iserable
condition he continued for some three days.

At first we thought he had been in a big fight--he was inclined
that way, his master said--but we could discover no tooth marks or
lacerations, nothing but bruises. Perhaps, we said, he had fallen into
the hands of some cruel person in one of the distant moorland farms, who
had tied him up, then thrashed him with a big stick, and finally turned
him loose to die on the moor or crawl home if he could. His master
looked so black at this that we said no more about it. But Jack was
a wonderfully tough dog, all gristle I think, and after three days of
lying there like a dead dog he quickly recovered, though I'm quite sure
that if his injuries had been distributed among any half-dozen pampered
or pet dogs it would have killed them all. A morning came when the
kennel was empty: Jack was not dead--he was well again, and, as usual,
out.

Just then I was absent for a week or ten days then, back again, I went
out one fine morning for a long day's ramble along the coast. A mile or
so from home, happening to glance back I caught sight of a black dog's
face among the bushes thirty or forty yards away gazing earnestly at me.
It was Jack, of course, nothing but his head visible in an opening
among the bushes--a black head which looked as if carved in ebony, in
a wonderful setting of shining yellow furze blossoms. The beauty and
singularity of the sight made it impossible for me to be angry with
him, though there's nothing a man more resents than being shadowed, or
secretly followed and spied upon, even by a dog, so, without considering
what I was letting myself in for, I cried out "Jack" and instantly he
bounded out and came to my side, then flew on ahead, well pleased to
lead the way.

"I must suffer him this time," I said resignedly, and went on, he always
ahead acting as my scout and hunter--self-appointed, of course, but as
I had not ordered him back in trumpet tones and hurled a rock at him
to enforce the command, he took it that he was appointed by me. He
certainly made the most of his position; no one could say that he was
lacking in zeal. He scoured the country to the right and left and far in
advance of me, crashing through furze thickets and splashing across bogs
and streams, spreading terror where he went and leaving nothing for
me to look at. So it went on until after one o'clock when, tired and
hungry, I was glad to go down into a small fishing cove to get some
dinne