It was a bitter-cold night and probably more so out on Route 122 in Poland. The sheriff’s deputy was called to the dark and desolate stretch after a deer was hit by a car.

There, the distraught driver stood next to his dented vehicle. Not far from the road, they found the wounded animal twitching and quivering on the ground. The deputy crouched and saw what he had to do.

“I’ve had to shoot more deer out here than I have anywhere since I’ve been in law enforcement,” he said. “And I’ve always hated it.”

Once majestic, the deer lay on the frozen ground gasping for every breath, kicking its feet in a sorry attempt to run from the pain, and staring around in terror with wide, brown eyes.

Firing a bullet into the dying beast was the most humane thing to do. A quick death and the suffering is over with the clap of a gunshot. Otherwise, the elegant creature would die slow and freezing, attacked by scavengers as its blood ran out drop by drop.

But this is rugged Maine and the death of wildlife alone doesn’t warrant windy speeches in the local newspaper. Whether at the hands of hunters, policemen or natural enemies, woodland creatures die every day.

While the deputy was doing the unenviable along Route 122, a truck passed on the roadway above. There was a thud and a crunch. When the officer made it back to the pavement, the driver of the truck had fled and a beagle lay unmoving in the middle of the road. A beagle: the most non-threatening, happy of breeds on four legs.

“I thought, You just ran over Snoopy and you couldn’t stop long enough to move him out of the roadway?'” the deputy said. “For God’s sake, it’s Christmastime.”

Fresh from the mercy killing of the doe, the deputy was now faced with hauling somebody’s pet pooch from the road before it froze to the tar. The first order of business was to get it out of the road before the next car came whipping along.

“I started moving it when it lifted its head to look at me,” he said.

I should point out that the officer in question is also trained in emergency medical treatment. He is accustomed to saving lives, not snuffing them out with bullets bought by county taxpayers. He carries a defibrillator, bandages, intravenous doohickeys and other tools of the life-saving trade.

“All that and there wasn’t a thing I could do for the dog,” he said.

Yes, the drama and adventure of law enforcement. Forced to blast a doe and then haul away a dying puppy, I imagine you wish you were in a high-speed pursuit of dangerous criminals.

But cops make their money by taking whatever comes their way. And so on this cold night, the deputy had to make a choice about what to do with a household pet that might be named Spot or Sparky.

He kept his gun holstered. With the help of the other driver, he got the animal into a towel and hauled it to a nearby house. Before long, the wounded dog was taken to an emergency clinic in Lewiston and things were looking brighter.

But when I talked to the cop, he was seething. Not about having to earn his pay in such miserable fashion or having to lug a wounded dog around on a cold dark night. No, he was seething about the heartless wretch who struck the animal and drove away.

“I mean, what kind of … how could you just … I don’t … It just infuriates me that a person could hit a dog and then leave it there to die,” he said.

Enough said. Being a cop introduces a person to the iciness of human nature. No matter how long an officer works a beat, he will never see the end of cruelty or indifference.

Later, four or five hours after the double shot of animal trauma, I talked to the officer again. He was still agitated. He had just heard from the animal clinic and the news was mixed. The dog had a shattered shoulder and would need a specialist to repair it. Still, the floppy-eared beagle was alive and all he needed was someone to step forward and claim him.

“He’s got these big, floppy ears,” the deputy said. “It’s a great dog.”

But hours after midnight, nobody had come forth to claim him. Grim veterinarians said they might have to amputate the beagle’s leg or put him to sleep.

“It kills me,” the cop said. “After all of that, after all we did to save the dog, it could be put down anyway? The whole thing is just wrong.”

I called the Animal Emergency Clinic of Mid-Maine where the dog was being treated. The woman there shared the deputy’s pain. It would be tragic to see the beagle put down, she said. The owner had been found but had not come in to claim responsibility. Without that show of good faith, there might be nothing more for them to do.

On Thursday, the brown-eyed beagle was moved to the Norway Veterinary Hospital where his fate remained uncertain.

“He’s in pretty good spirits for all he’s been through,” a hospital worker said.

The beagle’s leg was saved and he might recover from his injuries. But still no one had claimed him. Without someone to take the dog home – the original owner or a new one – he might recover only to find himself at the end of the line.

So, the dog’s future hinges on the kindness of strangers and it all comes down to a simple question of mathematics. Are the majority of the people who roam the world cold and apathetic like the driver of the truck? Or are most of us willing to muster the level of compassion unleashed by the cop out on Route 122?

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter. Visit his blog at www.sunjournal.com.