stant. Donaldson, squatting there, watched him with straining eyes.
Once again he tried to utter the name. It stuck in his throat, but at
the inarticulate cry he made, the dog wagged his tail so feebly that it
scarcely moved its shadow. Donaldson ventured nearer. The dog rolled
over to its back and held up its trembling forefeet on guard, studying
Donaldson through half closed eyes with its head turned sideways.

Donaldson put forward his trembling fingers and touched its side. The
dog was warm, even as Sandy had been when he first picked him up. The
dog feebly waved his padded paws and finally rested them upon
Donaldson's hand.

"Sandy! Sandy!" he murmured, his voice scarcely above a whisper.

The dumb mouth moved nearer to lick the man's fingers, but his
movements were negative as far as any recognition of the name went. It
was just the friendly overture of any dog to any man.

If he could get him to answer to the name! It meant life--a chance for
life! It meant, perhaps, that there had been some mistake--that,
perhaps, after all, the poison was not so deadly as Barstow had thought
it.

He threw himself upon the floor beside the dog. In the body of this
black terrier centred everything in life that a man holds most dear.
If he could speak--if the dumb tongue could wag an answer to that one
question!

The dog turned over and crawled nearer. Donaldson fixed his burning
eyes upon the blinking brute.

"Sandy," he cried, "is this you, Sandy?"

The moist tongue reached for his fingers.

He took a deep breath. He said,

"Dick--is this you, Dick?"

Again the moist tongue reached for his fingers.

Donaldson picked him up.

"Sandy," he cried, "answer me."

The dog closed his eyes as though expecting a blow.

Donaldson dropped him. The animal crawled away beneath the sofa.
Donaldson felt more alone that minute than he had ever felt in all his
life. It was as though he sat there, the sole living thing in the
broad universe. There was nothing left but the blinking eyes of the
bottles dancing in still brisker joy. He could not endure it.

Moving across the room he knelt by the sofa and tried to coax the
frightened animal out again.

"Sandy. Come, Sandy," he called.

There was no show of life. He snapped his fingers. He groped beneath
the old lounge. Then, in a frenzy of fear, lest it had all been an
apparition, he swung the sofa into the middle of the room. The dog
followed beneath it,