A few urgent bounds carried her to the mouth of the cave.  Two more steps, and the events of the last half-hour lay plain before her eyes.  Two of her puppies lay dead, and in the throat of one of them there still were fastened the teeth of their slayer:  a full-grown, tawny-coated stoat.  The blood-drinking stoat was of no greater length than one of Desdemona’s low-hanging ears, yet without the smallest flicker of hesitation the terrible little beast wheeled about to attack the bereaved mother of his quarry.  With bared fangs—­flecked now with blood—­the stoat crouched, breathing quite fearless defiance.

For the moment Desdemona gave no thought to the stoat, but lowered her massive head to the inspection of the dead puppy which lay nearest.  In that moment the fearless stoat saw his chance.  Brave though he was—­and no creature is more brave—­the stoat did not court death; and so, like a yellow snake, he slid out of the cave and down the steep slope beyond.  But, being fearless, he halted when he came to the remains of Desdemona’s rabbit.  Fresh-killed meat was something he could not pass, even though the investigation should cost him his life.

In the cave, a very few seconds showed Desdemona that two of her pups were dead.  A frantically hurried licking sufficed to assure her that the remaining three were unhurt.  And then, the fire of judgment in her red-brown eyes, she swept out from the cave on the trail of her enemy.  In three bounds she reached the stoat, who was perfectly prepared now to fight an elephant for possession of the half-rabbit he had found.  The tiny creature did, as a fact, draw blood, with one slashing bite, from Desdemona’s muzzle.  And then he died (snarling defiance), his spine smashed through in two places between the bloodhound’s powerful jaws.

Without a moment’s pause, after completing this act of vengeance, Desdemona hurried back to her young.  With a fine effort of will she ignored the two corpses and settled herself down, as though thoroughly at ease in mind and body, to the task of suckling her three remaining youngsters.  It is worth noting that, whereas a tithe of the strain and shock she had sustained during the past hour would have made worse than useless the ministrations of a human nursing mother, there was no fault in the quality of this particular meal taken by the puppies, nor any momentary imperfection about the manner in which it was made available to them, or the way in which they were washed and groomed after it, and disposed for their nap.

That Desdemona was none the less acutely conscious of her bereavement is proved by the fact that, so soon as her three full-fed pups were asleep, she rose very deftly and carefully, and drew out to the mouth of the cave the body of the puppy at whose throat she had found the stoat.  Depositing the limp little body upon the chalky ledge before the cave, Desdemona regarded it mournfully, sitting on her haunches the while, her muzzle pointing earthward, her splendid brow deeply wrinkled—­a true bloodhound.