CHAPTER IX.
When Ross Douglas regained consciousness, it was still night; but the heavens were clear and starlit. The snow had ceased to fall; the air was still and cold. A thin mantle of spotless white covered the earth. In the uncertain light, the bare tree trunks looked like files and squads of ghostly soldiers.
The wounded man attempted to change his position, but the pain in his right breast warned him to lie still. His attempted movement attracted the attention of his faithful, four-footed friend, who was sitting by his side. The hound whined plaintively, and licked his master’s face. Ross put out his hand and patted the dog’s head. This so pleased Duke, that he frisked about and barked joyfully, doing his best to entice his beloved master from his icy bed upon the frozen ground.
Douglas instantly remembered what had occurred, and fully realized his forlorn and helpless condition. But he was not one to yield to despair. Lying there desperately wounded—in a wilderness full of savage enemies, and far from any settlement—he resolved to outwit death or die gamely. He began an examination of himself and his surroundings. He found that he still lay at the foot of the tree where he had fallen. His wound had ceased to bleed, but his hunting-shirt was stiff with frozen blood; and the saline taste of the crimson life-tide was yet in his throat. Every breath caused him a pang; and a deep inspiration gave him excruciating torture. But he could move his arms and legs without much pain or difficulty. Again he essayed to arise, but fell back with a groan; he was too weak from fasting and loss of blood.
“If only I could get upon my feet!” he murmured. “I shall freeze here.”
Seeing that his master could not arise, Duke had returned to his former position. Now he tilted his muzzle aloft and bayed mournfully.
“There—there, old fellow!” Ross said soothingly. “Keep up your courage. Things are not entirely hopeless so long as we two are together. Ah! Perhaps you can help me to get up. Here, let me get my arms around your neck. That’s it. Now, Duke, pull—pull!”
The bloodhound was accustomed to obeying his master’s every command. Digging his claws into the flinty earth, he stretched his lithe, muscular body, in an attempt to do the bidding of the being he loved. Ross clung tenaciously to the noble animal’s neck. The result was he was dragged to a sitting posture. The effort cost him much pain, but he gained his object. Duke was delighted; he ran about in a circle and barked vociferously.
Leaning his back against the tree-trunk, Douglas panted: