The Incredible Journey

Two days later he caught up with the dogs. He came out on the crest of a hill forming one side of a valley, where a small stream meandered between alder-grown banks. Across the valley, clearly discernible among the bare trees on the opposite slope, he saw two familiar and beloved golden and white figures. His tail switched in excitement; he opened his mouth and uttered a plaintive, compelling howl. The two figures on the hill opposite stopped dead in their tracks, listening to the unbelievable sound as it echoed around the quiet valley. The cat leaped on to an overhanging rock, and as the hollow, raucous howl went ringing back and forth again the dogs turned questioningly, their eyes straining to seek the reality of the call. Then the young dog barked frenziedly in recognition and plunged down the hillside and across a stream, closely followed by the old dog. Now the cat began to run too, bounding like a mad thing down the hill, and they met on the banks of the little stream.

The old dog nearly went out of his mind with excitement: he covered the cat with frantic licking; twice he knocked him over with his eager thrusting head; then, carried away with enthusiasm, he started on the same tight intricate circles that he had used on the collie, whirling nearer and nearer until he finally burst free from the circle and rushed at the cat, who ran straight up the trunk of a tree, twisted in his own length, then dropped on the back of the dog below.

All through this performance the young dog had stood by, slowly and happily swinging his tail, his brown eyes alight and expressive, until at last his turn came when the old white clown collapsed in an ecstatic panting heap. Then the Labrador walked up to the cat, who rose on his hind legs, placing black forepaws on the neck of the great dog who towered above him, gently questing at the torn ear.

It would have been impossible to find three more contented animals that night. They lay curled closely together in a hollow filled with sweet-scented needles, under an aged, spreading balsam tree, near the banks of the stream. The old dog had his beloved cat, warm and purring between his paws again, and he snored in deep contentment. The young dog, their gently worried leader, had found his charge again. He could continue with a lighter heart.

9

OVER two hundred miles now lay behind them, and as a group they were whole and intact, but of the three only the cat remained unscathed. The old dog, however, still plodded cheerfully and uncomplainingly along. It was the Labrador who was in really poor condition: his once beautiful gleaming coat was harsh and staring now, his grotesquely swollen face in horrible contrast to his gaunt frame, and the pain in his infected jaw made it almost impossible for him to open his mouth, so that he was virtually starving. The other two now allowed him first access to any newly killed and bleeding animal provided by the cat, and he lived solely on the fresh blood that could be licked from the carcass.

They had slipped into a steady routine during the day; the two dogs trotting along side by side, unconcerned and purposeful, might have seemed two family pets out for a neighborhood ramble.

They were seen like this one morning by a timber-cruising forester returning to his jeep along an old tote road deep in the Ironmouth Range. They disappeared round a bend in the distance, and, preoccupied with tree problems, he did not give them a second thought. It was with a considerable shock that he remembered them later on in the day, his mind now registering the fact that were was no human habitation within thirty miles. He told the senior forester, who roared with laughter, then asked him if he had seen any elves skipping around toadstools too?

But inevitably the time was drawing nearer when the disappearance of the animals must be uncovered, the hue and cry begin, and every glimpse or smallest piece of evidence be of value. The forester was able to turn the laugh a week later when his chance encounter was proved to be no dream.

At Heron Lake John Longridge and his brother were making plans for the last trip of the season. In England the excited Hunter family were packed in readiness for the voyage home. Mrs. Oakes was busy in the old stone house, cleaning and polishing, while her husband stacked the wood cellar.

Soon all concerned would be back where they belonged, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle being fitted together; and soon it must be discovered that three of the pieces were missing.…

Sublimely unaware of the commotion and worry, tears and heartbreak that their absence would cause, the three continued on their way.