Читать книгу The Heart of a Dog - Albert Payson Terhune - Страница 4

Crooning, licking, Ruff sought to make his loved little foster-mother awaken. Then he lifted his head and wheeled wearily about to face a new intruder.

Across the snow toward him was clumping a slack-faced man who gripped in both hands a cocked gun and who was shouting foolishly in his excitement. Zeb Harlow had caught up to the hunt at last.

Ruff had not been so near to any human since he was a fortnight old. The carefully-taught lessons of Pitchdark warned him to turn and flee. The cliff trail was still open to him. But into the brain that was once again all collie there seeped a queer sensation the big dog could not analyse.

His dear little comrade was dead. Without her the old life would be empty. His was the collie heritage—the stark need for comradeship; coupled with the unconscious craving to be owned by man and to give his devotion to man, his god.

Still unable to analyse his own unwonted feelings, Ruff bent again and licked Pitchdark’s dead face. Then, hesitant, he took a step toward the stormily advancing Harlow. He took another irresolute step; paused again and wagged his plumy tail.

“Attacked me, he did!” bragged Zeb Harlow, that night at the store. “Come straight for me, like he was going to eat me alive. But I stopped him, all right, all right. I stood my ground. After the second step he took, I let him have both bar’ls. You saw for yourselves what he looked like after he tried to tackle ME.”