The nest thing he knew, the very gray morning light of the sun barely rising was hitting the top of his tent. Larry's eyelids slammed open with the memories of the night before when everyone else had been asleep, and the injured dog had come......the memories flooded into his head one after the other beginning with the big muzzle sniffing at him through the tent.
He sat up very quickly to see if his new found friend was still sleeping by the door of his tent. He could not tell, it was still a bit too dark, so he crawled over and unzipped the tent to take a look.
Sure enough, there he was, bigger than he had looked the night before in the dark. He could see now that he must have been out here for quite a long time, for his fur was very dirty, and there were stickers that looked like they had actually grown into his fur. Where his missing leg had been cut off, the old scars where scabs had been were very dirty also. The poor thing, Larry thought to himself, and he wondered how someone could have lost him out here.
This is exactly what he had feared would possibly happen to him, some big accident, getting lost, and not being able to find his way back to the scout camp. How strange that this parallel story with the dog had crossed his path. The very thing that had him worried about happening to him had indeed happened to this dog. This almost proved that what he feared could happen to someone out here.
He crawled out and made the dog move over and sat down next to him and the dog did move, and then crawled over whining a good morning to him and put his head into his lap, wanting to be petted some more like he had the night before.
Larry let him crawl into his lap even though the dirt on the animal was horrible, and stroked his head gently.
Suddenly, he was aware of the sound of the zipper of the tent next to him being unzipped, and then another down a little further. It was the second one that changed everything. It was the zipper of the Scoutmaster's tent. It was the next thing he heard that made his blood chill.
The Scout Leader crawled out of his tent, stood up, and stared straight at Larry and the dog. He said, "Larry, do not move a muscle. I am going to get my gun out of the car, for that has got to be, by far, the biggest wolf I have ever seen in my life." With that he turned slowly and walked to his car.
Larry's mind was racing, no, no, he couldn't let this happen. The dog hadn't done anything wrong, and Larry couldn't let him get killed for a mistake he had made. Surely he wouldn't take a shot at him right there with him in his lap. He would just keep him there until he could talk him out of it, he just had to.
The Scout Leader came back, with the rifle pointed in the direction of the wolf. He said to Larry, "Now I want you to stand up very slowly and move over to your right, towards that tree." he said.
"No, don't do it, he isn't dangerous, or at least he hasn't been the least bit mean with me. Please don't kill him."
"OK, here is what will happen, and you will listen to me very carefully Larry. You will get up as I instructed you. As long as the wolf shows no aggression or doesn't leap at anyone, and just goes back into the woods nothing will happen, alright?
"OK, and here I go, don't shoot him though...."
Larry gave ol three legs a final pat on his head, and slip out from under the huge animal. The wold got up, and shook off, and looked at everyone looking at him, and then back up at Larry.
"It's OK boy, it will be ok, " and he reached over and scratched him behind the ear once more, "Now go on, get".
The wolf sensed his tone of voice, and backed up and around the tent and dissapeared into the woods from where he had come.
Everyone was just standing there looking at Larry, and could hardly believe what had just happened. Larry felt their eyes burning holes into him, and dove back into his tent.
