This spasm of frenzy ended in a mad bolt down the mountain in search of Master. Big John was Blaze’s idol; the one human who knew everything and always gave him the most glorious times of his life. When hurt before, it had been always Big John, his man-partner of their hunts who, strong and tender, had somehow made his hurts come well. Sid, as Little Master was all right, but Blaze hardly gave him a thought now, for this trouble was too terrible and he _must_ find Big John! Trembling all over and yelping every time the arrow stub struck against a passing bush, Blaze struggled on down the hill. The bone tops of his shoulder blades rubbed against this inexorable Thing that stuck tenaciously through the flesh above them and at every step they hurt worse than grinding a raw bone. Again and again he felt himself growing weak and giddy with the pain of it. Each stumble was to him an agony of roaring and helpless rage. Heroic, stoical old Blaze, who had fought bear and mountain lion times innumerable; been bitten, slashed, mauled with clawed paws; who had lost one ear in a fight with a timber wolf--he found this thing to be the most maddening of all his experiences with pain. You could not fight back nor get hold of it, after that first savage crunch of his jaws had bitten off all the arrow that could be reached. It rode him thereafter like a spur that never let up. Blaze’s progress grew slower and slower. At times he would stop and howl dismally for some one to come and help him. Then, after a grim and expectant period of waiting, he would crawl on again, floundering and tumbling down the steep flanks of the mountain. In time he reached the plain, where they had started up after the ram. Here was Sid’s pinto, and the animal whinnied eagerly for he was already thirsty and weary of waiting for their return. Blaze’s nose led him back to the tracks of the main party, where the familiar scent of Big John’s white mustang at last smote his nostrils. It put new heart into the dog. Master’s horse! Now we were getting somewhere! He trotted on, enduring the pain in his shoulders stoically until it faded to a general dull ache. Nothing brushed the arrow stub, now. You went carefully around bushes and kept to the mustang’s trail, avoiding all thorns and cats-claws. Several miles further on he came to where the buck had been shot and butchered. The bones and pieces of raw meat left behind smelt good, but Blaze was feverish and would not eat. His doggy instincts told him to starve out that fever. What lashed him most terribly now was the scourge of thirst. He had lost a good deal of blood, although the arrow had cut nothing vital. Water! He _must_ have it!