ON the top of this there followed an attempt to poison Th' Owd Un. At least there was no other accounting for the affair.

In the dead of a long-remembered night James Moore was waked by a low moaning beneath his room. He leapt out of bed and ran to the window to see his favorite dragging about the moonlit yard, the dark head down, the proud tail for once lowered, the lithe limbs wooden, heavy, unnatural—altogether pitiful.

In a moment he was downstairs and out to his friend's assistance. “Whativer is't, Owd Un?” he cried in anguish.

At the sound of that dear voice the old dog tried to struggle to him, could not, and fell, whimpering.

In a second the Master was with him, examining him tenderly, and crying for Sam'l, who slept above the stables.

There was every symptom of foul play: the tongue was swollen and almost black; the breathing labored; the body twitched horribly; and the soft gray eyes all bloodshot and straining in agony.

With the aid of Sam'l and Maggie, drenching first and stimulants after, the Master pulled him around for the moment. And soon Jim Mason and Parson Leggy, hurriedly summoned, came running hot-foot to the rescue.

Prompt and stringent measures saved the victim—but only just. For a time the best sheep-dog in the North was pawing at the Gate of Death. In the end, as the gray dawn broke, the danger passed.

The attempt to get at him, if attempt it was, aroused passionate indignation in the countryside. It seemed the culminating-point of the excitement long bubbling.

There were no traces of the culprit; not a vestige to lead to incrimination, so cunningly had the criminal accomplished his foul task. But as to the perpetrator, if there where no proofs there were yet fewer doubts.

At the Sylvester Arms, Long Kirby asked M'Adam point-blank for his explanation of the matter.

“Hoo do I 'count for it?” the little man cried. “I dinna 'count for it ava.”

“Then hoo did it happen?” asked Tammas with asperity.

“I dinna believe it did happen,” the little man replied. “It's a lee o' James Moore's—a characteristic lee.” Whereon they chucked him out incontinently; for the Terror for once was elsewhere.

Now that afternoon is to be remembered for threefold causes. Firstly, because, as has been said, M'Adam was alone. Secondly, because, a few minutes after his ejectment, the window of the tap-room was thrown open from without, and the little man looked in. He spoke no word, but those dim, smouldering eyes of his wandered from face to face, resting for a second on each, as if to burn them on his memory. “I'll remember ye, gentlemen,” he said at length quietly, shut the window, and was gone.

Thirdly, for a reason now to be told.

Though ten days had elapsed since the attempt on him, the gray dog had never been his old self since. He had attacks of shivering; his vitality seemed sapped; he tired easily, and, great heart, would never own it. At length on this day, James Moore, leaving the old dog behind him, had gone over to Grammoch-town to consult Dingley, the vet. On his way home he met Jim Mason with Gyp, the faithful Betsy's unworthy successor, at the Dalesman's Daughter. Together they started for the long tramp home over the Marches. And that journey is marked with a red stone in this story.

All day long the hills had been bathed in impenetrable fog. Throughout there had been an accompanying drizzle; and in the distance the wind had moaned a storm-menace. To the darkness of the day was added the sombreness of falling night as the three began the ascent of the Murk Muir Pass. By the time they emerged into the Devil's Bowl it was altogether black and blind. But the threat of wind had passed, leaving utter stillness; and they could hear the splash of an otter on the far side of the Lone Tarn as they skirted that gloomy water's edge. When at length the last steep rise on to the Marches had been topped, a breath of soft air smote them lightly, and the curtain of fog began drifting away.

The two men swung steadily through the heather with that reaching stride the birthright of moor-men and highlanders. They talked but little, for such was their nature: a word or two on sheep and the approaching lambing-time; thence on to the coming Trials; the Shepherds' Trophy; Owd Bob and the attempt on him; and from that to M'Adam and the Tailless Tyke.

“D'yo' reck'n M'Adam had a hand in't?” the postman was asking.

“Nay; there's no proof.”

“Ceptin' he's mad to get shut o' Th' Owd Un afore Cup Day.”

“Im or me—it mak's no differ. For a dog is disqualified from competing for the Trophy who has changed hands during the six months prior to the meeting. And this holds good though the change be only from father to son on the decease of the former.”

Jim looked up inquiringly at his companion.

“D'yo' think it'll coom to that?” he asked.

“What?”

“Why—murder.”

“Not if I can help it,” the other answered grimly.

The fog had cleared away by now, and the moon was up. To their right, on the crest of a rise some two hundred yards away, a low wood stood out black against the sky. As they passed it, a blackbird rose up screaming, and a brace of wood-pigeons winged noisily away.

“Hullo! hark to the yammerin'!” muttered Jim, stopping; “and at this time o' night too!”

Some rabbits, playing in the moonlight on the outskirts of the wood, sat up, listened, and hopped back into security. At the same moment a big hill-fox slunk out of the covert. He stole a pace forward and halted, listening with one ear back and one pad raised; then cantered silently away in the gloom, passing close to the two men and yet not observing them.

“What's up, I wonder?” mused the postman.

“The fox set 'em clackerin', I reck'n,” said the Master.

“Not he; he was scared 'maist oot o' his skin,” the other answered. Then in tones of suppressed excitement, with his hands on James Moore's arm: “And, look'ee, theer's ma Gyp a-beckonin' on us!”

There, indeed, on the crest of the rise beside the wood, was the little lurcher, now looking back at his master, now creeping stealthily forward.

“Ma word! theer's summat wrong yonder!” cried Jim, and jerked the post-bags off his shoulder. “Coom on, Master! “—and he set off running toward the dog; while James Moore, himself excited now, followed with an agility that belied his years.

Some score yards from the lower edge of the spinney, upon the farther side of the ridge, a tiny beck babbled through its bed of peat. The two men, as they topped the rise, noticed a flock of black-faced mountain-sheep clustered in the dip 'twixt wood and stream. They stood martialled in close array, facing half toward the wood, half toward the newcomers, heads up, eyes glaring, handsome as sheep only look when scared.

On the crest of the ridge the two men halted beside Gyp. The postman stood with his head a little forward, listening intently. Then he dropped in the heather like a dead man, pulling the other with him.

“Doon, mon!” he whispered, clutching at Gyp with his spare hand.

“What is't, Jim?” asked the Master, now thoroughly roused.

“Summat movin' i' th' wood,” the other whispered, listening weasel-eared.

So they lay motionless for a while; but there came no sound from the copse.

“'Appen 'twas nowt,” the postman at length allowed, peering cautiously about. “And yet I thowt—I dunno reetly what I thowt.”

Then, starting to his knees with a hoarse cry of terror: “Save us! what's yon theer?”

Then for the first time the Master raised his head and noticed, lying in the gloom between them and the array of sheep, a still, white heap.

James Moore was a man of deeds, not words.

“It's past waitin'!” he said, and sprang forward, his heart in his mouth.

The sheep stamped and shuffled as he came, and yet did not break.

“Ah, thanks be!” he cried, dropping beside the motionless body; “it's nob'but a sheep.” As he spoke his hands wandered deftly over the carcase. “But what's this?” he called. “Stout* she was as me. Look at her fleece—crisp, close, strong; feel the flesh—firm as a rock. And ne'er a bone broke, ne're a scrat on her body a pin could mak'. As healthy as a mon—and yet dead as mutton!”

Jim, still trembling from the horror of his fear, came up, and knelt beside his friend. “Ah, but there's bin devilry in this!” he said; “I reck'ned they sheep had bin badly skeared, and not so long agone.”

“Sheep-murder, sure enough!” the other answered. “No fox's doin'—a girt-grown two-shear as could 'maist knock a h'ox.”

Jim's hands travelled from the body to the dead creature's throat. He screamed.

“By gob, Master! look 'ee theer!” He held his hand up in the moonlight, and it dripped red. “And warm yet! warm!”

“Tear some bracken, Jim!” ordered the other, “and set alight. We mun see to this.”

The postman did as bid. For a moment the fern smouldered and smoked, then the flame ran crackling along and shot up in the darkness, weirdly lighting the scene: to the right the low wood, a block of solid blackness against the sky; in front the wall of sheep, staring out of the gloom with bright eyes; and as centre-piece that still, white body, with the kneeling men and lurcher sniffing tentatively round.

The victim was subjected to a critical examination. The throat, and that only, had been hideously mauled; from the raw wounds the flesh hung in horrid shreds; on the ground all about were little pitiful dabs of wool, wrenched off apparently in a struggle; and, crawling among the fern-roots, a snake-like track of red led down to the stream.

“A dog's doin', and no mistakin' thot,” said Jim at length, after a minute inspection.

“Ay,” declared the Master with slow emphasis, “and a sheep-dog's too, and an old un's, or I'm no shepherd.”

The postman looked up.

“Why thot?” he asked, puzzled.

“Becos,” the Master answered, “'im as did this killed for blood—and for blood only. If had bin ony other dog—greyhound, bull, tarrier, or even a young sheep-dog—d'yo' think he'd ha' stopped wi' the one? Not he; he'd ha' gone through 'em, and be runnin' 'em as like as not yet, nippin' 'em, pullin' 'em down, till he'd maybe killed the half. But 'im as did this killed for blood, I say. He got it—killed just the one, and nary touched the others, d'yo 'see, Jim?”

The postman whistled, long and low.

“It's just what owd Wrottesley'd tell on,” he said. “I never nob'but half believed him then—I do now though. D'yo' mind what th' owd lad'd tell, Master?”

James Moore nodded.

“Thot's it. I've never seen the like afore myself, but I've heard ma grandad speak o't mony's the time. An owd dog'll git the cravin' for sheep's blood on him, just the same as a mon does for the drink; he creeps oot o' nights, gallops afar, hunts his sheep, downs 'er, and satisfies the cravin'. And he nary kills but the one, they say, for he knows the value o' sheep same as you and me. He has his gallop, quenches the thirst, and then he's for home, maybe a score mile away, and no one the wiser i' th' mornin'. And so on, till he cooms to a bloody death, the murderin' traitor.”

“If he does!” said Jim.

“And he does, they say, nigh always. For he gets bolder and bolder wi' not bein' caught, until one fine night a bullet lets light into him. And some mon gets knocked nigh endways when they bring his best tyke home i' th' mornin', dead, wi' the sheep's wool yet stickin' in his mouth.”

The postman whistled again.

“It's what owd Wrottesley'd tell on to a tick. And he'd say, if ye mind, Master, as hoo the dog'd niver kill his master's sheep—kind o' conscience-like.”

“Ay, I've heard that,” said the Master. “Queer too, and 'im bein' such a bad un!”

Jim Mason rose slowly from his knees.

“Ma word,” he said, “I wish Th' Owd Un was here. He'd 'appen show us summat!”

“I nob'but wish he was, pore owd lad!” said the Master.

As he spoke there was a crash in the wood above them; a sound as of some big body bursting furiously through brushwood.

The two men rushed to the top of the rise. In the darkness they could see nothing; only, standing still and holding their breaths, they could hear the faint sound, ever growing fainter, of some creature splashing in a hasty gallop over the wet moors.

“Yon's him! Yon's no fox, I'll tak' oath. And a main big un, too, hark to him!” cried Jim. Then to Gyp, who had rushed off in hot pursuit: “Coom back, chunk-'ead. What's use o' you agin a gallopin' potamus?”

Gradually the sounds died away and away, and were no more.

“Thot's 'im, the devil!” said the Master at length.

“Nay; the devil has a tail, they do say,” replied Jim thoughtfully. For already the light of suspicion was focusing its red glare.

“Noo I reck'n we're in for bloody times amang the sheep for a while,” said the Master, as Jim picked up his bags.

“Better a sheep nor a mon,” answered the postman, still harping on the old theme.