“When I reached the open, and looked back, he was standing in a faint patch of moonlight, in the middle of the road, looking after me with his head down a little, something the way people look at you under their eyebrows when they’re trying to understand. “I whistled and called, but it was no use. He stood there as long as I did, and I finally went on without him. But I couldn’t get him off my mind. It seemed such a wild, lonesome life for a dog that must have been brought up in a pleasant home, with regular meals and a fireplace to lie in front of, and probably a girl like me to take him walking. And it seemed as if it must be something queer and tragic to send him off that way by himself. I thought more and more how some young fellow might be lying dead up there on the mountain. I made up a whole story about it that evening. And that night I dreamed I had the collie and found a collar hidden in his ruff, and was trying to read his name on it—but you know how hard it is to read anything in a dream; you look at a letter and it changes to something else, or dances off to one side. Then he seemed to be telling me a long story, the way animals do in dreams, but when I woke up it turned into nonsense. “I knew he would meet me the next evening, and so I took some of Artie’s dog-biscuit with me, and while the collie padded along the other side of the bushes, tried to reach some through to him, but he wouldn’t touch it, though once he sniffed a little very daintily, and then blew out his breath, as dogs do when they’ve found out all they want to know about a smell. He kept right beside me. As we neared the opening he grew bolder, frisked across the road in front and came up from the other side. As I pretended to pay no attention, he came close behind and touched my elbow, hardly enough to say so, but I felt his breath warm through my sleeve. “When I came out into the open moonlight he stood as he had before at the edge of the woods, and watched me out of sight. I couldn’t believe that he was the sheep-killer, he seemed so gentle and timid, but I didn’t dare speak of him to any one—it would have seemed like betraying a trust—for I knew that in other people’s minds, if they found out that he was there, it would lie between him and Artie, and as Artie was out of the question, they would take it out in killing the collie anyhow. I felt something the way Southern girls do in novels, when they’re hiding a handsome Union soldier. “The next evening I started as usual, but just as I got to the woods, Artie came tearing after me, dragging a yard of chain and pretending he thought I wanted him! I could have slapped him, but took it out in being sarcastic, with words he couldn’t understand, and hitched his chain to my belt, so that if he started to be impolite to the other fellow, I could have something to say about it.