness, the crevice above him showing a strip of azure light. Sandy listened, wishing for Grit. He might be able to get him down, now that he knew the depth of the descent.