Wolf was a collie, red-gold and white of coat, with a shape more like his long-ago wolf ancestors’ than like a domesticated dog’s. It was from this ancestral throw-back that he was named Wolf.

He looked not at all like his great sire, Sunnybank Lad, nor like his dainty, thoroughbred mother, Lady. Nor was he like them in any other way, except that he inherited old Lad’s staunchly gallant spirit and loyalty and uncanny brain. No, in traits as well as in looks, he was more wolf than dog. He almost never barked, his snarl supplying all vocal needs.

The Mistress or the Master or the Boy—any of these three could romp with him, roll him over, tickle him, or subject him to all sorts of playful indignities. And Wolf entered gleefully into the fun of the romp. But let any human, besides these three, lay a hand on his slender body, 188and a snarling plunge for the offender’s throat was Wolf’s invariable reply to the caress.

It had been so since his puppyhood. He did not fly at accredited guests, nor, indeed, pay any heed to their presence, so long as they kept their hands off him. But to all of these the Boy was forced to say at the very outset of the visit:

“Pat Lad and Bruce all you want to, but please leave Wolf alone. He doesn’t care for people. We’ve taught him to stand for a pat on the head, from guests,—but don’t touch his body.”

Then, to prove his own immunity, the Boy would proceed to tumble Wolf about, to the delight of them both.

In romping with humans whom they love, most dogs will bite, more or less gently,—or pretend to bite,—as a part of the game. Wolf never did this. In his wildest and roughest romps with the Boy or with the Boy’s parents, Wolf did not so much as open his mighty jaws. Perhaps because he dared not trust himself to bite gently. Perhaps because he realised that a bite is not a joke, but an effort to kill.

There had been only one exception to Wolf’s hatred for mauling at strangers’ hands. A man came to The Place on a business call, bringing along a chubby two-year-old daughter. The Master warned the baby that she must not go near Wolf, although she might pet any of the other collies. Then he became so much interested in the business talk that he and his guest forgot all about the child.

Ten minutes later the Master chanced to shift his gaze to the far end of the room. And he broke off, with a gasp, in the very middle of a sentence.

The baby was seated astride Wolf’s back, her tiny heels digging into the dog’s sensitive ribs, and each of her 189chubby fists gripping one of his ears. Wolf was lying there, with an idiotically happy grin on his face and wagging his tail in ecstasy.

No one knew why he had submitted to the baby’s tugging hands, except because she was a baby, and because the gallant heart of the dog had gone out to her helplessness.

Wolf was the official watch-dog of The Place; and his name carried dread to the loafers and tramps of the region. Also, he was the Boy’s own special dog. He had been born on the Boy’s tenth birthday, five years before this story of ours begins; and ever since then the two had been inseparable chums.

One sloppy afternoon in late winter, Wolf and the Boy were sprawled, side by side; on the fur rug in front of the library fire. The Mistress and the Master had gone to town for the day. The house was lonely, and the two chums were left to entertain each other.

The Boy was reading a magazine. The dog beside him was blinking in drowsy comfort at the fire. Presently, finishing the story he had been reading, the Boy looked across at the sleepy dog.

“Wolf,” he said, “here’s a story about a dog. I think he must have been something like you. Maybe he was your great-great-great-great-grandfather. He lived an awfully long time ago—in Pompeii. Ever hear of Pompeii?”

Now, the Boy was fifteen years old, and he had too much sense to imagine that Wolf could possibly understand the story he was about to tell him. But, long since, he had fallen into a way of talking to his dog, sometimes, as if to another human. It was fun for him to note the almost pathetic eagerness wherewith Wolf listened and tried to grasp the meaning of what he was saying. Again 190and again, at sound of some familiar word or voice inflection, the collie would pick up his ears or wag his tail, as if in the joyous hope that he had at last found a clue to his owner’s meaning.

“You see,” went on the Boy, “this dog lived in Pompeii, as I told you. You’ve never been there, Wolf.”

Wolf was looking up at the Boy in wistful excitement, seeking vainly to guess what was expected of him.

“And,” continued the Boy, “the kid who owned him seems to have had a regular knack for getting into trouble all the time. And his dog was always on hand to get him out of it. It’s a true story, the magazine says. The kid’s father was so grateful to the dog that he bought him a solid silver coller. Solid silver! Get that, Wolfie?”

Wolf did not “get it.” But he wagged his tail hopefully, his eyes alight with bewildered interest.

“And,” said the Boy, “what do you suppose was engraved on the collar? Well, I’ll tell you: ‘This dog has thrice saved his little master from death. Once by fire, once by flood, and once at the hands of robbers!’ How’s that for a record, Wolf? For one dog, too!”

At the words “Wolf” and “dog,” the collie’s tail smote the floor in glad comprehension. Then he edged closer to the Boy as the narrator’s voice presently took on a sadder note.

“But at last,” resumed the Boy, “there came a time when the dog couldn’t save the kid. Mount Vesuvius erupted. All the sky was pitch-dark, as black as midnight, and Pompeii was buried under lava and ashes. The dog could easily have got away by himself,—dogs can see in the dark, can’t they, Wolf?—but he couldn’t get the kid away. And he wouldn’t go without him. You wouldn’t have gone without me, either, would you, Wolf? Pretty nearly two thousand years later, some people dug 191through the lava that covered Pompeii. What do you suppose they found? Of course they found a whole lot of things. One of them was that dog—silver collar and inscription and all. He was lying at the feet of a child. The child he couldn’t save. He was one grand dog—hey, Wolf?”

The continued strain of trying to understand began to get on the collie’s high-strung nerves. He rose to his feet, quivering, and sought to lick the Boy’s face, thrusting one upraised white forepaw at him in appeal for a handshake. The Boy slammed shut the magazine.

“It’s slow in the house, here, with nothing to do,” he said to his chum. “I’m going up the lake with my gun to see if any wild ducks have landed in the marshes yet. It’s almost time for them. Want to come along?”

The last sentence Wolf understood perfectly. On the instant he was dancing with excitement at the prospect of a walk. Being a collie, he was of no earthly help in a hunting-trip; but, on such tramps, as everywhere else, he was the Boy’s inseparable companion.

Out over the slushy snow the two started, the Boy with his light single-barrelled shotgun slung over one shoulder, the dog trotting close at his heels. The March thaw was changing to a sharp freeze. The deep and soggy snow was crusted over, just thick enough to make walking a genuine difficulty for both dog and Boy.

The Place was a promontory that ran out into the lake, on the opposite bank from the mile-distant village. Behind, across the highroad, lay the winter-choked forest. At the lake’s northerly end, two miles beyond The Place, were the reedy marshes where, a month hence, wild duck would congregate. Thither, with Wolf, the Boy ploughed his way through the biting cold.

The going was heavy and heavier. A quarter-mile 192below the marshes the Boy struck out across the upper corner of the lake. Here the ice was rotten at the top, where the thaw had nibbled at it, but beneath it was still a full eight inches thick; easily strong enough to bear the Boy’s weight.

Along the grey ice-field the two plodded. The skim of water, which the thaw had spread an inch thick over the ice, had frozen in the day’s cold spell. It crackled like broken glass as the chums walked over it. The Boy had on big hunting-boots. So, apart from the extra effort, the glass-like ice did not bother him. To Wolf it gave acute pain. The sharp particles were forever getting between the callous black pads of his feet, pricking and cutting him acutely.

Little smears of blood began to mark the dog’s course but it never occurred to Wolf to turn back, or to betray by any sign that he was suffering. It was all a part of the day’s work—a cheap price to pay for the joy of tramping with his adored young master.

Then, forty yards or so on the hither side of the marshes, Wolf beheld a right amazing phenomenon. The Boy had been walking directly in front of him, gun over shoulder. With no warning at all, the youthful hunter fell, feet foremost, out of sight, through the ice.

The light shell of new-frozen water that covered the lake’s thicker ice also masked an air-hole nearly three feet wide. Into this, as he strode carelessly along, the Boy had stepped. Straight down he had gone, with all the force of his hundred-and-twenty pounds and with all the impetus of his forward stride.

Instinctively, he threw out his hands to restore his balance. The only effect of this was to send the gun flying ten feet away.

Down went the Boy through less than three feet of 193water (for the bottom of the lake at this point had started to slope upward towards the marshes) and through nearly two feet more of sticky marsh mud that underlay the lake-bed.

His outflung hands struck against the ice on the edges of the air-hole, and clung there.

Sputtering and gurgling, the Boy brought his head above the surface and tried to raise himself by his hands, high enough to wriggle out upon the surface of the ice. Ordinarily, this would have been simple enough for so strong a lad. But the glue-like mud had imprisoned his feet and the lower part of his legs; and held them powerless.

Try as he would, the Boy could not wrench himself free of the slough. The water, as he stood upright, was on a level with his mouth. The air-hole was too wide for him, at such a depth, to get a good purchase on its edges and lift himself bodily to safety.

Gaining such a finger-hold as he could, he heaved with all his might, throwing every muscle of his body into the struggle. One leg was pulled almost free of the mud, but the other was driven deeper into it. And, as the Boy’s fingers slipped from the smoothly wet ice-edge, the attempt to restore his balance drove the free leg back, knee-deep into the mire.

Ten minutes of this hopeless fighting left the Boy panting and tired out. The icy water was numbing his nerves and chilling his blood into torpidity. His hands were without sense of feeling, as far up as the wrists. Even if he could have shaken free his legs from the mud, now, he had not strength enough left to crawl out of the hole.

He ceased his useless frantic battle and stood dazed. Then he came sharply to himself. For, as he stood, the water crept upward from his lips to his nostrils. He knew 194why the water seemed to be rising. It was not rising. It was he who was sinking. As soon as he stopped moving, the mud began, very slowly, but very steadily, to suck him downward.

This was not a quicksand, but it was a deep mud-bed. And only by constant motion could he avoid sinking farther and farther down into it. He had less than two inches to spare, at best, before the water should fill his nostrils; less than two inches of life, even if he could keep the water down to the level of his lips.

There was a moment of utter panic. Then the Boy’s brain cleared. His only hope was to keep on fighting—to rest when he must, ............