“There are such things as rabid coyotes, aren’t there?  Just—­do you know how they act, and how a person could tell when something has caught the disease from them?”

“I think I may safely assert that there undoubtedly are rabid coyotes in the country.  As a matter of fact, and speaking relatively, they have been, and probably still are, somewhat of a menace to stock running abroad without a herder amply provided with the means of protecting his charge.  At the same time I may point with pardonable pride to the concerted action of both State and Stock Association to rid the country of these pests.  So far we feel highly gratified at the success which has attended our efforts.  I gravely doubt whether you would now find, in this whole county, a single case of infection.  But on the other hand, I could not, of course, venture to state unqualifiedly that there may not be certain isolated cases—­”

“Pat!  Do stop that growling!  What ails you, anyway?  I never saw him act that way before.  I wonder if he could possibly be—­” She looked at Sommers questioningly.

“Infected?” he finished for her understandingly.  “As a matter of fact, that may be possible, though I should not consider it altogether probable.  Since the period of incubation varies from three weeks to six months, as in man, the dog may possibly have been infected before coming into your possession.  If that were true, you would have no means of discovering the fact until he exhibits certain premonitory symptoms, which may or may not form in themselves conclusive evidence of the presence of the disease.”

Helen May got up from the rock and moved away, eyeing Pat suspiciously.  Pat got up and followed her, keeping a watchful eye on Sommers.

“What are the symptoms, for gracious sake?” she demanded fretfully, worried beyond caring how she chose her words for Holman Sommers.  “His eyes look queer, don’t you think?”

“Since you ask me, and since the subject is not one to be dismissed lightly, I will say that I have been studying the dog’s attitude with some slight measure of concern,” Holman Sommers admitted guardedly.  “The suffused eyeball is sometimes found in the premonitory stage of the disease, after incubation has progressed to a certain degree.  Also irritability, nervousness, and depression are apt to be present.  Has the dog exhibited any tendency toward sluggishness, Miss Stevenson?”

“Well, he’s been lying around most of the time to-day,” Helen May confessed, staring at Pat apprehensively.  “Of course, there hasn’t been anything much for him to do.  But he certainly does act queer, just since you came.”

Holman Sommers spoke with the prim decision of a teacher instructing a class, but that seemed to be only his way, and Helen May was growing used to it.  “His evidencing a tendency toward sluggishness to-day, and his subsequent irritability, may or may not be significant of an abnormality.  If, however, the dog progresses to the stage of hyperaesthesia, and the muscles of deglutition become extremely rigid, so that he cannot swallow, convulsions will certainly follow.  There will also appear in the mouth and throat a secretion of thick, viscid mucus, with thickened saliva, which will be an undubitable proof of rabies.”