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How Don Was Saved
by
“Don mustn’t be shot, Uncle!” he said desperately. “I’ll chain him up all the time.”
“And have him howling night and day as if we had a brood of banshees about the place?” said Mr. Locksley sarcastically. He was a stern man with little sentiment in his nature and no understanding whatever of Curtis’s affection for Don. The Bayside people said that Arnold Locksley had always been very severe with his nephew. “No, no, Curtis, you must look at the matter sensibly. The dog is a nuisance and must be shot. You can’t keep him shut up forever, and, if he has once learned the trick of sheep-worrying, he will never forget it. You can get another dog if you must have one. I’ll get Charles Pippey to come and shoot Don tomorrow. No sulking now, Curtis. You are too big a boy for that. Tie the dog up for the night and then go and put the calves in. There is a storm coming. The wind is blowing hard from the northeast now.”
His uncle walked away, leaving the boy white and miserable in the yard. He looked at Don, who sat on his haunches and returned his gaze frankly and open-heartedly. He did not look like a guilty dog. Could it be possible that he had really worried those sheep?
“I’ll never believe it of you, old fellow!” Curtis said, as he led the dog into a corner of the carriage house and tied him up there. Then he flung himself down on a pile of sacks beside him and buried his face in Don’s curly black fur. The boy felt sullen, rebellious and wretched.
He lay there until dark, thinking his own bitter thoughts and listening to the rapidly increasing gale. Finally he got up and flung off after the calves, with Don’s melancholy howls at finding himself deserted ringing in his ears.
He’ll be quiet enough tomorrow night, thought Curtis wretchedly, as he went upstairs to bed after housing the calves. For a long while he lay awake, but finally dropped into a heavy slumber which lasted until his aunt called him for milking.
The wind was blowing more furiously than ever. Up over the fields came the roar and crash of the surges on the outside shore. The Harbour to the east of Bayside was rough and stormy.
They were just rising from breakfast when Will Barrie burst into the kitchen.
“The Amy Reade is ashore on Gleeson’s rocks!” he shouted. “Struck there at daylight this morning! Come on, Curt!”
Curtis sprang for his cap, his uncle following suit more deliberately. As the two boys ran through the yard, Curtis heard Don howling.
“I’ll take him with me!” he muttered. “Wait a minute, Will.”
The Harbour road was thronged with people hurrying to the outside shore, for the news of the Amy Readers disaster had spread rapidly. As the boys, with the rejoicing Don at their heels, pelted along, Sam Morrow overtook them in a cart and told them to jump in. Sam had already been down to the shore and had gone back to tell his father. As they jolted along, he screamed information at them over the shriek of the gale.
“Bad business, this! She’s pounding on a reef ’bout a quarter of a mile out. They’re sure she’s going to break up–old tub, you know–leaky–rotten. The sea’s tremenjus high, and the surfs going dean over her. There can’t be no boat launched for hours yet–they’ll all be drowned. Old Paul’s down there like a madman–offering everything he’s got to the man who’ll save Oscar, but it can’t be done.”
By this time they had reached the shore, which was black with excited people. Out on Gleeson’s Reef the ill-fated little schooner was visible amid the flying spray. A grizzled old Harbour fisherman, to whom Sam shouted a question, shook his head.
“No, can’t do nothin’! No boat c’d live in that surf f’r a moment. The schooner’ll go to pieces mighty soon, I’m feared. It’s turrible! turrible! to stan’ by an’ watch yer neighbours drown like this!”