Now Irvine was a man of impulse, a poet. He got off the train at
the next station, bought a piece of meat at a butcher shop, and
captured the vagrant on the outskirts of the town. The return trip
was made in the baggage car, and so Wolf came a second time to the
mountain cottage. Here he was tied up for a week and made love to
by the man and woman. But it was very circumspect love-making.
Remote and alien as a traveller from another planet, he snarled
down their soft-spoken love-words. He never barked. In all the
time they had him he was never known to bark.
To win him became a problem. Irvine liked problems. He had a
metal plate made, on which was stamped: RETURN TO WALT IRVINE,
GLEN ELLEN, SONOMA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. This was riveted to a
collar and strapped about the dog's neck. Then he was turned
loose, and promptly he disappeared. A day later came a telegram
from Mendocino County. In twenty hours he had made over a hundred
miles to the north, and was still going when captured.
He came back by Wells Fargo Express, was tied up three days, and
was loosed on the fourth and lost.
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