The Dog Who Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat

gravel. He was so cold that he no longer even complained, and we recognized this as a bad sign, for when Mutt could not complain he was near the last extremity.
    The dawn, when it came at last, was gray and somber. The sky lightened so imperceptibly thatwe could hardly detect the coming of the morning. Father and I strained our eyes over the wind-driven water and then, suddenly, we heard the sound of wings. Cold was forgotten. We crouched in the flooded holes and flexed our numb fingers in their shooting gloves.
    Father saw them first. He nudged me sharply and I half turned my head to behold a spectacle of incomparable grandeur. Out of the gray storm scud, like ghostly ships, a hundred whistling swans drove down upon us on their heavy wings. They passed directly overhead, not half a gunshot from us, and we were lost beyond time and space in a moment of unparalleled majesty and mystery. Then they were gone, and the snow eddies once again obscured our straining vision.
    It would not have mattered greatly after that if we had seen no other living thing all day, nor fired a single shot. But the swans were only the leaders of a multitude. The windy silence of the mud spit was soon pierced by the sonorous cries of seemingly endless flocks of geese that drifted wraithlike overhead. They were flying low that day, so we could see them clearly. Snow geese, startlingly white of breast, with jet-black wing tips, beat past the point, and small bands of waveys kept formationwith them like outriders. The honkers came close behind, and as the rush of air through their great pinions sounded harsh above the wind, Father and I stood up and raised our guns. A flight came low directly over us, and we fired as one. The sound of the shots seemed puny, and was lost at once in that immensity of wind and water.
    It was pure mischance that one of the birds was hit, for, as we admitted to each other later, neither of us had really aimed at those magnificent gray presences. Nevertheless, one of them fell, appearing gigantic and primeval in the tenuous light as it spiraled sharply down. It struck the water a hundred yards from shore and we saw with dismay that it had only been winged, for it swam off at once, with neck outthrust, after the vanishing flock.
    We ran to the shore, and we were frantic. It was not entirely the prospect of losing the goose that distracted us; rather it was the knowledge that we could not leave that great bird to perish slowly amidst the gathering ice. We had no boat. Paul had promised to return after dawn with a little dugout; but there was no sign of him, and the goose was now swimming strongly toward the outer limit of our vision.
    We had quite forgotten Mutt. We were astounded when he suddenly appeared beside us, cast onebrief glance at the disappearing bird, and leaped into the bitter waters.
    To this day I have no idea what prompted him. Perhaps it was because the goose, being very large, seemed more worthy of his efforts than any duck had ever been. Perhaps he was simply so cold and miserable that the death wish was on him. But I do not really believe either of these explanations. I think my mother was right, and that from somewhere in his inscrutable ancestry a memory had at long last come to life.
    The snow flurries had grown heavier and Mutt and the goose soon vanished from our view. We waited through interminable minutes, and when he did not reappear we began to be frightened for him. We called, but if he heard us down the wind, he did not respond. At length Father ran off down the mud spit to seek Paul and the boat, leaving me alone with a growing certainty that I had seen my dog for the last time.
    The relief was almost overwhelming when, some minutes later, I caught a glimpse of Mutt returning out of the lowering scud. He was swimming hard, but the wind and seas were against him and it was some time before I could see him clearly. He had the goose firmly by one wing, butthe honker was fighting fiercely. It seemed