Kirke looked so extremely troubled that the tender-hearted captain hastened to reply, “No, indeed! I don’t suppose anything of the kind. More likely Shot has picked a quarrel with a gopher and is bound to have the last word. If he’s not at home by sunrise we’ll ride back to the ranch to look him up.”
He fully expected to hear the dog’s merry bark at any moment, and was quite disturbed the next morning when Kirke ran over to tell him that the little terrier was still missing.
“Don’t worry, we’ll soon find him,” he said; and immediately telephoned for the horse and surrey.
But when he and Kirke reached the ranch Shot was not there, nor had he been there since the previous afternoon. “The very last I saw of him, Sing Wung was shying a stone at him,” said Paul. “He hates dogs, that Chinaman does. I believe he’s afraid of them.”
“He couldn’t have been afraid of my dear little innocent terrier,” exclaimed Kirke savagely; “he stoned him just for meanness.”
On being interviewed, Sing Wung protested that the dog had followed the carriage, and that was all he knew about him. But he spoke in such a hesitating way that Kirke was sure he kept back the truth. The lad was passing through a fiery ordeal and his heart was hot within him. “If ever I saw lies I saw ’em to-day in those slanting eyes behind us,” he said in Paul’s ear as they turned away from the suspected Celestial. “I feel just as if he had killed poor little Shot and pitched him into the cañon.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t do that, Kirke; ’twould take too much courage—Sing Wung is a chicken-hearted creature.”
“Not too chicken-hearted to stone my dog, though.”
Paul could not gainsay this, but as he bade Kirke good-by, he remarked cheerily,—
“I half believe you’ll find Shot at home waiting for you. I shall know Saturday morning. Remember I’m coming for you Saturday morning at six o’clock, sharp.”