Page:Patches (1928).pdf/274

 southern flight. Then winter with its endless snow and biting wind, and the stern music of howling coyotes and howling winds had a peculiar beauty all its own. And this beautiful country which for four years he had called home was fading, fading, fading; it was slipping away from him at the rate of fifty miles an hour. When would he see it again?

Now although the last shimmer of light which showed where the sun had sunk a few minutes before had disappeared and night had let down her dusky mantle, yet Larry knew that far away in Piñon Valley the sun was still shining.

And Patches, faithful Patches who would have run until he dropped for his master, knew even better than Larry did that the sun was shining in Piñon Valley, for he was standing at the lower end of the valley in the full blaze of departing day with his head up, his ears thrust forward, his eyes bright, and his nostrils extended. He seemed to be waiting, or looking, or listening for something. It was a picture that would have delighted the eye of a Remington or a Rosa Bonheur. Who shall say that Patches did not receive a message, or that he did not feel the great wave of love and admiration that welled up in his master's heart for him as he turned to leave the observation car and rejoin his friends at dinner? It is not for us humans to say this was not so, for we are continually making new discov-