The Incredible Journey

And yet he must have something more concrete than this to offer the Hunters tomorrow—if not a hope, at least a clear-cut finality.

He pressed his aching head into his hands and forced himself to set his thoughts out rationally: animals just did not vanish into thin air, so there must be some reasonable explanation for their disappearance, some clue as obvious and simple as the day-today pattern of their lives. A half-buried recollection stirred uneasily in his memory, but he could not identify it.

It was growing dark, and he switched on a lamp and moved over to light the fire. The silence in the room was oppressive. As he put a match to the kindling and watched the flames leap up, he thought of the last time he had sat by it: saw again a pair of dreaming sapphire eyes in their proud masked setting; tenanted his armchair with a luxuriously sprawling white form; and returned to the shadowy corner its listening, grieving ghost.…

Again the half-submerged memory distracted him: Luath’s eyes … some difference in the pattern of his behavior … Luath’s behavior on the last morning, the gesture of his unexpected paw … With a sudden flash of insight, he understood at last.

The door opened and he turned to Mrs. Oakes. “I know now—I know where they have gone,” he said slowly. “Luath has taken them home—he has taken them all back to his own home!”

Mrs. Oakes looked at him in incredulous silence for a moment, then “No!” she burst out impulsively. “No—they couldn’t do that! It’s not possible—why, it must be nearly three hundred miles! And someone would have seen them—someone would have told us …” She broke off, dismayed, remembering that neither dog wore a collar. The terrier would carry no identifying marks, either, as he had been registered in England.

“They wouldn’t be where anyone would see them,” said Longridge thoughtfully. “Traveling by instinct, they would simply go west by the most direct route—straight across country, over the Ironmouth Range.”

“Over the Ironmouth?” echoed Mrs. Oakes in horror. “Then there’s no use hoping any more, if you’re right,” she said flatly. “There’s bears and wolves and all manner of things, and if they weren’t eaten up the first day they’d starve to death.”

She looked so stricken and forlorn that Longridge suggested there was a good chance that they had been befriended by some remote prospector or hunter; perhaps, he enlarged, even now making his way to a telephone.…

But Mrs. Oakes was inconsolable.

“Don’t let’s fool ourselves any more, Mr. Longridge,” she broke in. “I daresay a young dog could cross that country, and possibly even a cat—for there’s nothing like a cat to look after itself—but you know as well as I do that old Bodger couldn’t last ten miles! He used to be tired out after I’d walked him to my sister’s and back. Oh, I know that half of it was put on to get something out of me,” she admitted with a watery smile, catching Longridge’s eye, “but it’s a fact. No dog as old as that could go gallivanting across a wilderness and live for more than a day or two.”

Her words fell away into a silence and they both looked out at the ominous dusk.

“You’re right, Mrs. Oakes,” said Longridge wearily at last. “We’ll just have to face it—the old fellow is almost certainly dead. After all, it’s been nearly four weeks. And I wouldn’t give a candle for Tao’s chances either,” he added, “if we’re going to be honest. Siamese can’t stand the cold. But if they did make for their own home there’s a chance at least that a big powerful dog like Luath would get there.”

“That Luath!” said Mrs. Oakes darkly. “Leading that gentle old lamb to his death! And that unnatural cat egging him on, no doubt. Not that I ever had any favorites, but …”

The door shut, and Longridge knew that behind it she wept for them all.

Now that Longridge had his conviction to work on he wasted no time.

He called the Chief Ranger of Lands and Forests, and received assurance that word would be circulated throughout the department, and the game wardens and foresters contacted—tomorrow.

The Chief Ranger suggested calling a local bush pilot, who flew hunters into the remoter parts of the bush and knew most of the Indian guides.

The pilot was out on a trip and would not return until tomorrow; his wife suggested the editor of the rural section of the local newspaper.

The editor was still not back from covering a plowing match; his mother said that the hydro maintenance crew covered a large area of the country.…

The Line Superintendent said that he would be able to get in touch with the crews in the morning; he suggested the rural telephone supervisor, who was a clearinghouse of information for miles around.…

Everyone was sympathetic and helpful—but he was no farther on. He postponed the probable frustration of hearing that the supervisor would not be back from visiting her niece across the river until tomorrow, or that a storm had swept all the rural lines down, and searched for a map of the area.