As the dog wandered, hope faded. He could not find Johnny. But the dog had to have a master because he was unable to live without one, and now, as he lay in the tall weeds, all the deep yearnings in his heart concentrated on this man splitting wood.
He half rose, minded to walk out and meet him, but memory of the rocks and clubs that had come his way was not an easy one to banish and he settled down in the weeds again. Then an uncontrollable longing for someone to love and someone to love him overcame everything else and he left the weeds.
He walked with his tail drooping in a half circle down his rear, but he was not abject because it was not in him to be so. One or more of his many ancestors had bequeathed to him a great pride and a regal inner sense, and though he would run when a club or brick was hurled at him, he could never cringe. He carried his tail low because that was the way he carried it naturally, like a collie or staghound.
The man, setting a chunk of wood against the splitting block, had his back turned to the dog and did not at once see him. The dog waited, unwilling to intrude until he was invited to do so. The man raised his axe, brought it expertly down, and the wood split cleanly. He stooped to pick up the two pieces and when he did he saw the dog.
"You!"
Catching up one of the chunks, he hurled it with deadly aim and intent. But even as he did this, the huge animal started to run, so that instead of striking him in the head, the chunk of wood struck his right shoulder. The dog felt quick agony that subsided to searing pain as he kept running. Twenty seconds later he heard a rifle blast, and the thump of a leaden slug that plowed into the earth six inches to one side. The rifle roared a second time, and a third. Then he was safe in the woods.
He slowed to a walk, knowing that he could not be seen now and his nose informed him that there were no other men around. For the time being he was in no danger, but he was heartsick. Again he had tried, in every way he knew, to find someone whom he might love and who in turn might love him. Once more his overtures had brought him only hurt.
The dog could not know that the farmer, seeing him suddenly, had been too startled to think. When he was finally capable of coherent thought, he decided that a wild, dangerous and doubtless rabid wolf had emerged from the forest and that its only intention could be to prey upon the locality's flocks and herds. Failing to bring it down with his rifle, the farmer got hastily on the phone to mobilize his neighbors. Within half an hour a posse was out.
However, its members were farmers and not hunters. The only hunting dogs in the area were a few fox and coon hounds and some rabbit hounds, and they refused to interest themselves in the supposed wolf's trail. But there was also a pair of big cross-bred brindle bulls and they were urged into the woods. An hour later the dog met this pair.
Coursing a little open glade, they appeared in front of him and as soon as they saw him they stopped. The bulls weighed only about fifty pounds each, but they had had many battles and they knew how to fight. Lifting their lips in anticipatory grins, they closed in.