“Ay—but ten hours gone. In mad haste—alone—ill provisioned—fleein’ in terror.... He sat on the hills—sat there like an old crag—in the rain an’ wind—waitin’ for the doctor’s sloop. ‘There she is, Jutt!’ says he. ‘No,’ says I. ‘Thank God, Jagger, that’s a schooner, reefed down an’ runnin’ for harbour!’ ... ‘There she is!’ says he. ‘No,’ says I. ‘Thank God, that’s the same schooner, makin’ heavy weather o’ the gale!’ ... ‘There she is, Jutt!’ says he. ‘Ay,’ says I, ‘God help her, that’s the doctor’s sloop! They’ve wrecked the Trap an’ Seine’.... An’ there he sat, watchin’, with his chin on his hand, ’til the doctor’s sloop went over, an’ the fog drifted over the sea where she had been.... An’ then he went home; an’ no man seed un agin ’til he called for the dogs. An’ he went away—in haste—alone—like a man gone mad....”
The lean-handed clerk broke in. He was blue about the lips—his eyes sunk in shadowy pits—and he was shivering.
“‘Timmons,’ says he to me,” he chattered, “‘I’m going home. I done wrong,’ says he. ‘They’ll kill me for this.’”
“An’ when he got the dogs in the traces,” Jonas proceeded, “I seed he wasn’t ready for no long journey. ‘Good Lord, Jagger,’ says I, ‘you isn’t got no grub for the dogs!’ ‘Dogs!’ says he. ‘I’ll feed the dogs with me whip.’ ‘Jagger,’ says I, ‘don’t you try it. They won’t eat a whip. They can’t live on it.’ ‘Never you fear,’ says he. ‘I’ll feed them ugly brutes when they gets me t’ Cape Charles Harbour.’ ‘Jagger,’ says I, ‘you better look out they don’t feed theirselves afore they gets you there. You got a ugly leader,’ says I, ‘in that red-eyed brute.’ ‘Him?’ says he. ‘Oh, I got him broke!’ But he didn’t have——”
“And with that,” said the clerk, “off he put.”
“Men,” cried Tom Tot, looking about upon our group, “we’ll cotch un yet!”
So we set out in pursuit of Jagger of Wayfarer’s Tickle, who had fled over the hills—I laugh to think of it—with an ugly, red-eyed leader, to be fed with a whip: which dog I knew.... No snow fell. The days were clear—the nights moonlit. Bitter cold continued. We followed a plain track—sleeping by night where the quarry had slept.... Day after day we pushed on: with no mercy on the complaining dogs—plunging through the drifts, whipping the team up the steeper hills, speeding when the going lay smooth before us.... By and by we drew near. Here and there the snow was significantly trampled. There were signs of confusion and cross purposes. The man was desperately fighting his dogs.... One night, the dogs were strangely restless—sniffing the air, sleepless, howling; nor could we beat them to their beds in the snow: they were like wolves. And next day—being then two hours after dawn—we saw before us a bloody patch of snow: whereupon Tom Tot cried out in horror.
“Oh, dear God!” he muttered, turning with a gray face. “They’ve eat him up!”
Then—forgetting the old vow—he laughed.