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. This time he gained southern Oregon
before he was caught and returned. Always, as soon as he received his
liberty, he fled away, and always he fled north. He was possessed of an
obsession that drove him north. The homing instinct, Irvine called it,
after he had expended the selling price of a sonnet in getting the
animal back from northern Oregon.
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