Part 34

"God!" he whispered, "I can't stand that!"

When he came back, for he could not stay away, Marian met him in the middle of the room, her flushed face and dilated eyes raised to his.

"Steve--he's growing excited. He's wearing himself out. Go for Frank!"

Earle looked beyond her at the bed. The cheeks were crimson, the eyes half closed; through the narrowed slits they burned upward like fire. Earle turned to the doctor.

"What about it?"

"How long will it take, Mr. Earle?"

"Two hours."

"Yes--I should go--right away!"

Earle crossed the room to the nurse sitting beside the bed. "It won't matter?" he asked. "It won't excite him?"

She shook her head.

He sank on his knees beside the bed, his big arm braced over the heaving little chest, his eyes drinking in the light in those narrowed unseeing ones.

The lips were incredibly hot.

"Old scout!" he choked in the little ear.

He did not look at the faces as he hurried out of the room, nor back at the building when he jumped into his car. He roared through the city, into the silent country. He glimpsed the stone mileposts flash past. He glanced now and then at the clock in the front of the car. He had set an almost impossible time. But he was halfway home at midnight. As he rounded a sharp curve his lights flashed on something far ahead in the road--a hog or perhaps a prowling dog. It sprang aside into the bushes. He passed the spot with a roar.

Behind him Frank leaped back into the road, and stood for a moment staring after the car. He had gotten a glimpse, a whiff--he had thought he knew it. But that car was going the wrong way. He must have been mistaken. Wearily he turned and galloped on toward the city.

He had come many miles. He had many miles yet to go. From sleeping farmhouses dogs bayed him as he passed, running like a big fox, silent and swift. The road turned and twisted among hills and small mountains. Ahead in the sky was a glow unlike the glow of coming day. It grew brighter with the passing miles. It drew him on. The distance would have meant little to him, except for the tremendous speed at which he had been travelling. Now his chest was flecked with foam. His tail, carried usually so proudly, followed the curve of his haunches. His overstrained muscles worked mechanically like pistons. His heart pounded his long, lean red ribs.

Dizzy, almost famished, he came at last to the top of a hill and stopped, ears erect. Below him stretched rows of twinkling lights that, all together, made up the glow in the sky. That was the city with the strange building into which they had carried Tommy Earle!

He could afford to rest, now that he was so near. To the side of the road grew bushes to which coolness and moisture clung. Sides heaving, he scraped his back against them, his heavy tail wagging with inward satisfaction, the glow from those distant lights reflected dimly in his eyes. Then he sank down on his stomach, panting out loud in the sultry stillness.

A roar, a blinding glare were upon him before he sprang wildly to his feet. The wind rushed past as the car flashed by. He glimpsed Earle's tense face.

Again he dashed after the rear light--again it drew away from him. He left the road again--just behind the car. Once more it was leaving him. In his desperation he began to bark as he ran. Above the roar his frantic, enraged yelps pierced the night. He heard the crunching of brakes.

"Frank!" cried the man.

The door was flung open. He jumped in and up on the padded seat. The car swished smoothly and swiftly over black, moist, oily streets, past interminable lights. Every muscle of the dog began to quiver. He looked with shining eyes into his master's face, choked, and swallowed.

Suddenly he rose on the seat, feet together. Down the street had come the smell, unlike any that rises from woods or fields, the smell he would never forget. It drew closer. The car turned in toward the curb. Earle spoke quickly. But the dog had leaped over the door of the car and landed in the middle of the sidewalk. He took the steps three at a time. Down the dim, silent corridor floated the pungent smell. Earle was at his side, had caught him by the mane, had opened the door, was holding him back.

"Steady, old man!" he said. "Steady!"

They hurried together down the shining hall. They turned into a strange room. Over there, lips parted, his mistress had sprung to her feet. There were others in here--a man, a woman in white--but he hardly saw them. For on white sheets, face upturned and crimson, eyes half closed, lay little Tommy Earle.

The mother was on her knees now, leaning far over the boy. Her face was flushed like his face. She was smiling down eagerly into the strange, up-turning eyes. "Look!" she was pleading. "Look at Mother, darling. Be quiet--listen! Here's Frank--come to see you!"

She caught the dog convulsively to her, so close he could feel the pounding of her heart. "Help me, Steve!" she panted.

She picked the boy's hand up and placed it on the shaggy head. She pressed the little fingers together. She slipped her arm under the pillow and turned the burning face toward the dog. "Now!" she smiled. "You see him, don't you, dear! Mother told you he would come, didn't she? Mother told you---- Ah!" she gasped.