The elation of the doctor over his escape from the toils of the thieves was not of long duration. His breakfast was interrupted by a call to the telephone and over the wires came to his startled ears a hollow "knock, knock--knock; knock, knock--knock." At his office door down town softly came "tap, tap--tap; tap, tap--tap," and snatch the door open as hastily as he might, he saw nothing, heard nothing, heard nothing but the electric bells on the floors above and floors below calling for the elevator: "buzz, buzz--buzz; buzz, buzz--buzz." He walked along State Street at the busy hour of noon and all about him in the throngs was the dull impact of canes upon the pavement, "thud, thud--thud; thud, thud--thud." As he rode home in the street car at nightfall, back of him in the train at street corner after corner he heard passengers jingle the bell for stopping, "ding, ding--ding; ding, ding--ding."
Although Dr. McDill was a man of great native resolution and intrepid in the face of known and seen dangers, the horrors of the invisible forces of death everywhere surrounding him so wore at his soul that he returned down town and spent the night at a hotel. On the morrow, he severely condemned himself for this yielding to fear, for on the front steps of his house lay the dead form of his great watch dog, Jacques. There were evidences of a struggle in which the assailants had not been unscathed. Bits of cloth lay about and examining the stains of blood that plentifully blotched the walk, he discovered that some of it was human blood.
"Ah," he said, in deep self-reproach, "if I had stayed here as I should, I would have been able to fight with poor Jacques and brought low some of my enemies. How easily I could have fired from the upper windows as Jacques made their presence known. It is evident that the noise of the struggle was so great that the fiends were afraid to continue the attack and ran away."
Philosophers and poets have found a theme for dissertation in the fact that the dog leaves his own kindred to dwell with man and fights them in behalf of his master. It has ever seemed to me that this were but half of the tale, for full many a man loves his dog better than the rest of mankind, and so the devotion of the race of dogs finds return and recompense. Outside his own family, there was no living thing in the city of Chicago which had so dwelt in the affections of Dr. McDill as the dog Jacques. Of the truth of this, he had had but dim realization until now and he was like to burst with sorrow and with hatred of the vile beings who had marked him and his for slaughter. Lifting the stiff form of his humble comrade, for the first time did he observe a poniard thrust in the poor beast's throat. The blade impaled a piece of paper and upon it was written the word "Knock."
