"I will go to her and
make her happy."

So saying, she sprang lightly through a hole in the paper window, which,
alas! was too small and too far from the ground for the faithful dog to
enter.

A sad sight greeted the gaze of Whitehead. The son was lying on the bed
unconscious, almost dead for want of food, while his mother, in despair,
was rocking backwards and forwards wringing her wrinkled hands and
crying at the top of her voice for some one to come and save them.

"Here I am, mistress," cried Whitehead, "and here is the treasure you
are weeping for. I have rescued it and brought it back to you."

The widow, wild with joy at sight of the beetle, seized the cat in her
scrawny arms and hugged the pet tightly to her bosom.

"Breakfast, son, breakfast! Wake up from your swoon! Fortune has come
again. We are saved from starvation!"

Soon a steaming hot meal was ready, and you may well imagine how the old
woman and her son, heaping praises upon Whitehead, filled the beast's
platter with good things, but never a word did they say of the faithful
dog, who remained outside sniffing the fragrant odours and waiting in
sad wonder, for all this time the artful cat had said nothing of
Blackfoot's part in the rescue of the golden beetle.

At last, when breakfast was over, slipping away from the others,
Whitehead jumped out through the hole in the window.

"Oh, my dear Blackfoot," she began laughingly, "you should have been
inside to see what a feast they gave me! Mistress was so delighted at
my bringing back her treasure that she could not give me enough to eat,
nor say enough kind things about me. Too bad, old fellow, that you are
hungry. You'd better run out into the street and hunt up a bone."

Maddened by the shameful treachery of his companion, the enraged dog
sprang upon the cat and in a few seconds had shaken her to death.

"So dies the one who forgets a friend and who loses honour," he cried
sadly, as he stood over the body of his companion.

Rushing out into the street, he proclaimed the treachery of Whitehead
to the members of his tribe, at the same time advising that all
self-respecting dogs should from that time onwards make war upon the
feline race.

And that is why the descendants of old Blackfoot, whether in China or
in the great countries of the West, have waged continual war upon the
children and grandchildren of Whitehead, for a thousand generations of
dogs have fought them and hated them with a grea