The dog could not know that this was partly because of his appearance and size. He was big and he looked wild. Had he cared to do so, he could have killed a man. But what none of his tormentors could know was that, though the dog feared little, he was almost incapable of attacking a human being. What nobody could know either was that, most of all, the dog was in desperate need of someone to love.
Until two months ago, everything had been different. When the dog came to live with Johnny Blazer, in the hills behind Smithville, he was so young that it always seemed he must have begun life with Johnny. It was a good life and he had never wanted any other.
Johnny's cabin was big, with a kitchen and combined living-dining room on the first floor and the entire second floor given over to many bunks. It was necessary to have a big cabin because, in season, Johnny both guided and boarded hunters and fishermen. During the winter, he trapped furs, and when there was nothing else to do he worked at odd jobs or searched out and sold medicinal roots which he found in the hills. A lean, tight-jawed woodsman in his late thirties, Johnny had been the dog's revered master.
Because he was a dog, and thus incapable of grasping the more complex facts, the great animal did not understand that life was not the wholly carefree and happy one it seemed. He could sense that Johnny avoided the Whitneys, who—at various places in the hills—lived much as Johnny did. Because they were Johnny's enemies, it followed that the Whitneys must be the dog's enemies too. But he had never understood what took place.
Johnny and the dog were strolling toward Smithville when a rifle cracked and Johnny took three staggering steps to fall forward. While the dog hovered anxiously near, his master tried and failed to get up. The dog knew that the scent of Pete Whitney filled the air, but there was no connection between Pete and the fact that Johnny Blazer lay wounded in the road.
For an hour the dog worried beside Johnny, whining because he could not help. Then a car happened along. The two men in it lifted Johnny into the car and were off at high speed.
The dog tried to follow, but though he could run very fast, he could not keep up with the car. Outdistanced, he panted back to the cabin because he was sure that Johnny would return there, too. He waited a week, never venturing far away and eating only what he could find or catch. Then he set out to look for Johnny.
He'd gone first to Smithville and the first person he'd met there was Pete Whitney. The dog slowed to a walk, watching Pete warily and bristling. He saw no connection between any of Pete's actions and Johnny's disappearance, but all the Whitneys were enemies. He leaped aside when Pete aimed a swift kick at his groin, then turned with bared fangs. Unarmed, Pete shrank back against a near-by building and the dog went on.
The alarm was sounded; Johnny Blazer's dog had come into town and threatened a person. For a while—Johnny had many friends in Smithville—nothing was done. But after two days, the dog was considered a menace. Mothers of small children became concerned for their safety. The first act of most men, upon seeing the dog, was to pick up and hurl any convenient missile.
The Smithville constable, Bill Ellis, reluctantly set out to kill the animal. But two hours earlier, having satisfied himself that he would not find Johnny in Smithville, the dog had left. What he could not possibly know was that his master was dead and the official cause of his death was, "Bullet wound inflicted by a person or persons unknown."