Explore "The Country Beyond" by James Oliver Curwood on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was the restlessness of Peter that roused Jolly Roger. Half awake, and before he opened his eyes, life seized upon him where sleep had cut it off for a time last night. His muscles ached. His neck was stiff. He seemed weighted like a log to the hard earth. Swiftly the experience of the preceding hours rushed upon him, and it was in the first of this wakefulness that he felt the presence of Peter.
He sat up and stared wide-eyed at the dog. The fact that Peter had escaped from the cabin, and had followed him, was not altogether amazing. It was quite the natural thing for a one-man dog to do. But the unexpectedness of it held McKay speechless, and at first a little disappointed. It was as if Peter had deliberately betrayed a trust. During the storm and flight of the night McKay had thought of him as the one connecting link remaining between him and the girl he loved. He had left Peter to fill his place, to guard and watch and keep alive the memory of the man who was gone. For him there had been something of consolation in this giving up of his comradeship to Nada. And Peter had turned traitor.