Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/110

 from the perils which prowled or lurked in the forest shades.

Of his powers as a protector they had a keen appreciation; but in those very powers their deeper instincts recognized something from which they shrank uneasily. Ancestral memories, formless and infinitely remote, kept them on their guard, and their noncommittal eyes, lazily half closed, followed his every movement as long as he was near them.

Apparently satisfied with his inspection the big dog skirted the flock at a brisk trot and ran on to the fence. Here he sniffed along the rails for perhaps a couple of hundred yards in each direction, occasionally thrusting his muzzle through them between the roughly split poles, and sampling the forest smells with his discriminating nostrils.

The soft night wind drew outwards from the forest, across the pasture, and brought him a mixture of savours, all of which his delicate sense sorted out unerringly. He smelled the balsamy tang of spruce and fir, the faint wintergreen breath of the birches, the harsh, chill earthiness from a near-by patch of alder swamp. He caught the almost imperceptible scent of a hare, passing at some distance behind the trees, and cocked an ear with interest as it was followed, almost immediately, by the pungent musk of a fox.