The smell of every plant on the crag was there; the
odors of leather, of paint, of wood, of iron, from the crafts shops
at the base. Smoke from chimneys in the valley was mixed with the
strong scent of horses, hay and grain from the street of King's
Stables. There was the smell of furry rodents, of nesting birds, of
gushing springs, of the earth itself, and something more ancient
still, as of burned-out fires in the Huge mass of trap-rock.
Everything warned Bobby to lie still in safety until morning and
the world was restored to its normal aspects. But ah! in the
highest type of man and dog, self-sacrifice, and not
self-preservation, is the first law. A deserted grave cried to him
across the void, the anguish of protecting love urged him on to
take perilous chances. Falling upon a narrow shelf of rock, he had
bounded off and into a thicket of thorns. Bruised and shaken and
bewildered, he lay there for a time and tried to get his bearings.
Bobby knew only that the way was downward. He put out a paw and
felt for the edge of the shelf. A thorn bush rooted below tickled
his nose. He dropped into that and scrambled out again. Loose earth
broke under his struggles and carried him swiftly down to a new
level. He slipped in the wet moss of a spring before he heard the
tinkle of the water, lost his foothold, and fell against a sharp
point of rock. The shadowy spire of a fir-tree looming in a parting
of the vapor for an instant, Bobby leaped to the ledge upon which
it was rooted.
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