god's bed? This
question it never entered his mind to ask himself; yet he was fully aware
of how exclusively favoured he was.

Another of his deliberate tricks was one discovered by accident.
Thrusting his muzzle to meet her in love, he chanced to encounter her
face with his soft-hard little nose with such force as to make her recoil
and cry out. When, another time, in all innocence this happened again,
he became conscious of it and of its effect upon her; and thereafter,
when she grew too wildly wild, too wantonly facetious in her teasing
playful love of him, he would thrust his muzzle at her face and make her
throw her head back to escape him. After a time, learning that if he
persisted, she would settle the situation by gathering him into her arms
and gurgling into his ears, he made it a point to act his part until such
delectable surrender and joyful culmination were achieved.

Never, by accident, in this deliberate game, did he hurt her chin or
cheek so severely as he hurt his own tender nose, but in the hurt itself
he found more of delight than pain. All of fun it was, all through, and,
in addition, it was love fun. Such hurt was more than fun. Such pain
was heart-pleasure.

All dogs are god-worshippers. More fortunate than most dogs, Jerry won
to a pair of gods that, no matter how much they commanded, loved more.
Although his nose might threaten grievously to hurt the cheek of his
adored god, rather than have it really hurt he would have spilled out all
the love-tide of his heart that constituted the life of him. He did not
live for food, for shelter, for a comfortable place between the
darknesses that rounded existence. He lived for love. And as surely as
he gladly lived for love, would he have died gladly for love.

Not quickly, in Somo, had Jerry's memory of Skipper and Mister Haggin
faded. Life in the cannibal village had been too unsatisfying. There
had been too little love. Only love can erase the memory of love, or
rather, the hurt of lost love. And on board the _Ariel_ such erasement
occurred quickly. Jerry did not forget Skipper and Mister Haggin. But
at the moments he remembered them the yearning that accompanied the
memory grew less pronounced and painful. The intervals between the
moments widened, nor did Skipper and Mister Haggin take form and reality
so frequently in his dreams; for, after the manner of dogs, he dreamed
much and vividly.

CHAPTER XXII

Northward, alon