Jesus laid his staff across their backs.  What, will ye attack Jacob, he cried, and what be your quarrel with his dogs?  Poor Syrian dogs, Jacob answered, that would be quickly killed by thine.  If I had had dogs like Gorbotha and Thema the wolves would not——­ But, Jacob, thou wouldst have lost thy dogs as well as thy sheep.  What stand could any dogs make against a pack of wolves, and a shepherd without dogs is like a bird without wings, as Brother Amos used to say.  Yes, that is just it, Jacob replied, struck by the aptness of the comparison.  Thou art known, Jesus, to be the most foreseeing shepherd on the hills; but the flock would not have increased without thy dogs.  Abdiel is great in his knowledge of dogs, and he told me that he had never known any like thine, Master.  Come now, Thema, Jesus cried.  Come, lie down here; lay thy muzzle against my knee.  And growl not at Jacob or I’ll send thee away.  So Abdiel spoke of my dogs!  They are well enough, one can work with them.  But I’ve had better dogs.  Whereupon Jesus told a story how one night he had lain under a fair sky to sleep and had slept so soundly that the rain had not wakened him, but Boreth—­that was the dog’s name—­distressed at the sight of me lying in the rain, began to lick my face, and when I had wrung out my cloak he led me to a dry cave unknown to me, though I thought I knew every one in these hills.  He must have gone in search of one as soon as it began to rain, and when he found a dry one he came back to awaken me.  More faithful dogs, he said, there never were than these at my feet, but I’ve known stronger and fiercer.  But I’d tell thee another story of Boreth, and he related how one night in December as he watched, having for his protection only Boreth (his other dogs, Anos and Torbitt, being at home, one with a lame paw, the other with puppies), he had fallen asleep, though he knew robbers were about in the hills, especially in the winter months, he said; but I knew I could count on Boreth to awake me if one came to steal the sheep.  Now what I’m about to say, Jacob, happened at the time of the great rain of December, when the nights are dark about us.  I was sleeping in a sheltered place in the coign of a cliff, the flock was folded and Boreth was away upon his rounds, and it was then that two robbers stole into the cave.  One was about to plunge his dagger into me, but I had time to catch his wrist and to whistle; and in a few seconds Boreth leapt upon the robber that was seeking to stab me.  He bit his neck and shoulder; and then, leaving that robber disabled, he attacked the robber’s mate, and it was wonderful how he crept round and round in the darkness, biting him all the time, and then pursuing the two he worried them up the valley until his heart misgave him and he thought it wouldn’t be safe to leave me alone any longer.  But Gorbotha would defend thee against a robber, Jacob said, and he called to the dog, but Gorbotha only growled at him.  Have patience with