1. I knew nothing more about myself until I slowly waked in a warm room, and saw many strange faces round me. "Oh, thank God!" cried a voice near me, "the poor man is getting better."
 
2. "What is the matter?" said I, for I seemed not to know what all the fuss was about.
 
"Here, my dear sir, drink this," said a voice, and a cup of steaming hot coffee was placed at my lips.
 
3. I drank it slowly, and then all that[Pg 46] I had gone through rushed into my mind. "What is the time?" I asked of the person who had given me the hot coffee. He held my pulse, and I thought that he was a doctor.
 
4. "Within ten minutes of midnight," was the answer. "And it has taken hours to bring you round. I was almost giving you up for dead."
 
"You found me on the moor¹?"
 
5. "Yes, half buried in the snow. You may thank your dog for your life."
 
"My dog? I have no dog," said I, for I did not think of my poor friend at the moment.
 
6. "Yes; if it had not been for his faithful barking and howling, we should not have set out to seek you. My wife heard him, and she said that some one must be lost on the moor.
 
7. "The dog guided us to the shed. He had kept your face clear of snow by licking it, and had kept a little warmth in your body by lying on it; if he had not, you would now have been dead. We dug you out, and brought you here."[Pg 47]
 
8. I thanked the doctor for his goodness, but my mind was chiefly fixed² on that other friend, who was not dumb, for he had spoken for me after his own plan.
 
9. How great a reward he had given me for a few bones and a friendly word!
 
"Where is he now?" I asked in an eager tone.
 
"Who?—the dog? Oh, he is tied up in the stable.
 
10. "He was so much in the way, and did so much to hinder us by his attempts to show his fondness for you, that we h............