DOG HEROISM

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 175, 28 August 1909, Page 3

DOG HEROISM

A PATHETIC INCIDENT. GUARDING HIS MASTER'S ruomiti. it is a touching story of canine fidelity which Mr. Enos A, Mills telle oi lus dog "Scotch''' hi the ihnliiug aiury, "Wild Life oil tile Rockies."

Master and dog had been out on a four days' excursion 011 the bleak inuuu- 1 taw tops, when a little above umber hue Mr. Mil.s stopped to take some photographs. To do this he had to take oil' his sheepskin mittens, which he placed in his coat pocket, but not securely, as it proved. He goes on: iuom time to time, as t v-innbed the summit ot the coiuinenial divide, 1 ntopped to take photographs, but on the summit the cold pierced my silk gloves, and 1 felt for my milieus, to Jind that one of them was lost.

1 stopped, put my arm round Scotch,| and told him L had lost a mitten, and I that 1 wanted him to go down lor it In save me- trouble and a tiring climb. Instead oi starling oil willingly, as he had invariably done before, 111 obedience to my commands, lie stood still. 1 Uiougnt he had misunderstood, me, so i patted him, and then, pointing do\v:i the slope, said: "Go lor the mitten, Scotch. I will wait lor you here." At the same time i showed liini the other mitten.

lie started for it but went unwillingly. He had always served 111 csu cheerfully that 1 could not understand, and it was not until late the -next afternoon that 1 realised that he had not under-1 stood me, but that he had loyally, and| at the jisk of his life, tried to obey me. | My cabin, eighteen miles away, wasthe nearest house, and the region was, utterly wild and desolate. | 1 waited a reasonable time for him to return, but lie did not come back. As it was late in the afternoon and growing colder, I decided to go on towards my cabin, along a route thai I felt sure Scotch would follow, and I reasoned that he would overtax me before very long. When midnight arrived and he had not put in an appearance, I felt convinced something was wrong. 1 slept lor two hours, and then decided to go to meet him.

The thermometer showed 14 degrees below zero. I kept 011 going, and at two o'clock in the afternoon, twentyfour hours after I had sent the poor animal back for the lost mitten, 1 paused 011 a crag and looked below. There, in the snowy world of white, he lay close l.eside the mitten in the snow. lie had misunderstood me, and had gone back, to guard the mitten instead of to fetch it.

Atxer waiting for the nearly-famished animal to eat something I had brought lor him, we started merrily towards my temporarily solitary home in the wild mountains, where we arrived at one o'clock in the morning.'

Had I not returned, I suppose poor Scotch would have perished beside the mitten.

In a region of Arctic coldness and rigor, without food or shelter, and perhaps to die. the faithful animal had 'ain down by the mitten which he had been told about, to guard it until relieved of his charge, because lie had under* stood that was what he had been to'd to do.

In the annals of faithful, self-sacri-ficing dog heroism, I know of no more striking instance of devotion to duty and implicit obedience to the commands of his master.