solutely colorless.
What did I do to so terrify you? I surely never intended--" His eyes were
remorseful as he stood and looked at her.

"It was just the way Pat acted. I--I'd been hearing about rabid coyotes,
and I thought one was behind me, Pat acted so queer. Lie down, Pat!"

Holman Sommers spoke to the dog ingratiatingly, but Pat did not exhibit
any tail-wagging desire for friendly acquaintance. He slunk over to
Helen May and flattened himself on his belly with his nose on his paws,
and his eyes, that still showed greenish lights and bloodshot whites,
fixed on the man.

"It may be," said Sommers judgmatically, "that he has been taught to
resent strangers coming in close proximity to the animals he has in
charge. A great many dogs are so trained, and are therefore in no wise to
blame for exhibiting a certain degree of ferocity. The canine mind is
wholly lacking in the power of deduction, its intelligence consisting
rather of a highly developed instinctive faculty for retaining
impressions which invariably express themselves in some concrete form
such as hate, fear, joy, affection and like primitive emotions. Pat, for
instance, has been taught to regard strangers as interlopers. He
therefore resents the presence of all strangers, and has no mental
faculty for distinguishing between strangers, as such, and actual
intruders whose presence is essentially undesirable."

Helen May gave a little, half-hysterical laugh, and Holman Sommers looked
at her keenly, as a doctor sometimes looks at a patient.

"I am intensely sorry that my coming frightened you," he said gently.
Then he laughed. "I am also deeply humiliated at the idea of being
mistaken, in the broad light of midday, for a rabid coyote. May I ask
just wherein lies the resemblance?"

Helen May looked at him, saw the dancing light in his eyes and a mirthful
quirk of his lips, and blushed while she smiled.

"It's just that I happened to be thinking about them," she said,
instinctively belittling her fear. "And then I never saw Pat act the way
he's acting now."

Holman Sommers regarded the dog with the same keen, studying look he had
given Helen May. Pat did not take it as calmly, however, as Helen May had
done. Pat lifted his upper lip again and snarled with an extremely
concrete depiction of the primitive emotion, hate.

"There _are_ such things as rabid coyotes, aren't there? Just--do you
know how they act, and how a person could tell when something has cau