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time I went near, the stink of it turned my guts. My Mammy hated it as well. We would hatch plots to get rid of it, but it never happened. The thing lived to be sixteen years old.’
    â€˜This dog is different. Look at him! He has no wish to sit in a lap – not yours or mine.’
    â€˜That changes nothing. He is already half in love with you. See!’
    The dog was gazing at Fanny with naked adoration, lying on his stomach, damaged paws stretched in front, his head resting on his forelegs. His tail did the slow wag that was already becoming a familiar trademark.
    â€˜And I with him,’ sighed Fanny. ‘You speak of need. What I see is a creature satisfied with so very little it wrings my heart.’
    â€˜He has a home already. He can find it readily enough if you reject him now.’
    â€˜I think not.’ Fanny examined the paws again. ‘When we travelled the Trail, our dogs walked alongside us, those thousands of miles. Their feet were never sore. This one has been kept confined, probably tied up, as a guard perhaps. Now he has escaped, for some reason we can never know, and walked a very long way. It could be that he hopes to return east, where he remembers people who loved him. A girl, I suspect, like me. It could even be that for a second, back there by the river, he believed me to be his lost mistress. Oh, Carrie, can you not accept him? He wants only the most simple attentions to be happy.’
    â€˜Sentiment!’ scoffed Carola, but her voice was low and shaky.
    â€˜Genuine feeling,’ Fanny corrected. ‘And I assure you, he will prove worthy of our kindness. I have no doubt he can be savage when he likes. He will be our protector – something you said we needed. It is almost as if he was sent to us by God, who saw our need. It strikes me that we are the ones to benefit from adopting him.’
    â€˜I fear God has scant time for two such sinners as us.’
    â€˜God loves sinners above all others,’ said Fanny softly, remembering her Catholic girlhood. ‘He has not done with us yet.’
    â€˜Well, if His idea of a blessing is to deliver a great beast like this into our hands, then I hate to think what a curse might be.’
    Fanny laughed, rather longer and louder than was sincere. Carola’s passion had alarmed her, the danger of real conflict suddenly apparent for the first time. While still unresolved, she had a sense that her own wishes might well prevail if she trod cautiously. ‘We will keep him in the back yard, by the privy,’ she said. ‘He must have a kennel there.’
    â€˜A kennel the size of a small house, then. I never saw such a huge dog in my life.’
    Fanny blinked. She had won already! Victory had come more swiftly than she had dared hope. ‘So you will permit it?’ she asked. ‘Really?’
    â€˜I see no way of persuading you out of it. Or him,’ she added ruefully.
    Fanny flung her arms around the other girl. ‘Oh, Carrie. I bless the day I found you. I do truly. Without you…’ she choked at the thought.
    Carola patted her back, then pushed her away. ‘We need to go marketing, before all the meat is gone,’ was all she said.

Chapter Four
    They named him Hugo, on account of his hugeness. His devotion to Fanny increased by the hour, as did his size – or so it seemed. ‘He is a youngster,’ Fanny realised. ‘Perhaps not yet full grown.’
    â€˜Lord preserve us!’ groaned Carola. ‘It’s like a bad dream, where a creature swells and swells until it occupies every morsel of free space.’
    The dog’s feet were washed and salved, and soon recovered. Fanny made a point of taking him out for exercise every afternoon, watching him run free, never in any doubt that he would return to her call. The townspeople came to know him, reacting in a variety of ways to his size and manner. He would bare his teeth at men in a rictus that seemed