en we climbed to the top we spied that very Stanley, who had given me
all this trouble, sitting on a rock with his face in his hands, and his
overcoat hanging loose about him. I never saw anything so lonely and
dejected in my life as this one little man, crumpled up and thinking, on
the great gray hillside.
Here Garm left me.
He departed without a word, and, so far as I could see, without moving
his legs. He flew through the air bodily, and I heard the whack of him
as he flung himself at Stanley, knocking the little man clean over. They
rolled on the ground together, shouting, and yelping, and hugging. I
could not see which was dog and which was man, till Stanley got up and
whimpered.
He told me that he had been suffering from fever at intervals, and was
very weak. He looked all he said, but even while I watched, both man and
dog plumped out to their natural sizes, precisely as dried apples swell
in water. Garin was on his shoulder, and his breast and feet all at the
same time, so that Stanley spoke all through a cloud of Garin--gulping,
sobbing, slavering Garm. He did not say anything that I could
understand, except that he had fancied he was going to die, but that now
he was quite well, and that he was not going to give up Garin any more
to anybody under the rank of Beelzebub.
Then he said he felt hungry, and thirsty, and happy.
We went down to tea at the rest-house, where Stanley stuffed himself
with sardines and raspberry jam, and beer, and cold mutton and pickles,
when Garm wasn't climbing over him; and then Vixen and I went on.
Garm saw how it was at once. He said good-bye to me three times, giving
me both paws one after another, and leaping on to my shoulder. He
further escorted us, singing Hosannas at the top of his voice, a mile
down the road. Then he raced back to his own master.
Vixen never opened her mouth, but when the cold twilight came, and we
could see the lights of Simla across the hills, she snuffled with her
nose at the breast of my ulster. I unbuttoned it, and tucked her inside.
Then she gave a contented little sniff, and fell fast asleep, her head
on my breast, till we bundled out at Simla, two of the four happiest
people in all the world that night.
THE POWER OF THE DOG
There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and
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