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He started the flock home, and scolded them and made fun of them all the way, but they were now so happy that they didn't care what he said. When they were safely in the home meadow again and the farmer had mended the fence, Collie left them. As he turned to go, he called back one last piece of advice.
As they lingered at their meal, Asher glanced through the little west window and saw Jim Shirley sitting by the clump of tall sunflowers not far away watching them with the eager face of a lonely man. A big white-throated Scotch collie lay beside him, waiting patiently for his master to start for home. "I am glad Jim has Pilot," Asher thought. "A dog is better than no company at all.
Then he spoke slightingly of the feat, claiming that any man who had ever ridden range could do as much, with the right pony. Brand Williams tried to change the subject, for shrewd reasons of his own, but Collie flamed up instantly. "I got a little saved up," he said; "mebby eight hundred. She's yours if you dast to walk a horse, comin' or goin', over that drift that Red took on the jump.
Instinct did it all. My own observation of the wild creatures has revealed nothing so near to human thought and reflection as is seen in the cases of the collie and pointer dogs above referred to. The nearest to them of anything I can now recall is an incident related by an English writer, Mr. Kearton. In one of his books, Mr.
Near the notch he paused, motioning Winthrop to one side. "Mebby it was to draw us on. You keep there, Billy. I'll poke ahead." But Overland did not go far. He almost stumbled over the prone figure of Collie. With a cry he tore his handkerchief from his throat and plugged the wound. "Clean through," he said, getting to his feet. "Get the whiskey." "Shan't I help you carry him?" queried Winthrop.
A stout good-natured looking man with a little five-year-old girl in a bathing suit perched on his shoulder and a big collie dog romping by his side, was easily the most conspicuous individual on the long station platform. Bruce caught sight of him as he descended the steps of the coach. "That's Mr. Herrick, or I'm a duffer at guessing," he said to Romper, who was just behind him.
She drew the reluctant collie into the house, and closed the door. But, a few minutes later, when her back chanced to be turned, and when a maid came into the room leaving the door ajar, Bobby slipped out. In another five seconds he was in the road, casting about for Brice's trail. Finding it, he set off, at a hard gallop, nostrils close to the ground.
The all-important message was fastened in place. The colonel himself went to the edge of the traverse, and with his own arms lifted the eighty-pound collie to the top. There was tenderness as well as strength in the lifting arms. As he set Bruce down on the brink, the colonel said, as if speaking to a fellow-human: "I hate to do it, old chap. I HATE to!
"'Bout three years ago. Then I was kiddin' Collie about wearin' silk pejammies. Now I got 'em got 'em on, by thunder! Don't know as I feel any heftier in the intellec'. And I can't show 'em to nobody. What's the good of havin' 'em if nobody knows it? But I can hang 'em on the bedpost in the mornin', careless like, jest like I was raised to it. Them pejammies cost four dollars a leg.
Columbine left rather precipitously, and when she got outdoors it seemed that the hills had never been so softly, dreamily gray, nor their loneliness so sweet, nor the sky so richly and deeply blue. As she untied Pronto the hunter came out with Kane at his heels. "Miss Collie, if you'll go easy I'll ketch my horse an' ride down with you," he said.
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