Now, as Ruff fell he pulled one of the three down with him; his awful fangs busy at the hound’s throat. A second of the trio rolled over with them; the forequarters of his inverted body sprawled within the niche. While he bit and roared at the fast-rolling Ruff, the vixen saw her chance. Darting her head forward, she set her needle teeth deep in the hound’s throat. Instantly, seared by the hurt, he was atop her; ripping away at her unprotected back; tearing it to ribbons. But, with death upon her and the rear half of her paralysed, she did not abate the merciless grinding at the hound’s throat. Presently, the needle teeth found their goal. Ruff was up again; one of his assailants gasping out his life beneath him; the other with Pitchdark clinging in death to his throat. Torn and bleeding and panting as he was, Ruff flew at the fourth dog; the only one of the five still in fighting condition. Before that one-to-one onset the mongrel hound’s heart went back on him. He turned and fled; but not before Ruff’s madly twisting jaws had lamed him for life. The battle was fought and won. Of the five hounds, one lay dead; two more were dying, a fourth was lying helpless with a crunched hindleg. The fifth was in limping flight. The young collie staggered, then righted himself. Crossing to Pitchdark, he bent painfully down and licked her face—the face whose teeth were locked in her oppressor’s throat. Never now would that glorious pelt sell for hundreds of dollars; or even for hundreds of cents. The dying hound had seen to that. So had the dog now limping away. This latter had taken advantage of Ruff’s preoccupation with his two fellows, as they rolled in the snow, to tear destructively at the silken coat as the vixen’s teeth were finding their way to his comrade’s jugular. 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.