dest
and silliest grin. And that wasn't all. The dog had come round the fire
to Andy, and the loose end of the fuse had trailed and waggled over the
burning sticks into the blaze; Andy had slit and nicked the firing end
of the fuse well, and now it was hissing and spitting properly.

Andy's legs started with a jolt; his legs started before his brain did,
and he made after Dave and Jim. And the dog followed Andy.

Dave and Jim were good runners--Jim the best--for a short distance; Andy
was slow and heavy, but he had the strength and the wind and could last.
The dog leapt and capered round him, delighted as a dog could be to find
his mates, as he thought, on for a frolic. Dave and Jim kept shouting
back, 'Don't foller us! don't foller us, you coloured fool!' but Andy
kept on, no matter how they dodged. They could never explain, any
more than the dog, why they followed each other, but so they ran, Dave
keeping in Jim's track in all its turnings, Andy after Dave, and the
dog circling round Andy--the live fuse swishing in all directions and
hissing and spluttering and stinking. Jim yelling to Dave not to follow
him, Dave shouting to Andy to go in another direction--to 'spread out',
and Andy roaring at the dog to go home. Then Andy's brain began to work,
stimulated by the crisis: he tried to get a running kick at the dog, but
the dog dodged; he snatched up sticks and stones and threw them at the
dog and ran on again. The retriever saw that he'd made a mistake about
Andy, and left him and bounded after Dave. Dave, who had the presence of
mind to think that the fuse's time wasn't up yet, made a dive and a grab
for the dog, caught him by the tail, and as he swung round snatched
the cartridge out of his mouth and flung it as far as he could: the dog
immediately bounded after it and retrieved it. Dave roared and cursed at
the dog, who seeing that Dave was offended, left him and went after Jim,
who was well ahead. Jim swung to a sapling and went up it like a native
bear; it was a young sapling, and Jim couldn't safely get more than ten
or twelve feet from the ground. The dog laid the cartridge, as carefully
as if it was a kitten, at the foot of the sapling, and capered and
leaped and whooped joyously round under Jim. The big pup reckoned that
this was part of the lark--he was all right now--it was Jim who was out
for a spree. The fuse sounded as if it were going a mile a minute. Jim
tried to climb higher and the sapling bent and cr