“There on the cabin porch, on three legs, stood the living skeleton of what had been a mighty coonhound.” The hound could use only one side of his face. The arm of and shoulder of Sounder faced immobilization. “Half the voice of the man was gone too, so in slow, measured, stuttering he told how he had been caught in a dynamite blast in the prison quarry, how the dead side had been crushed under an avalanche of limestone, and how he had been missed for a whole night in a search for dead and wounded.” Both Sounder and the father crippled from tragic events. Their injuries occurred in similar locations. The father’s voice quieted after losing half of his body to the avalanche. Sounder never howled until he spotted his master on the road. Their