These thoughts were not put into words. But their gist may be translated roughly into English, somewhat as follows:
Jeff had fought without training or precept. He had followed his own instincts. He had fought according to his nature. Thus, he had fought fair. He had fought clean. Not only had he disdained to make use of any crooked advantage, but he had risked defeat and possible death sooner than to foul.
Jeff was a dog.
Dan Rorke was a man.
How did Dan Rorke win his fights? Three out of four of them he won by clever fouling. He fought crooked. That was how he made his living—by tactics his own dog would not stoop to.
The collie looked on Dan as the greatest person under the sun. Yet the dog fought squareand Dan fought foul. What was the answer?
It was a joke in fistic circles that Dan Rorke was the dirtiest fighter in that section of America; and that he managed to get away with it by sheer craftiness.
Dan had felt—still felt—a thrill of admiration for Jeff for fighting so fair. Wasn’t it possible that the fight public might give that same sort of admiration to a man who was known to fight fair? Going a tottering mental step farther, wasn’t it just barely possible that all reg’lar folks had that same little thrill of admiration for a fellow who was on the level in everything? It was a funny idea, of course, but——
Then again it was great to have someone, even a dog, look up to anybody as Jeff looked up to his master; and to think that master was the best man alive. What sort of mangy hypocrite was Dan Rorke to make his living crookedly, by super-fouling, while Jeff thought he was a saint?
The dog fought clean. The man fought dirty. Was the man lower than the dog? It was a rotten thought. But it had a whole lot of sense to it. If Jeff, here, could risk death sooner than fight foul, what was the reason why Dan Rorke——
At this point in the argument Dan stoppedand started all over, from the beginning. He was on the third complete review of it when Red Keegan came bustling back.
“Well,” queried the manager briskly, “have you told yourself enough about the dog fight, so’s you c’n remember it a while without telling it again?”
“I—I guess so,” mumbled Dan uncertainly.
And he made excuse to get out of the way. He was still thinking; thinking hard and with a growing unhappiness. His thoughts were not yet crystallisable into words.
But next morning, after a night of less continuous slumber than he could recall in many a year, he dressed and started down to breakfast with a brand-new and granite-hard resolve in his tired mind. For once in his life he had solved a problem—had solved it all himself.
As he opened the door of his bedroom Jeff leaped eagerly up from his nightly vigil post across the outer threshold. Stiff as he was from his shoulder hurt, the dog gambolled gleefully round his master, patting at Dan’s knees with his flying white paws, wriggling himself into an ecstatic interrogation mark, and whimpering with delight at the wonderful fact that his adored demigod was once more with him after ten whole hours of absence.
Thus, the world over, do the average run ofcollies give morning salute to the man or woman they have accepted as their deity. And, as ever, the greeting warmed Dan Rorke’s long-loveless heart. He stooped over and patted the silken head.
The collie growled in horrific menace and caught Dan’s big hand between his mighty jaws as if to crush it. But the jaws did not exert the pressure of a fraction of an ounce on the firm flesh they had so playfully imprisoned. And the throaty growls were belied by a furious wagging of the plumed tail.
This was Jeff’s favourite game with his master. With no one else would he deign to play.
Dan rumpled the dog’s soft ears, and looked with a queer new timidity into the deep-set dark eyes of his chum. At the unquestioning joyous devotion he saw there, he felt a tiny twinge of relief. Something he had let himself fear, in the long night’s meditations, had not yet begun to happen. There was still time, plenty of time.
And, his resolve firmer than ever, he ran down to the breakfast room, where Red Keegan was already seating himself at the table.
“Chron’cle’sgot a spread on your match with Feltman!” was the manager’s morning salutation. “First page; and again, under Kampfmuller’s sign’ture, on the sporting page. We’ve got a good start, all right. Now——”
“If it isn’t too late,” said Dan hesitantly, “I kind of wish you’d cancel the match. I don’t honest think I c’n stop Kid Feltman; for all you say I’ve gone ahead this half year. And it’s more’n an even bet he c’n stop me inside the limit. So I’ve been thinking it over, and I guess you’d best call it off; or get ’em to subst’toot some easier guy than Felt——”
“Good Lord!” snorted Keegan. “Do you set there and tell me you don’t even remember from yesterday the layout for that fight? Of all the——”
“Yep,” answered Rorke, sullenly playing with his food and glancing down for encouragement at the collie lying on the floor beside him. “Yep. I remember it all right, all right, Red. I remember it. But it won’t work. That’s why I——”
“Won’twork?” thundered Keegan, glaring across at his embarrassed star. “Why the blue hell won’t it work? It’s the prettiest set-up we’ve ever handled. There ain’t a flaw to it. Won’t work, hey? Why the——”
“Because,” replied Dan sheepishly, yet firm as stone, as he glowered back at his manager, “because that set-up of yours calls for a heap of fancy fouling. And—and I’m—I’m off fouling. Off it for keeps. That’s——”
Red Keegan broke in on the halting announcementwith a sound that a turkey might have produced had its tail feathers been pulled violently at the moment it chanced to be gobbling. The result was a noise that brought Jeff to his feet with a jump; his tulip ears cocked, his eyes aglow with excited inquiry; a series of staccato barks racketing from his furry throat.
“Lay down, Jeffie!” ordered Dan. “He ain’t going to bite me. He’s only——”
“Are you plumb crazy, Dan?” sputtered the manager. “Or is it a bum little joke? Off fouling, hey? What’s going to keep you from the hungry house if——”
“If clean scrapping won’t keep me fed,” answered Rorke, “I’ll go get back my job in the puddling gang. Anyhow, it goes like I said. I’m off fouling. Now go ahead and swear!”
But Red Keegan did not go ahead and swear. Profanity was a very present help to the nerves, in the event of stepping on a tack or mashing one’s thumb with a hammer or on hearing that one’s wife had eloped. But this matter lay too deep for swearing.
Blusteringly, then flatteringly, then coaxingly and at last with the tremolo stop pulled far out, he pleaded with Dan. He painted in glowing colours the middleweight’s comfortable rise from the ranks and the golden future that awaited him under Keegan’s guidance, if only he wouldhave the intelligence to stick to his manager’s tuition and not get fool ideas that he could fight on the square well enough to keep himself warm. He foretold a future of failure and gutter poverty should the fool hold to this suicidal new plan.
To all of which Dan Rorke answered not a word; but sat glumly frowning at the spotty tablecloth and occasionally letting his fidgety hand rest for a second on Jeff’s head. When at last Keegan had run down and was bereft equally of breath and vocabulary and emotion, Dan began to speak. He did not look at the puffingly apoplectic manager, but rambled on as if addressing the hole in his napkin.
“A feller told me once,” he began, “that there’s mighty little a collie dog don’t know. And I’ve seen enough of Jeff, here, to find out that’s so. Jeff c’n tell when I’m blue and when I’m tickled, just by looking at me. It—it’d be funny, wouldn’t it, if he c’d get to telling, by looking at me, that I’m not on the square? A dog with Jeff’s breeding and Jeff’s sense would sure be too high-toned to pal with a crook, if he knowed it. And he knows a lot of things I’d never s’posed a animal c’d know.”
He looked down again at the collie as if for moral support. At the worry in his master’s glance, Jeff’s dark eyes took on a glint of eagerconcern. He laid one white little forepaw on Dan’s muddy boot, and whined softly, far down in his throat. Thus encouraged, Rorke went on:
“That’s only one end of it. Here’s another: A man’s pretty low down in the list, ain’t he, if he can’t even fight as square as his dog c’n fight? A clean dog’s sure got a right to a clean master. Them folks yesterday was all praising Jeff. They wasn’t praising him so much for licking the big feller as for licking him,clean; and for not fouling when he had a chance to. I c’d see that myself. Well, I sh’d think folks would feel that way about a man that fights clean. Anyhow,” he finished defiantly, “no poor dog’s going to have the right to say he’s a whiter man than what I am. I been thinking it all over. And that’s the answer. I’m off fouling. Like I said.”
For the next twenty-four hours the bungalow and the gym were vibrant with the sounds of argument and vituperation. Keegan exhausted his every battery. And—like most men who think slowly and seldom—Dan Rorke grew more and more firmly set in his queer resolution, the more he discussed it.
Even stolid Bud Curly, his sparring partner and general handy man round the gym, was moved to bewilderment by the once-docile fighter’s firmness in resisting the all-powerful boss.
Only once, in a day and night of abusive exhortation on Red’s part, did Dan lose for an instant his sullen calm. That was when Keegan grumbled:
“It’s all the damn’ dog’s fault. It’s him that’s turned you loony. I’ve got a good mind to shoot him. Then maybe you’ll——”
“You shoot that dog,” flared Rorke, striding up to the little manager, his thick fingers working convulsively, “and, by the good Lord, I swear I’ll break your neck over my knee; if I go to the chair for it. That goes foryou, too, Curly! If you think I’m bluffing, you’d best change your mind—unless you’re sick of staying alive. It goes!”
To Bud Curly’s surprise the irascible Red did not retort. Instead, he stood looking long and earnestly at the raging fighter. Then he said with conciliatory calm:
“Nobody wants to hurt the purp, Dan. Climb down off the ceiling. And if you’re so dead set on playing the fool—well, I s’pose I’ll have to trail my bets along with yours. You can’t lick Feltman on the square. But it won’t be my fault if you don’t put up the best fight of your life ag’in him. It’s too late to cancel the match now. All me and Curly c’n do is to train you to the minute and trust to luck for the rest.”
Glad to have won his sorry point, Dan settleddown with grim energy to the task of training. He knew how slight were his chances of victory. Yet he was ready to meet the suddenly reconciled Keegan halfway, by training at his level best.
Feltman and a little retinue came to Pitvale, in order to be on the ground, and to avoid travel before the fight. They set up training quarters scarce two blocks away from Keegan’s bungalow.
For nearly a month the two rivals wrought at their preparations for the battle. Once or twice on hike or sprint they chanced to meet in street or highroad. And such well-rehearsed chance meetings, with their mutual scowling frigidity, served Kampfmuller as splendid “grudge-fight” copy for theChronicle.
The fight was to be held in the Pitvale Coliseum, a vast and barnlike structure originally built for state conventions and for summer Chautauqua lectures. It was scheduled for ten o’clock on the night of April second.
On the morning of April second Dan Rorke awoke from a ten-hour sleep, ran under the shower, rubbed down, slipped into his clothes, and started for breakfast with the appetite of a longshoreman. His nerves as well as his physique had profited by his hard and wise training.
If he was due to end the day in defeat, atleast the thought of it had not marred his night’s rest or his appetite.
Outside his bedroom door he paused as usual for his morning frolic with Jeff. But Jeff was not there.
In all their long months of chumship this was the first morning that Jeff had not been on hand to greet with noisy delight his new-awakened master. And the dog’s absence perplexed Rorke.
Downstairs he went, hoping to find the collie waiting for him in the dining-room. The room was empty. Whistling for the missing Jeff, Dan went out on the tiny front porch. No dog was in view. But he saw Keegan and Bud working with scrambly haste at a far end of the yard, piling shovelfuls of fresh dirt into what looked like a new-dug hole under the yard’s one fruit tree.
Before Dan could call out, Curly happened to look up from his toil; and caught sight of him as he stood on the porch steps. Curly nudged Keegan and said something out of the corner of his mouth. The two exchanged nervous whispers; then Red dropped his spade and came hurrying towards the house, a labouredly artificial smile of greeting on his bothered face.
“Seen Jeff, anywhere?” asked Rorke, his puzzled eyes still on Curly, who was now pattingthe crumbly earth smooth over the filled excavation.
“Sure, I’ve seen him!” babbled Keegan with forced joviality, and looking anywhere rather than at Dan. “He was frisking round here just a minute ago. Must ‘a’ run down street, a ways. He’ll be back soon. Come on in and eat! Sleep all right? I wasn’t expecting you down for another ten minutes.”
He had mounted the steps and almost forcibly was propelling Dan indoors.
“Looking for Jeff?” hollowly queried Bud Curly, coming up the steps behind him. “He’s all right. Good old Jeff’s all right. He was playing round in the gym just now.”
Dan Rorke was the least subtle of men; and his brain was too small to hold suspicion. But a five-year-old child would have been keenly aware of the guilt and furtiveness in the manner of the two. Dan stopped short. He looked from one to the other of them; then at the fresh earth under the fruit tree.
“Red, you told me Jeff went down street!” he accused. “And now Bud says he’s out in the gym. Which of you is lying? And why is either of you lying? And what were you burying out there? Speak up, one of you; or I’ll go there and dig till I find out!”
He spoke with rising excitement. As he finishedhe made as if to start across the yard towards the tree. Both men seized him and both began speaking at once.
“Jeff’s all right!” insisted Red. “And we was just spading up the earth to make that tree grow better. It’s too spindly. And——”
“Yes,” declared Bud in the same breath, “Jeff’s feeling fine. He’ll be back pres’n’ly. We was trying to see could we bury some garbage out yonder, ’stead of bothering to burn it. We——”
“Jeff is dead!” interrupted Dan, his voice all at once lifeless and flat. “You been burying him. You don’t want me to know. He——”
The two others fidgeted guiltily. Then, clearing his throat, Keegan said:
“I wanted to keep it from you, till after to-night, Danny. I’m sorry. Sorry, right down to the ground. But since you’ve guessed that much of it I’d best tell you the whole thing. Buck up and take it like a he-man, son. After all, he was only just a dog. I’ll buy you another one and——”
“There ain’t any other one!” denied Rorke chokingly. “There was only just Jeff! Him and me. And he was the chum I— What happened to him?” he demanded fiercely, swallowing very hard and trying to keep his voice steady and his eyes dry. “Spill it!”
“Then take it!” cried Keegan harshly. “Takeit straight, like a he-man had ought to take rotten news. This morning, when I went apast your door, there lay Jeff. He was stone-dead. I picked him up and brang him down on the porch. I knowed how it’d queer your nerve to find out he was gone. So I aimed to bury him and tell you he’d just strayed off, like; and that he would come home by and by. When I got him out on the porch I noticed he was all strained backward. And I’d seen dogs poisoned by strychnia before. There ain’t any other poison that makes ’em look that way. He——”
“Poisoned!” yelled Dan in blind fury, catching at the word. “I’ll find the swine that did it, if it takes every cent I got. And when I once get hold of him——”
“I beat you to it, Danny,” continued Red’s sorrowing tones. “I got Curly, here, to start digging a grave; and I piked down to Reuter’s drug store. I had a sneaking s’spicion, already. Reuter was just opening up for the day when I got there. I asked him who had bought strychnia of him lately. The only strychnia he’s sold in the past week was what he sold to a man yesterday; a feller who had a doctor’s p’scription for it, and said he wanted it to poison cats that kep’ him awake by yowling under his window. He got Reuter to tell him how to fix it up in a piece of meat——”
“Who was he?” broke in Rorke, his eyeteeth showing, his deep voice a half-coherent growl. “Who——”
“The doctor that gave the man the p’scription,” said Keegan slowly, “was that old down-and-out M. D. slob that Feltman has for a handy man. The feller that bought the poison and asked Reuter how to fix it was—Kid Feltman. He——”
The manager got no further. Dan Rorke was out of the door and down the steps at one bound. It was only as he stopped to yank madly at the gate latch that Red and Curly overtook him and threw themselves bodily on the raging man. Even then it was a matter of minutes before their combined strength and Bud’s wrestling grip, from behind, could quell him.
“Let me go!” he snarled, straining and biting at the detaining arms. “I’ll settle with him before Jeff’s cold! I’ll——”
“You’ll settle with him a heap better’n by trying to beat him up now, with his handlers and them to keep you from doing it,” promised Keegan. “There’s better ways. Lots better ways. You listen to me, Danny boy!”
Momentarily spent with his own fury, Rorke suffered himself to be dragged indoors. There Keegan faced him and said:
“You want to square yourself with Feltman—and more’n square yourself? Good. Thenhere’s the way: Feltman’s always hated you, ever since he lost to you that time. He’s told fifty folks he’d get even. He’s seen, and he’s heard, how much store you set by Jeff. So he poisoned him to get back at you. Now here’s how you’ll get back athim: You was going to fight him clean. And he’d ‘a’ most likely won. So that ain’t the way to fight him, if you want to settle with him for poor Jeff. The way to do is to sail in with every foul that can git past Kampfmuller. And a hay load of ’em c’n git past that ivory mine. Foul him from the start, with the murderingest set of fouls I’ve ever learned you. Cripple him so he’ll be in the hosp’tal a year. Foul him into a dead one; and then punch his head off’n him and win as early in the fight as you want to. Git the idee? Foul him to death if you like. It’s no worse’n he treated Jeff. The ring’s the place to finish him. Not now, where you’d likely land up in the hoosgow before you’d more’n half hit him. Go to it!”
Dan grunted avid assent. And after breakfast careful rehearsing of old foul tactics and a study of new ones began.
As Dan Rorke, stripped and eager, sat in his hot dressing room under the auditorium that night, waiting for the summons to enter the ring, he had his first minute of solitary reflection throughout the whole Keegan-infested day. Hismanager was upstairs, wrangling with the carnival treasurer. Curly had gone to the ring to watch the wind-up of the second preliminary bout.
Dan was alone. In his heart still raged black hate and a craving for revenge. And he was sick with grief over his chum’s murder.
While he sat there, the faint challenge bark of a dog—a collie, perhaps—from nowhere in particular, drifted to him through the ill-boarded dressing-room walls. At the sound Dan started violently.
“Jeff?” he whispered under his breath.
As if in answer to his call, the room all at once seemed athrob with the presence of his loved dog. In superstitious awe Dan peered about him. Then he straightened his bent body. And to an unseen Something he began to speak.
“We’re going to pay up the bill in a few minutes now, Jeffie!” he promised. “Watch me!”
The foolish words started a new train of thoughts in the tormented brain. Watch him? The clean-fighting dog watch his master put up the foulest fight of his career? With the vision came sharp revulsion.
“Watch me, Jeff!” he repeated aloud. “Watch me do it! Watch me do it, square!Square, Jeffie, boy!”
While the odd exaltation was still upon himKeegan and Curly came back to the dressing room to escort him to the arena.
The Pitvale Athletic Carnival crowd that night witnessed the bloodiest and most spectacularly ferocious battle in the annals of the local ring.
From the sound of the gong Dan Rorke was at his antagonist, forcing the fight at every point. Never once for the fraction of a second did he abandon the aggressive. Feltman showered upon him an avalanche of scientific punishment. But it failed to slow down that homicidal attack.
To Red Keegan’s goggle-eyed dismay and despite his dumfounded inter-round pleas, Rorke fought as clean as a Galahad. Not once would he make use of even the safest foul. Not once would he seek to elude the dull referee by using the easiest of Keegan’s carefully taught ruses.
He fought like a wild beast, but he fought like a fair one. Buoyed up by his insane hate for his enemy and by his stark craving for vengeance, he was as a man in delirium. The hideous punishment meted out to him had no visible effect on his maniac strength or speed. His madness did not preclude the use of all the skill he could muster, but it made him impervious to pain and to shock.
Round after round the fight slashed on, whilethe crowd screamed and pounded in delight and while Red Keegan and Curly watched their madman with anguished eyes. Willing to take the heaviest blow, if only he might land as heavy a smash in return, Dan tore away at his foe.
Four times he was knocked down. Once he was unconscious for five seconds. But borne ever onward by that wild urge of revenge he came flying back to the combat with undiminished fury.
Flesh and blood could not stand the fearful tax indefinitely. Through all his mania Rorke began dimly to realise that there was a trifle less crushing vehemence in his own punches and less whirlwind speed in his onslaught. With every atom of will and of rage and of resolve in his whole cosmos, he scourged himself to renewed effort. The welter of blows avalanched upon him, unfelt.
Over and over in his hot brain he was saying:
“Watch me do it, Jeff! Watch me do it,square!”
And he fought on.
As Dan reeled back to his corner at the end of the hammer-and-tongs ninth round he heard, as from miles off, Keegan’s voice whispering to him:
“Try out the good old stunts, Danny! ’Tain’t too late, even yet. He’s groggy. Try’em. Curly tells me he’s making a joke of how he killed Jeff. Says he kicked the poor purp yesterday, too, when he met him in the street. He——”
Dan heard no more. The minute’s rest was over almost before it began. His ears ringing with the tale of the kick, he plunged back into the fight.
Feltman met him in midring; a horribly battered and staggering Feltman, who sought to improve on his minute’s rest by feinting with the left and then aiming a great right swing for the head.
The swing did not land. Disregarding the feint, Rorke had bored in. The swing passed beyond him, while his two fists were greedily busy with infighting at his tired adversary’s body. Across the ring and to the ropes, with all his ebbing force, he hammered Feltman. Against the ropes he drove him. Then, as Feltman rebounded from the impact, Dan flung every remaining sinew of strength into a cross-body right for the jaw.
It was a reckless blow, except as a counter. And Feltman saw it coming in time. But his worn-out guard would not obey the dazed brain’s mandate quickly enough to block the mighty punch. Rorke’s rage-driven right fist caught hisopponent flush on the point of the chin. And Feltman sprawled prone on his face.
Quietly, non-dramatically, he lay there, dead to the world while the referee counted. At the count of eight Feltman tried instinctively to get up. But he succeeded only in rolling over on his back.
Cut to ribbons, bleeding, bruised, aching and all but blinded, Dan Rorke suffered the exultant Keegan and Bud to guide him down to his dressing room. He had won. He had thrashed the man who had poisoned Jeff. This much his dizzy senses told him.
But Feltman was still alive. And Jeff was dead. Dan’s heart was like cold lead beneath his bruised ribs. His sensational victory was as ashes and dust to him. He was deaf to Keegan’s hysterical adulation. Nothing mattered.
Bud Curly swung open the dressing-room door. Over the threshold swept a whirlwind of gold and white, barking rapturously and flinging itself upon Rorke’s bleeding chest.
(Long afterwards Dan listened with a foolish grin on his swollen face while Keegan confessed the truly Keeganesque trick whereby he had sought to lure back his man to an acceptance of the sure-to-win foul tactics; of the hiding of Jeff in a neighbour’s cellar for the day; and the spiriting of him into the dressing room after the fightbegan; of the coaching of Curly into indorsing the tale of poison and of Bud’s part in the mock grave digging,—a digging timed nicely to coincide with Dan’s appearance on the porch.)
All this, much later. But, for the instant, the only thing Dan Rorke knew was that his dead pet—or its ghost, it did not matter which—had come back to him; and that everything was once more tremendously worth while and that the world was a gorgeous place to do one’s living in.
Forgetful of hurts and of weakness, he gathered the ecstatically squirming collie into his battered bare arms and babbled sobbingly:
“I did it, square, Jeff. I did it, square! You—yousawme do it,square.”
THISis the strange yarn of three dogs. If the dogs had been humans, the story would have been on stage and screen long ago.
Frayne’s Farms is the alliterative name for the hundred-acre tract of rich bottom land; in the shadow of the Ramapo Mountains,—a range that splits North Jersey’s farm country for some twenty odd miles.
Back in these mountains are queer folk; whose exploits sometimes serve as a page story for some Sunday newspaper. Within forty miles of New York City as the crow flits, the handful of mountaineers are well-nigh as primitive as any South Sea Islanders. They are as a race apart; and with their own barbarous codes and customs.
Down from the mountains in the starvingly barren winter time, every few years, a band of huge black mongrel dogs used to swoop upon the Valley, harrying it from end to end in search of food; and leaving a trail of ravaged henroosts and sheepfolds in their wake.
These plunderers were the half-wild black dogs of the mountaineers;—dogs blended originallyfrom a tangle of diverse breeds; hound predominating; and with a splash of wolf-blood in their rangy carcases.
When famine and cold gripped the folk of the mountains, the dogs were deprived of even such scanty crusts and bones as were their summer portion. And, under the goad of hunger, the black brutes banded for a raid on the richer pickings of the Valley.
At such times, every able-bodied farmer, from Trask Frayne to the members of the Italian garden-truck colony, up Suffern-way, would arm himself and join the hunt. Rounding up the horde of mongrels, they would shoot fast and unerringly. Such few members of the pack as managed to break through the cordon and make a dash for the mountains were followed hotly up into the fastnesses of the grey rocks and were exterminated by trained huntsmen.
The mountaineers were too shrewd to make any effort to protect their sheep-slaying and chicken-stealing pets from the hunters. Much as they affected to despise the stolid toilers of the Valley, yet they had learned from more than one bitter and long bygone experience that the Valley men were not safe to trifle with when once righteous indignation drove them to the warpath.
For years after such a battle, the Valley waswholly free from the marauding black-dog pack. Not only did the dogs seem to shun, by experience, the peril of invading the lowlands; but their numbers were so depleted that there was more than enough food for all of the few survivors, in the meagre garbage of the mountain shacks. Not until numbers and forgetfulness again joined hands with famine, did the pack renew its Valley forays.
When this story begins, a mere two years had passed since the latest of the mongrel hunts. Forty farmers and hired men, marshalled and led by young Trask Frayne, had rounded up not less than seventy-five of the great black raiders at the bank of the frozen little Ramapo river, which winds along at the base of the mountain wall, dividing the Valley from the savage hinterland.
The pack’s depredations had beaten all records, that season. And the farmers were grimly vengeful. Mercilessly, they had poured volley after volley into the milling swarm of freebooters. Led by a giant dog, ebony black and with the forequarters of a timber wolf, the handful of remaining pillagers had burst through the cordon and crossed the river to the safety of the bleak hills.
It was Trask Frayne who guided the posse of trackers in pursuit. For the best part of twodays the farmers kept up the hunt. An occasional far-off report of a shotgun would be wafted to the Valley below, in token of some quarry trailed to within buckshot range.
The gaunt black giant leading the pack seemed to be invulnerable. No less than five times during that two-day pursuit some farmer caught momentary sight of him; only to miss aim by reason of the beast’s uncanny craftiness and speed.
Trask Frayne himself was able to take a hurried shot at the ebony creature as the fugitive slunk shadowlike between two hillock boulders.
At the report of Trask’s gun, the huge mongrel had whirled about, snarling and foaming at the mouth and had snapped savagely at his own shoulder; where a single buckshot had just seared a jagged groove. But, before Frayne could fire a second shot, the dog had vanished.
Thus the hunt ended. Nearly all the black dogs of the mountaineers had met the death penalty. It was the most thorough and successful of the historic list of such battles. The raiders were practically exterminated. Many a year must pass before the pack could hope again to muster numbers for an invasion. And the Valley breathed easier.
Yet, Trask Frayne was not content. He knew dog-nature, as it is given to few humans to knowit. And he could not forget the wily black giant that had led the band of mongrels. The Black was a super-dog, for cunning and strength and elusiveness. That had been proven by certain ultra-devastating features of the raid; as well as by his own escape from the hunters.
And the Black still lived;—still lived, and with no worse reminder of his flight than a bullet-cut on one mighty shoulder. Such a dog was a menace; so long as he should continue alive.
Wherefore Trask Frayne wanted to kick himself for his own ill-luck in not killing him. And he was obsessed by a foreboding that the Valley had not seen the last of the Black. He could not explain this premonition.
He could not explain it, even to himself. For Valley history showed that each battle served as a wholesome lesson to the black dogs for years thereafter. Never, between forays, was one of them seen on the hither side of the Ramapo. Yet the idea would not get out of Frayne’s head.
Trask had hated the necessary job of destroying the mongrels. For he loved dogs. Nothing short of stark need would have lured him into shooting one of them. His own two thoroughbred collies, Tam-o’-Shanter and Wisp, were honoured members of the Frayne household.
Dogs of the same breed differ as much in character as do humans of the same race. For example,no two humans could have been more widely divergent in nature than were these two collies of Trask’s.
Tam-o’-Shanter was deep-chested, mighty of coat, tawny; as befitted the son of his illustrious sire, old Sunnybank Lad. Iron-firm of purpose and staunchly loyal to his master, Tam was as steady of soul as a rock. Whether guarding the farm-buildings or rounding up a bunch of scattered sheep that had broken bounds, he was calmly reliable.
He adored Trask Frayne with a worship that was none the less all-absorbing because it was so undemonstrative. And he cared for nothing and nobody else on earth—except Wisp.
Wisp had been the runt of a thoroughbred litter. He was slender and fragile and wholly lovable; a dainty little tricolour, scarce forty pounds in weight. Not strong enough for heavy work, yet Wisp was a gallant guard and a gaily affectionate house dog—the cherished pet and playfellow of the three Frayne babies. Also, he was Tam’s dearest friend.
The larger collie, from puppyhood, had established a protection over Wisp; ever conceding to him the warmest corner of the winter hearth, the shadiest spot in the dooryard in summer, the best morsels of their joint daily meal. He would descend from his calm loftiness to romp withthe frolicsome Wisp;—though the sight of stately Tam, trying to romp, was somehow suggestive of Marshal Joffre playing pat-a-cake.
In short, he loved Wisp, as he loved not even Trask Frayne. More than once, in the village, when a stray cur misunderstood Wisp’s gay friendliness and showed his teeth at the frail little dog, Tam so far departed from his wonted noble dignity as to hurl himself upon the aggressor and thrash the luckless canine into howling submission.
He was Wisp’s guardian, as well as his dearest comrade. Once in a very great while such inseparable friendships spring up between two collies.
One morning in June, Trask set forth for Suffern with a flock of sixty sheep. The day was hot; and the journey promised to be tiresome. So, when the two collies had worked the sixty out from the rest of the Frayne bunch of sheep and had started them, bleating and milling, toward the highroad, Trask whistled Wisp back to him.
“Home, boy!” he ordered, patting the friendly uplifted head and playfully rumpling the collie’s silken ears. “Back home, and take care of things there to-day. It’s a long hot trip for a pup that hasn’t any more stamina than you have, Wispy.Tam and I can handle them, all right. Chase back home!”
The soft brown eyes of the collie filled with infinitely pathetic pleading. Wisp understood the meaning of his master’s words as well as might any of the Frayne children. From birth he had been talked to; and his quick brain had responded; as does every clever collie’s.
Wisp knew he had been bidden to stay at home from this delightful outing. And every inch of his body as well as his eloquent eyes cried aloud in appeal to be taken along. Yet, when, once more, Frayne petted his head and pointed towards the dooryard, the good little chap turned obediently back.
As he passed Tam, the two dogs touched noses; as if exchanging speech of some sort;—as perhaps they were. Then, disconsolately, Wisp trotted to the house and curled up on the doormat in a small and furry and miserably unhappy heap. There he was still lying, his sorrowful eyes fixed on his master and on his busily-herding chum; as the huddle of sheep were guided out of the gateway into the highroad beyond.
Glancing back, Frayne smiled encouragingly at the pathetic little waiting figure at the door. Tam, too, paused, as he manœuvred the last silly sheep into the highroad; and stood beside Frayne, for a second, peering back at his chum. Undertheir momentary glance, Wisp made shift to wag his plumy tail once; by way of affectionate farewell.
Long afterward, Trask Frayne could summon up memory of the daintily graceful little dog, lying so obediently on the doormat and wagging such a brave goodbye to the master who had just deprived him of a jolly day’s outing. Possibly the picture remained in Tam-o’-Shanter’s memory, too.
It is to be hoped so. For never again were Frayne or Tam to see their lovable little collie chum.
Dusk was sifting down the valley from beyond the mountain wall that afternoon, when Trask Frayne turned once more into the gateway leading to his farm. At his side trotted Tam. It had been a hard day, both for dog and man. At best, it is no light task to marshal a flock of sixty bolting sheep along miles of winding road. But when that road is infested with terrifying motor-cars and when it goes past two or three blast-emitting stone-quarries and a railway, the labour is spectacular in spots and arduous at all times.
But, at last, thanks to Tam, the sheep had reached Suffern without a single mishap; and had been driven skilfully into the herd-pens. The seven-mile homeward tramp had been, by contrast,a mere pleasure-stroll. Yet, both the collie and his master were glad of the prospect of rest and of supper.
Frayne, reviewing the labour of the day, was pleased with his own foresight in making Wisp stay at home. He knew such an ordeal, in such weather, would have tired the delicate collie half to death.
Coming up the dusky lane from the house to meet the returning wanderers was a slender, white-clad woman. As he saw her, Frayne waved his hat and hurried forward at new speed. Thus, always, after one of his few absences from home, his pretty young wife came up the lane to welcome him. And, as ever, the sight of her made him forget his fatigue.
Yet, now, after that first glance, worry took the place of eagerness, in Frayne’s mind. For his wife was advancing slowly and spiritlessly; and not in the very least with her wonted springy walk.
“The heat’s been too much for her!” he muttered worriedly to Tam. “It’s been a broiling day. She ought to have——”
But Tam was no longer beside him. The big collie had started ahead, toward the oncoming woman.
Usually, when Mildred Frayne came thus to greet her returning husband, Wisp was with her.The little dog would bound ahead of his mistress, as Frayne appeared; and come galloping merrily up to him and Tam. Tam, too, always cantered forward to touch noses with his chum.
But, by this evening’s dim light, Frayne could not see Wisp. Nor did Tam rush forward as usual. Instead, he was pacing slowly toward Mildred, with head and tail adroop.
As Tam had turned in at the gate beside his master, the collie had come to a convulsive halt. His nostrils had gone upward in a series of eagerly suspicious sniffs. Then, his shaggy body had quivered all over, as if with a spasm of physical pain. At that moment, Mildred’s white-clad figure had caught his wandering eye. And he had moved forward, downcast and trembling, to meet her.
It was Tam,—long before Trask,—who discovered that Mildred was weeping. And this phenomenon, for the instant, turned his attention from his vain search for Wisp and from the confusingly menacing scents which had just assailed his nostrils.
Departing from his lifelong calm, the big dog whined softly, as he came up with Mildred; and he thrust his cold muzzle sympathisingly into her loose-hanging hand. Within him stirred all his splendid race’s pitiful yearning to comfort a human in grief. So poignant was this cravingthat it almost made him forget the increasingly keen scents which had put him on his guard when he came in through the gateway.
“Hello!” called Trask, cheerily, as he neared his wife. “Tired, dear? You shouldn’t have bothered to walk all this way out to meet me. After a rotten day like this, you ought to be resting.... Where’s Wisp? Is he ‘disciplining’ me for making him stay home? I——”
Then he, too, saw Mildred was crying. And before he could speak again, she had thrown her arms around his neck; and was sobbing out an incoherent story, broken by an occasional involuntary shiver. Holding her close to him and asking eagerly futile questions, Trask Frayne, bit by bit, drew forth the reason for her grief.
Harry and Janet, the two older children, had gone down to the river, that noon, to fish, off the dock, for perch. Mildred, at an upper window where she was sewing, had watched them from time to time. For the river was high and rapid from recent rains.
But Wisp was with them; and she had experience in the little collie’s sleepless care over the youngsters. More than once, indoors, Wisp had thrust his own slight body between a Frayne child and the fire. Again and again, at the dock, he had interposed his puny bulk and had shovedwith all his force; when one or another of the babies ventured too close to the edge.
To-day, as she looked up from her sewing, she had seen the trio leave the dock and start homeward. Janet had been in the lead; swinging the string of perch and sunfish and shiners they had caught. They had skirted a riverside thicket on their way to the home-path.
Out from the bushes had sprung a gigantic lean dog, jet black except for a zig-zag patch of white on one shoulder. The wind had been strong in the other direction. So no scent of the dog had reached Wisp, who was dawdling along a bit to the rear of the children.
The black had made a lightning grab at the carelessly swung string of fish; and had snatched them away from Janet. As he turned to bolt back into the thicket with his stolen feast, Harry had caught up a stick and had charged in pursuit of the string of laboriously-caught fish. The child had brought his stick down with a resounding thwack on the head of the escaping beast.
The blow must have stung. For, instantly, the Black dropped the fish and leaped upon the tiny chap. All this in a single second or less.
But, before the mongrel’s teeth could reach their mark, Wisp had flashed past the two startled children and had launched his weak body straight at the Black’s throat.
Down went the two dogs in a tearing, snarling heap.
Mildred, realising how hopelessly unequal was the contest, had run to the aid of her beloved Wisp. Fleeing downstairs, she had snatched Trask’s gun from its peg above the mantel, had seized at random a handful of shells; and ran out of the house and towards the river, loading the gun as she went.
By the time she came in sight, the Black had already recovered the advantage he had lost by Wisp’s unexpected spring. By dint of strength and of weight, he had torn himself free of Wisp’s weak grip, had flung the lighter dog to earth and had pinned him there. Right gallantly did little Wisp battle in the viselike grasp of the giant. Fiercely he strove to bite at the rending jaws and to rip free from the crushing weight above him.
But, as ever, mere courage could not atone for dearth of brute strength and ferocity. Undeterred by his foe’s puny efforts or by the fusillade of blows from Harry’s stick and from Janet’s pudgy fists, the Black had slung Wisp to one side and had lunged once more at him.
This time he found the mark he sought:—the back of the neck, just below the base of the brain. He threw all his vast jaw-power into one terrific bite. And little Wisp’s frantic struggles ceased.The valiant collie lay inert and moveless; his neck broken.
Maddened by conquest, the Black tossed the lifeless body in air. It came to ground on the edge of the river. There, from the momentum of the toss, it had rebounded into the water. The swift current had caught it and borne it downstream.
Then, for the first time, the Black seemed to realise that both frantically screaming children were showering futile blows on him. With a snarl he turned on Harry. But, as he did so, Mildred’s flying feet brought her within range. Halting, she raised the gun and fired.
She was a good shot. And excitement had not robbed her aim of steadiness. But excitement had made her catch up a handful of cartridges loaded lightly with Number Eight shot; instead of anything more deadly.
The small pellets buzzed, hornetlike, about the Black’s head and shoulders; several of them stinging hotly. But at that distance, the birdshot could do no lasting damage. Nor did any of it chance to reach one of his eyes.
With a yell of pain he wheeled to face the woman. And she let him have the second barrel. Memories of former clashes with gunners seemed to wake in the brute’s crafty brain. Snarling, snapping, shaking his tormented head,he turned and plunged into the narrow river; gaining the farther bank and diving into the waterside bushes before Mildred could think to reload.
The balance of the day had been spent in a vain search of the bank, downstream, for Wisp’s lost body; and in trying to comfort the heart-broken children. Not until she had gotten the babies to bed and had soothed them to sleep did Mildred have scope to think of her own grief in the loss of the gentle dog who had been so dear to her.
“He—he gave his life for them!” she finished her sobbing recital. “He knew,—hemusthave known,—that he had no chance against that horrible monster. And Wisp had never fought, you know, from the day he was born. He knew that brute would kill him. And he never hesitated at all. He gave his life for the children. And—and we can’t—can’t even say a prayer over his grave!”
But Trask Frayne, just then, was not thinking of prayers. Deep down in his throat, he was cursing:—softly, but with much venom. And the nails of his hard-clenched fists bit deep into his palms.
“Black, with a white scar on the shoulder?” he said, at last, his own harsh voice not unlike a dog’s growl. “Hound ears, and the build of atimber-wolf? Almost as big as a Dane; and bone-thin? H’m! That’s my buckshot-scar on his shoulder,—that zig-zag white mark. To-morrow morning, I’m going hunting. Up in the mountains. Want to come along, Tam?”
But, as before, Tam was not there, when his master turned to speak to him. The collie had waited only long enough to note that the task of comforting the weeping Mildred had been taken over by more expert powers than his. Then he had trotted off towards the house; not only to solve the problem of these sinister scents which hung so heavy on the moist night air, but to find his strangely-absent chum, Wisp.
Circling the house, he caught Wisp’s trail. It was some hours old; but by no means too cold to be followed by a collie whose scenting powers had once tracked a lost sheep for five miles through a blizzard. With Wisp’s trail was mingled that of two of the children. And it led to the river-path.
True, there were other trails of Wisp’s, that the sensitive nostrils caught. But all of them were older than this which led to the water. Therefore, as any tracking dog would have known, Wisp had gone riverward, since he had been near the house. And down the path, nose to ground, followed Tam-o’-Shanter.
He did not move with his wonted stolidity.For, over and above the mere trail scent, his nostrils were assailed by other and more distressingly foreboding smells;—the smells he had caught as he had entered the gate;—the smells which grew ranker at every loping step he took.
In half a minute he was at the bank. And before that time, he had abandoned the nose-to-earth tracking. For now all around him was that terrible scent.
Back and forth dashed and circled and doubled Tam. And every evolution told him more of the gruesome story.
Here among the bushes had lain a strange animal; an unwashen and pungent and huge animal; apparently sleeping after a gorge of chicken or lamb. Here, along the path, had come the children, with Wisp behind them. Here the strange dog had leapt forth; and here,—alongside that string of forgotten and sun-blown fish on the ground,—Wisp and the stranger had clashed.
The dullest of scents could have told the story from that point:—the trampled earth, the spatters of dried blood, the indentation in the grass, where Wisp’s writhing body had striven so heroically to free itself from the crushing weight above it and to renew the hopeless battle.
Wisp was dead. He was slain by that huge and rank-scented creature. His body had touchedthe river-brink, fully five feet from the scene of the fight. After that it had disappeared. For running water will not hold a scent.
Yes, Wisp was dead. He had been murdered. He had been murdered,—this adored chum of his,—by the great beast whose scent was already graven so indelibly on Tam’s heartsick memory.
There, at the river-edge, a few minutes later, Trask Frayne found Tam-o’-Shanter; padding restlessly about, from spot to spot of the tragedy; whimpering under his breath. But the whimper carried no hint of pathos. Rather was it the expression of a wrath that lay too deep for mere growling.
At his master’s touch, the great collie started nervously; and shrunk away from the caress he had always craved. And his furtively swift motion, in eluding the loved hand, savoured far more of the wolf than of the trained house dog. The collie, in look and in action, had reverted to the wild.
Tam trotted, for the tenth time, to the spot at the river-shore, where the Black had bounded into the water. Impatiently,—always with that queer little throaty whimper,—he cast up and down along the bank, in quest of some place where Wisp’s slayer might perhaps have doubled back to land.
Presently, Trask called to him. For the firsttime in his blameless life, Tam hesitated before obeying. He was standing, hock-deep, in the swirling water; sniffing the air and peering through the dusk along the wooded banks on the far side of the stream.
Again, and more imperatively, Frayne called him. With visible distaste, the collie turned and made his way back towards his master. Frayne had finished his own fruitless investigations and was starting homeward.
Half-way to the house he paused and looked back. Tam had ceased to follow him and was staring once more at the patches of trampled and dyed earth. A third and sharper call from Trask brought the collie to heel.
“I don’t blame you, old boy,” said Frayne, as they made their way towards the lighted kitchen. “But you can’t find him that way. To-morrow you and I are going to take a little trip through the mountains. I’d rather have your help on a hunt like that than any hound’s. You won’t forget his scent in a hurry. And you know, as well as I, what he’s done.”
On the way to the house, Frayne paused at the sheepfold; and made a careful detour of it. But the inspection satisfied him that the fence (built long ago with special regard to the mountainpack’s forays) was still too stout to permit of any dog’s breaking through it. And he passed on tothe house; again having to summon the newly-furtive collie from an attempt to go back to the river.
“He won’t pay us another visit to-night, Tam,” he told the sullen dog, as they went indoors. “He’s tricky. And if he’s really on the rampage, here in the Valley, he’ll strike next in some place miles away from here. Wait till to-morrow.”
But once more Tam did not follow his overlord’s bidding. For, at dawn of the morrow, when Trask came out of the house, shotgun in hand, the dog was nowhere to be found. Never before had Tam forsaken his duties as guardian of the farm to wander afield without Frayne.
The jingle of the telephone brought Trask back into the house. On the other end of the wire was an irate farmer.
“I’m sending word all along the line,” came his message. “Last night a dog bust into my hencoop and killed every last one of my prize Hamburgs and fifty-three other chickens, besides. He worked as quiet as a fox. ’Twasn’t till I heard a chicken squawk that I came out. That must have been the last of the lot; and the dog had got careless. I had just a glimpse of him as he sneaked off in the dark. Great big cuss he was. As big as a house. Looked something like a wolf by that bum light; and something like a collie, too. Last evening I got newsthat Gryce, up Suffern-way, lost a lamb, night before, from some prowling dog. D’you s’pose the dogs from the mountains is loose again?”
“One of them is,” returned Frayne. “I’m going after him, now.”
He hung up the receiver, and, gun under arm, made his way to the scow lying at the side of the dock. Crossing the river, he explored the bank for a half mile in both directions. Failing to find sign or trail of the Black, he struck into the mountains.
It was late that night when Trask slouched wearily into his own house and laid aside his gun.
“Any trace of him?” asked Mildred, eagerly.
“Not a trace,” answered Frayne. “I quartered the range, farther back than we ever hunted before. And I asked a lot of questions at that God-forsaken mountaineer settlement, up there. That’s all the good it did. I might hunt for a year and not get any track of the beast. Those mountaineers are all liars, of course. Not one of ’em, would admit they’d ever seen or heard of the dog. If I’d had Tam with me, I might have caught the trail. To-morrow, I’ll see he goes along. He——”
“Tam?” repeated Mildred, in surprise. “Why, wasn’t he with you? He hasn’t been home all day. He——”
“Hasn’t been home? Do you mean to say he didn’t come back?”
“No,” said his wife, worriedly. “When I got up this morning and found you both gone, I thought of course you’d taken him along, as you said you were going to. Didn’t——”
“He wasn’t anywhere around when I started,” replied Frayne. “He’s—he’s never been away for a whole day, or even for a whole hour, before. I wonder——”
“Oh, do you suppose that horrible brute has killed Tam, too?” quavered Mildred, in new terror.
“Not he,” Trask reassured her. “Not he, or any other mortal dog. But,” he hesitated, then went on, shamefacedly, “but I’ll tell you what Idothink. I believe Tam has gone hunting, on his own account. I believe he’s trailing that mongrel. If he is, he has a man’s size job cut out for him. For the Black is as tricky as a weasel. Tam thought more of Wisp than he thought of anything else. And he was like another animal when he found what had happened, down yonder. Take my word for it, he is after the dog that murdered his chum. Whether he’ll ever get him, is another matter. But, if he really is after him, he’ll never give up the hunt, as long as he has a breath of life left in him. Either he’ll overhaul the cur or—well, either that or we’ll never seehim again. There’s no sense in my poking around in the mountains without him. All we can do is wait. That and try to find Tam and chain him up till he forgets this crazy revenge-idea.”
But even though the Fraynes did not see their cherished collie when they arose next morning, they did not lack for news of him. In the middle of a silent and doleful breakfast a telephone ring summoned Trask from the table.
“That you, Frayne?” queried a truculent voice. “This is Trippler,—at Darlington. I got rotten news for you. But it’s a whole lot rottener forme. Last night my cow-yard was raided by a dog. He killed two of the month-old Jersey calves and pretty near ripped the throat out of one of my yearlings. I heard the racket and I ran out with my gun and a flashlight. The cow-yard looked like a battlefield. The dog had skipped. Couldn’t see a sign of him, anywheres.
“But about half an hour later he came back. He came back while I was redding up the yard and trying to quiet the scared critters. He came right to the cow-yard gate and stood sniffing there as bold as brass; like he was trying to catch the scent of more of my stock to kill. I heard his feet a-pattering and I turned the flashlight on him.
“He wasyourdog, Frayne! That big dark coloured collie dog of yours. I saw him as plainas day. I upped with my gun and I let him have it. For I was pretty sore. But I must have missed him, clean. For there wasn’t any blood near his footprints, in the mud, when I looked. He just lit out. But I’m calling up to tell you you’ll have a big bill to pay on this; and——”
“Hold on,” interrupted Frayne, quietly. “I’ll be up there, in twenty minutes. Good-bye.”
As fast as his car could carry him, Trask made his way up the Valley to Darlington, and to the Trippler farm. There an irately unloving host awaited him.
“Before you go telling me the whole story all over again,” Trask broke in on an explosive recital, “take me over to the exact spot where you saw Tam standing and sniffing. The ground all around here is soaked from the shower we had last evening. I want to see the tracks you were speaking of.”
Muttering dire threats and whining lamentations for his lost calves, Trippler led the way to the cow-yard; pointing presently to a gap in the privet hedge which shut off the barns from the truck garden. Frayne went over to the gap and proceeded to inspect the muddy earth, inch by inch.
“It was here Tam stood when you turned the light on him?” he asked.
“Right just there,” declared Trippler. “And I c’n swear to him. He——”
“Come over here,” invited Trask. “There are his footprints. As you said. And I’d know them anywhere. There’s no other dog of his size with such tiny feet. He gets them from his sire, Sunnybank Lad. Those are Tam’s footprints, I admit that. I’d know them anywhere;—even if they didn’t show the gash in the outer pad of the left forefoot; where he gouged himself on barbed wire when he was a pup.”
“You admit it was him, then!” orated Trippler. “That’s all I need to hear you say! Now, how much——?”
“No, no,” gently denied Frayne. “It isn’t anywhere near all you need to hear. Now, let’s go back into the cow-yard. As I crossed it, just now, I saw dozens of dog-footprints, among the hoof-marks of the calves. Let’s take another look at them.”
Grumblingly, yet eager to add this corroboratory evidence, Trippler followed him to the wallow of churned mud which marked the scene of slaughter. At the first clearly defined set of footprints, Trask halted.
“Take a good look at those,” he adjured. “Study them carefully. Here, these, for instance;—where the dog planted all fours firmly for a spring. They’re the marks of splay feet,a third larger than Tam’s; and not one of them has that gash in the pad;—the one I pointed out to you, back at the gap. Look for yourself.”
“Nonsense!” fumed Trippler, albeit a shade uneasily, as he stood up stiffly after a peering study of the prints. “Anyhow,” he went on, “all it proves is that there was two of ’em. This big splay-footed cuss and your collie. They was working in couples, like killers often does.”
“Were they?” Frayne caught him up. “Were they? Then suppose you look carefully all through this welter of cow-yard mud; and see if you can find a single footprint of Tarn’s. And while you’re looking, let me tell you something.”
As Trippler went over the yard’s mud with gimlet eyes, Trask related the story of Wisp’s killing; and his own theory as to Tam.
“He’s trailing that black dog,” he finished. “He struck his scent somewhere, and followed him. He got here a half-hour too late. And then when you fired at him he run off to pick up the trail again. But I doubt if he got it. For, the Black would probably be cunning enough to take to the river, after a raid like this. He’d have sense enough to know somebody would track him. That brute has true wolf-cunning.”
“Maybe—maybe you’re right,” hesitated Trippler, after a minute search of the yard had failed to reveal a footprint corresponding withTam’s. “And the county’s got to pay for ‘any damage done to stock by an unknown dog.’ That’s the law. I’m kind of glad, too. You see, I like old Tam. Besides, I c’n c’llect more damages from the county than I c’d c’llect from a lawsoot with a neighbour. What’ll we do now? Fix up a posse; like we did, the other times?”
“No,” replied Trask. “It would do no good. The Black is too clever. And in summer there are too many ways to throw off the scent. Tam will get him,—if anyone can. Let’s leave it to him.”
But other farmers were not so well content to leave the punishment of the mysterious raider to Tam. As the days went on, there were more and more tidings of the killer. Up and down the Valley he worked; never twice in succession in the same vicinity.
Twice, an hour or so after his visits, men saw Tam prowling along the mongrel’s cooling tracks. They reported to Frayne that the collie had grown lean and gaunt and that his beautiful coat was one mass of briar and burr; and that he had slunk away, wolf-fashion, when they called to him.
Frayne, himself, caught no slightest sight of his beloved dog; though, occasionally, in the mornings, he found empty the dish of food he had set out on the previous night. Trask was working out the problem, for himself, nowadays,deaf to all requests that he head another band of hunters into the mountains. He was getting no sleep to speak of. But he was thrilling with the suspense of what sportsmen know as “the still hunt.”
Every evening, when his chores and his supper were finished, Frayne went to the sheepfold and led thence a fat wether that had a real genius for loud bleating. This vocal sheep he would tether to a stake near the river-bank. Then he himself would study the trend of the faint evening breeze; and would take up a position in the bushes, somewhere to leeward of the sheep. There, gun across knees, he would sit, until early daylight.
Sometimes he dozed. Oftener he crouched, tense and wakeful, in his covert; straining his eyes, through the gloom, for the hoped-for sight of a slinking black shadow creeping towards the decoy. Not alone to avenge the death of Wisp and to rid the Valley of a scourge did he spend his nights in this way. He knew Tam; as only a born dogman can know his dog. He missed the collie, keenly. And he had solid faith that on the death of the Black, the miserable quest would end and Tam would return to his old home and to his old habits.
So, night after night, Frayne would keep his vigil. Morning after morning, he would plodhome, there to hear a telephoned tale of the Black’s depredations at some other point of the Valley. At first his nightly watch was kept in dense darkness. But, soon the waxing moon lightened the river-bank; and made the first hours of the sentry duty easier.
Frayne began to lose faith in his own scheme. He had an odd feeling that the Black somehow knew of his presence in the thicket and that Frayne’s Farms was left unvisited for that reason. Trask’s immunity from the Black’s depredations was the theme of much neighboured talk, as time went on. Once more was revived Trippler’s theory that Tam and the Black were hunting in couples and that the collie (like so many dogs which have “gone bad”) was sparing his late master’s property.
On all these unpleasant themes Trask Frayne was brooding, one night, late in the month; as he sat in uncomfortable stillness amid the bushes and stared glumly out at the occasionally-bleating wether. He had had a hard day. And the weeks of semi-sleeplessness were beginning to tell cruelly on him. His senses had taken to tricking him, of late. For instance, at one moment, this night, he was crouching there, waiting patiently for the full moon to rise above the eastern hills, to brighten his vigil. The next moment,—though he was certain he had not closed his eyes,—the moon had risen and was riding high in the clear heavens.
Frayne started a little, and blinked. As he did so, his disturbed mind told him he had not awakened naturally, but that he had been disturbed by some sound. He shifted his drowsy gaze towards the tethered sheep. And at once all slumber was wiped from his brain.