or
cowardice--there rested the fates of lives greater than his own, of men,
and women, and of little children still unborn. A glass of wine once
lost a kingdom, a nail turned the tide of a mighty battle, and a woman's
smile once upon a time destroyed the homes of a million people. Thus
have trivial things played their potent parts in the history of human
lives, yet these things Peter did not know--nor that his greatest hour
had come.

At last he rose from his squatting posture, and stood upon his feet.
He was not a beautiful pup, this Peter Pied-Bot--or Peter Club-foot, as
Jolly Roger McKay--who lived over in the big cedar swamp--had named
him when he gave Peter to the girl. He was, in a way, an accident and a
homely one at that. His father was a blue-blooded fighting Airedale who
had broken from his kennel long enough to commit a MESALLIANCE with
a huge big footed and peace-loving Mackenzie hound--and Peter was the
result. He wore the fiercely bristling whiskers of his Airedale father
at the age of three months; his ears were flappy and big, his tail was
knotted, and his legs were ungainly and loose, with huge feet at the end
of them--so big and heavy that he stumbled frequently, and fell on his
nose. One pitied him at first--and then loved him. For Peter, in spite
of his homeliness, had the two best bloods of all dog creation in his
veins. Yet in a way it was like mixing nitro-glycerin with olive oil, or
dynamite and saltpeter with milk and honey.

Peter's heart was thumping rapidly as he took a step toward the deeper
shadows. He swallowed hard, as if to clear a knot out of his scrawny
throat. But he had made up his mind. Something was compelling him,
and he would go in. Slowly the gloom engulfed him, and once again the
whimsical spirit of fatalism had chosen a trivial thing to work out its
ends in the romance and tragedy of human lives.

Grim shadows began to surround Peter, and his ears shot up, and a
scraggly brush stood out along his spine. But he did not bark, as he
had barked along the shore of the lake, and in the green opens. Twice
he looked back to the shimmer of sunshine that was growing more and more
indistinct. As long as he could see this, and knew that his retreat
was open, there still remained a bit of that courage which was swiftly
ebbing in the thickening darkness. But the third time he looked back the
light of the sun was utterly gone! For an instant the knot rose up in
his throat and choked him,