A DOG OF FLANDERS. 158

the trail of the boy’s footsteps was
almost obliterated. It took Patrasche
long to discover any scent. When
at last he found it, it was lost again
quickly, and lost and recovered, and
again lost and again recovered a
hundred times or more.

The night was very wild. The
lamps under the wayside crosses
were blown out; the roads were
sheets of ice; the impenetrable
darkness hid every trace of habita-
tions; there was no living thing
abroad. All the cattle’-were housed,
and in all the huts and homesteads
men and women rejoiced and feasted.
There was only Patrasche out in the
cruel cold— old and famished and
full of pain, but with the strength