He rose slowly and very delicately advanced a few steps: for an instant some fear seemed to strike his heart for he stopped suddenly and gazed into his master's face for reassurance.

What he saw there comforted him.

Again he wagged his tail placidly and half closed his eyes in sleepy indifference.
Then Olva, without another backward glance, left the hollow, crashed through the fern up the hill and struck the little brown path.

Bunker, the dog, pattered patiently behind him.
2 Olva Dune was twenty-three years of age.

He was of Spanish descent, and it was only within the last two generations that English blood had mingled with the Dune stock.