"I will never leave you. I would rise
from my grave to come back to you. But the time has not yet come to lie
down and die. Be strong. We shall yet be safe."
So I was obliged to turn and leave her sitting alone there, the gray
sweep of the merciless Plains all about her. Another woman would have
gone mad.
But it was as I said. This dog was our savior. Without his nose I could
not have traced out the little travois trail; but he, seeing what was
needed, and finding me nosing along and doubling back and seeking on the
hard ground, seemed to know what was required, or perhaps himself
thought to go back to some old camp for food. So presently he trotted
along, his ears up, his nose straight ahead; and I, a savage, depended
upon a creature still a little lower in the order of life, and that
creature proved a faithful servant.
We went on at a swinging walk, or trot, or lope, as the ground said, and
ate up the distance at twice the speed we had used the day before. In a
couple of hours I was close to where she had taken the belt, and so at
last I saw the dog drop his nose and sniff. There were the missing
riches, priceless beyond gold--the little leaden balls, the powder, dry
in its horn, the little rolls of tow, the knife swung at the girdle! I
knelt down there on the sand, I, John Cowles, once civilized and now
heathen, and I raised my frayed and ragged hands toward the Mystery, and
begged that I might be forever free of the great crime of thanklessness.
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