Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/130

 her that he would not so easily desert the man who had raised him from a pup. Something had happened to Moran.

The thought persisted and she often referred to it in her conversations with the dog.

The frequent repetition of Moran’s name struck some chord of memory in Flash. He had by no means forgotten Moran, but his recollection of him was more of a vague longing than a definite picture.

Man’s most dependable sense is his sense of sight and he carries the memory of absent loved ones by a mental visualization of their faces. Dogs, instead of a mental likeness, retain a mixture of sight, scent and sound, the latter two being the predominating elements of animal memory. It is this which sometimes causes a dog to bark at the approach of his master who he can plainly see but cannot recognize until some familiar scent or sound identifies him.

It was sound—the name of Moran—that stirred Flash. Each recurring time it came from the girl’s lips it quickened the half dormant longing that was in him. And it was sound that one day caused him to drop all else and investigate a distant note with a familiar ring.