Below the shoals was a deep pool, with eddies; and here at last Tom, standing on the shore, saw him right himself and come swimming slowly, his head almost submerged, toward the shore.
"Mac!" cried the man. "Here I am! Here I am, Mac!"
He came on, and at last, Tom, lying flat on a rock and reaching down, caught first the back of the neck, then the paws, and pulled him out. As he did so old Mac gave a little cry and, once out, staggered, fell on his side.
Then Tom saw that in his mouth he held the bird and that it was the last bird he would ever retrieve; for it was his own blood, not the bird's, that oozed from his mouth.
He was sitting with the dog's head in his lap when the boy who worked around the railroad station at Breton Junction found him.
"Got a telegram for you," he cried. "I went by the house an' there wasn't anybody at home. I heard you shoot just now and come to find you. Is the dog hurt much?"
"Run to the house," cried Tom. "Tell one of them men to fetch a wagon quick. Tell him to put a mattress and spring on it. Quick, son—quick. Tell 'em they can drive across the fields. Bring 'em yourself."
The lad's face went white. He turned and began to run. The wagon came in a short time. Old Mac was lifted and placed on the mattress. By the easiest route they could pick they drove him home. They sent in haste to Breton Junction for a doctor—not a dog doctor but a people's doctor. But one of the rocks against which he had been hurled had driven a rib into old Mac's side. And at eleven o'clock that night, almost at the hour when the hand of God had smitten him, and in the parlour itself, blind Mac, at a call of his name by his master, tapped the floor with his tail for the last time.
It was an hour later that Martha discovered the telegram in the pocket of her husband's hunting coat, which he had thrown over a chair; and there in the presence of the body they opened it and read: