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Page 45
Gordon returned to the window. It seemed to him again that he heard a
horse's trot. He felt sure that it was not the trot of the gray, who had
a slight lameness. He knew the trot of the gray. He became sure that
James and Clemency would the next moment enter the drive. He set his
mouth hard, crept toward the dog, and patted him. As he patted him he
felt the rage-crest rise higher on his back. Gordon bade him be quiet,
and slipped his leash from the staple. Then he took it from the collar.
He listened again. It seemed to him that his ears could not deceive him.
It seemed to him that James and Clemency were coming. He was almost
delirious. He fancied he heard their voices and the girl's laugh ring
out. Holding the dog firmly by the collar, he rose and very carefully
and noiselessly slipped the bolt of the door back. Then he waited a
second. Then as slowly and carefully, still holding the dog by the
collar, and whispering commands to hush his growls, he turned the door
knob.
[Illustration: "There was a white flash of avenging brute force upon the
man." Page 177.]
Then the thing was done. He flung the door open. He saw the man in the
drive, standing with his face toward the road. He had heard nothing.
Then he loosened his grasp of the straining dog's collar, and there was
a white flash of avenging brute force upon the man. Gordon saw only one
leap of the dog before the man was down. A futile pistol shot rang out.
Then came the snarl and growl of a fighting dog fastened upon his prey.
CHAPTER IX
When Clemency and James returned from their drive, they saw a glimmer of
light between the house and stable. "Aaron is out there with a lantern,"
whispered Clemency. She sat up straight, leaned into her corner of the
buggy, and adjusted her hat and straightened her hair with the pretty
young girl motions of secrecy and modesty.
James peered ahead into the darkness through which the lantern moved
like a will-o'-the-wisp. "Your uncle is here, too," he said. Then he
drew rein with a sudden, "Halloo, what is wrong?" Aaron came forward,
leaving the lantern on the ground. It lit weirdly Dr. Gordon, who was
kneeling on the ground beside a dark mass, which looked horribly
suggestive. Then James saw another dark mass to the right, the balky
mare and a buggy.
"Doctor Gordon says you had better hitch to this post here," said Aaron
in a sort of hoarse whisper, "and then come to him. He says he needs
help, and Miss Clemency, he says, must go around the house and in the
front door, and be careful not to let the dog out, but go upstairs, and
if her mother is awake, tell her it ain't anything for her to fret
about, and Doctor Gordon will be in very soon."
"Oh, Aaron, what is the matter?" said Clemency, in a frightened whisper,
as James sprang out of the buggy.
"It ain't nothin'," replied Aaron doggedly. "Jest a man fell coming to
the office. Reckon he had a jag on. Doctor says he may have broke a rib.
He's doctorin' him. You jest run round the house, and in the front door,
Miss Clemency, and don't let out the dog, an' see to your ma."
James assisted Clemency out, and she fled, with a wild glance over her
shoulder at the lantern-lit group in front of the office door. While
Aaron tied the horse to the post James ran to Doctor Gordon. When he
drew nearer the sight became sanguinary in its details, and he could
hear from the office the raging growls and howls of the dog. He also
heard him leap against the door, as if he would break it down. Gordon
had a pail of water and a basin beside him, and he was applying water
vigorously to the throat of the prostrate figure. The water in the
basin gleamed, in the lantern light, blood red. "Just empty this basin
and fill it up from the pail," ordered Gordon in a husky voice, and
again he squeezed the reddened cloth over the throat, which James now
discerned was badly torn. The man lay doubled up upon himself as limp as
a rag.
"No, I don't think so," replied Gordon, as if in answer to an unspoken
question, as James, having complied with his request, drew near with the
basin of fresh water.
"Was it the dog?" asked James in a low voice.
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