“I’d rather die, I think,” said the woman hoarsely.  “I love those dogs.”  Sheila looked up into a tender and quivering face—­the face of a mother.  “They mean something to me—­those brutes.  I guess I kind of centered my heart on ’em—­out here alone.  I raised ’em up, from puppies, all but Berg and the mother.  They were the cutest little fellows.  I remember when Wreck got porcupine quills in his nose and came to me and lay on his back and whined to me.  It was as if he said, ‘Help me, momma.’  Sure it was.  And he pretty near died.  Oh, damn!  If I have to shoot ’em I might just as well shoot myself and be done with it...Thanks, Sheila.  I’ll eat my supper here and then you can help me to bed.  When my ankle’s all well, we can have a try for the post-office, perhaps.”  She leaned back and drew Berg roughly up against her.  She caressed him.  He made little soft, throaty sounds of tenderness.

Sheila came back with a tray and, as she came, Berg pulled himself away from his mistress and went wagging over to greet her.

“Come here!” snapped Miss Blake.  Berg hesitated, cuddled close to Sheila, and kept step beside her.

Miss Blake’s eyes went red.  “Come here!” she said again.  Berg did not cringe or hasten.  He reached Miss Blake’s chair at the same instant as Sheila, not a moment earlier.

Miss Blake pulled herself up.  The tray went shattering to the floor.  She hobbled over to the fire, white with the anguish, took down the whip from its nail.  At that Berg cringed and whined.  The woman fell upon him with her terrible lash.  She held herself with one hand on the mantel-shelf, while with the other she scored the howling victim.  His fur came off his back under the dreadful, knife-edge blows.

“Oh, stop!” cried Sheila.  “Stop!  You’re killing him!” She ran over and caught Miss Blake’s arm.

“Damn you!” said the woman fiercely.  She stood breathing fast.  Sweat of pain and rage and exertion stood out on her face.  “Do you want that whip?”

She half-turned, lifting her lash, and at that, with a snarl, Berg crouched himself and bared his teeth.

Miss Blake started and stared at him.  Suddenly she gave in.  Pain and anger twisted her spirit.

“You’d turn my Berg against me!” she choked, and fell heavily down on the rug in a dead faint.

When she came to she was grim and silent.  She got herself with scant help to bed, her big bed in the corner of the living-room, and for a week she was kept there with fever and much pain.  Berg lay beside her or followed Sheila about her work, and the woman watched them both with ruddy eyes.

CHAPTER XI

THE PACK