Made speechless by the clutching pressure in his throat, and suddenly dizzy from a mist which rose before his eyes, the man bent and lifted the panting animal--his bosom friend and faithful companion through many days and nights--in his trembling arms. Mike painfully turned his head and licked his master's drawn face. The next instant came the sound of crashing underbrush, and, through vistas, Donald saw a man approaching them on a lumbering run. It was Big Jerry. His beard and clothing were dishevelled, and, as he drew near, his deep, gasping breaths became audible. From his ghastly gray and working face his deep eyes looked forth with an expression which spelt pain of body and wrack of mind. Donald stood up, with the dog clasped to his breast, and a terrible expression on his countenance. "Mike ... my friend ... shot ... he is dying," came his words, in an unnatural voice. "God have mercy on the man who did it. I shall not!" The giant's frame seemed to collapse visibly; two big tears started from his eyes and ran down the furrows of his cheeks as he moved closer and laid his big, shaking hand on the dog's head. "_I_ done hit," he answered dully. Mike licked the wrinkled hand which moved in slow caress over his jaws. "You?" whispered Donald in amazed unbelief. "Gawd help me, yes. I shot him ... I wish hit hed er been myself," returned the old man, between breaths which came in deep, body-shaking gasps. Slowly the doctor bent, laid his chum back on the ground, and knelt beside him until the fast glazing eyes--which never wavered from his--closed forever, and the pain-tortured little body lay still. Big Jerry, too, sank down and dropped his massive head onto his hands, while his frame rose and fell with convulsive heaving. "Hit war this erway," he began to speak at last, and told his story in broken, laboring sentences. "I war erhuntin' with ... with yo'r rifle-gun in the woods thar beyond ther ravine. Jest es I war startin' fer the cabin, I seen ... I seen a man erstandin' hyar on the bank, er peerin' down towards the river, thar. I looked whar he war erlookin', an' seen ye down thar, bathin' yo'r face in ther water. The man war ertotin' a rifle-gun, an' uv a sudden he drapped ter his knee an' raised hit, an' I knowed he war kalkerlatin' ter shoot ye. "I tried fer ter shout, ter cry out a warnin' ter ye, but my voice hed somehow lost hits power, an' wouldn't kerry above the noise of the falls. Thar war but one thing fer ter do, an' hit called fer powerful quick action. "Yo' war my foster-son, an' ef 'twar yo'r life er his'n I allowed I knowed whar my duty lay. But I didn't aim fer ter kill him.... I wish ter Gawd I hed. 'Taint boastin' none fer me ter say ter ye thet I aimed only fer ter shoot the arm what war holdin' the gun.