stride of the big body. The eyes were bloodshot. From the mouth
and the hanging dewlaps, flecks of foam dropped now and then to
the ground.

The big mongrel was sick of mind and of body. He craved only to
get out of that abode of men and to find solitude in the forests
and hills beyond the village.

For this is the considerate way of dogs; and of cats as well.
When dire sickness smites them, they do not hang about, craving
sympathy and calling for endless attention. All they want is to
get out of the way,--well out of the way, into the woods and
swamps and mountains; where they may wrestle with their
life-or-death problem in their own primitive manner; and where,
if need be, they may die alone and peacefully, without troubling
anyone else.

Especially is this true with dogs. If their malady is likely to
affect the brain and to turn them savage, they make every
possible attempt to escape from home and to be as far away from
their masters as may be, before the crisis shall goad them into
attacking those they love.

And, when some such suffering beast is seen, on his way to
solitude, we humans prove our humanity by raising the idiotic
bellow of "Mad dog!" and by chasing and torturing the victim. All
this, despite proof that not one sick dog in a thousand, thus
assailed, has any disease which is even remotely akin to rabies.

Next to vivisection, no crime against helpless animals is so