The wether was lying sprawled on the ground, in a posture that nature neither intends nor permits. Its upflung legs were still jerking convulsively, like galvanised stilts. And above it was bending a huge dark shape.
The moon beat down mercilessly on the tableau of the slain sheep, and of the Black, with his fangs buried deep in the twisting throat.
Now that the longed-for moment had at last come, Trask found himself seized by an unaccountable numbness of mind and of body. By a mighty effort he regained control of his faculties. Slowly and in utter silence he lifted the cocked gun from his knees and put its butt to the hollow of his shoulder.
The Black looked up, in quick suspicion, from his meal. Even in the excitement of the instant, Frayne found scope to wonder at the brute’s ability to hear so noiseless a motion. And his sleep-numbed finger sought the trigger.
Then, in a flash, he knew why the Black’s greathead had lurched so suddenly up from the interrupted meal. From out a clump of alder, twenty feet to shoreward of the river-bank orgy, whirled a tawny shape. With the speed of a flung spear it sped; straight for the feasting mongrel. And, in the mere breath of time it took to dash through the intervening patch of moonlight, Frayne recognised the newcomer.
The Black sprang up from beside the dead sheep, and faced the foe he could no longer elude. Barely had he gained his feet when Tam was upon him.
Yet the mongrel was not taken unaware. His crafty brain was alert and the master of his sinewy body. As Tam leaped, the black dog reared to meet him. Then, in practically the same gesture, the Black shifted his direction, and dived beneath the charging collie, lunging for the latter’s unprotected stomach. It was a manœuvre worthy of a wolf; and one against which the average dog must have been helpless.
But the Black’s opponent was a collie. And, in the back of his brain, though never in his chivalric heart, a collie is forever reverting to his own wolf ancestors. Thus, as the Black changed the course of his lunge, Tam, in mid-air, changed his. By a violent twist of every whalebone muscle, Tam whirled himself sidewise.And the Black’s ravening jaws closed on nothing.
In another instant,—even before he had touched ground,—Tam had slashed with his curving eyeteeth. This is another trick known to practically no animal save the wolf and the wolf’s direct descendant, the collie. The razorlike teeth cut the Black’s left ear and cheek as cleanly as might a blade.
But, in the same motion, the Black’s flying head had veered; and his jaws had found a hold above Tam’s jugular. Again, with the normal dog, such a hold might well have ended the fight. But, the Providence which ordained that a collie should guard sheep on icy Highland moors also gave him an unbelievably thick coat, to fend off the weather. And this coat serves as an almost invulnerable armour; especially at the side of the throat. The Black’s teeth closed upon a quantity of tangled fur; but on only the merest patch of skin and on none of the under flesh at all.
Tam ripped himself free, leaving a double handful of ruff between the Black’s grinding jaws. As the mongrel spat out the encumbering gag of fur, Tam’s curved fang laid bare the scarred shoulder once grazed by Trask Frayne’s buckshot. And, in a rolling, fighting heap, the two enemies rolled over and over together on the dew-drenched grass.
Frayne’s gun was levelled. But the man did not dare fire. By that deceptive light, he had no assurance of hitting one dog without also killing the other. And, chafing at his own impotence, he stood stock-still, watching the battle.
Both dogs were on their feet again; rearing and rending in mute fury. No sound issued from the back-curled lips of either. This was no mere dogfight, as noisy as it was pugnacious. It was a struggle to the death. And the dogs realised it.
Thrice more, the Black struck for the jugular. Twice, thanks to Tam’s lightning quickness, he scored a clean miss. The third time, he annexed only another handful of hair.
With his slashes he was luckier. One of Tam’s forelegs was bleeding freely. So was a cut on his stomach, where the Black had sought to disembowel him. And one side of his muzzle was laid open. But the collie had given over such mere fencing tactics as slashing. He was tearing into his powerful and wily foe with all the concentrated fury of his month’s vain pursuit of vengeance.
The Black dived for the collie’s forelegs, seeking to crack their bones in his mighty jaws and thus render his foe helpless. Nimbly, Tam’s tiny white forefeet whisked away from the peril of each dive. In redoubled fury he drove for thethroat. And the two clashed, shoulder to shoulder.
Then, amid the welter, came the final phase of the fight. The Black, as the two reared, lunged again for the collie’s hurt throat. Tam jerked his head and neck aside to avoid the grip. And, as once before, the Black changed the direction of his lunge. With the swiftness of a striking snake, he made the change. And, before the other could thwart or so much as divine his purpose, he had secured the coveted hold, far up on Tam’s left foreleg.
No mere snap or slash, this; but a death grip. The Black’s teeth sank deep into the captured leg; grinding with a force which presently must snap the bones of the upper leg and leave the collie crippled against a practically uninjured and terrible antagonist. The rest would be slaughter.
Tam knew his own mortal peril. He knew it even before Trask Frayne came rushing out from his watching-place, brandishing the gun, club-fashion. The collie did not try to wrench free and thereby to hurry the process of breaking his leg or of tearing out the shoulder-muscles. He thought, as quickly as the mongrel had lunged.
Rearing his head aloft, he drove down at the Black. The latter was clinging with all hismight to the collie’s foreleg. And, in the rapture of having gained at last a disabling grip, he ignored the fact that he had left an opening in his own defence;—an opening seldom sought in a fight, except by a wolf or a wolf’s descendant.
It was for this opening that Tam-o’-Shanter struck. In a trice his white teeth had buried themselves in the exposed nape of the Black’s neck.
Here, at the brain’s base, lies the spinal cord, dangerously within reach of long and hard-driven fangs. And here, Tam had fastened himself.
An instant later,—but an instant too late,—the Black knew his peril. Releasing his grip on the collie’s leg, before the bone had begun to yield, he threw his great body madly from side to side, fighting crazily to shake off the death-hold. With all his mighty strength, he thrashed about.
Twice, he lifted the seventy-pound collie clean off the ground. Once he fell, with Tam under him. But the collie held on. Tam did more than hold on. Exerting every remaining atom of his waning power, he let his body be flung here and there, in the Black’s struggles; and he concentrated his force upon cleaving deeper and deeper into the neck-nape.
This was the grip whereby the Black, a month agone, had crushed the life out of friendly little Wisp. And, by chance or by fate, Tam had beenenabled to gain the same hold. Spasmodically, he set his fangs in a viselike tightening of his grip.
At one instant, the Black was whirling and writhing in the fulness of his wiry might. At the next, with a sickening snapping sound, his giant body went limp. And his forequarters hung, a lifeless weight, from his conqueror’s jaws.
Tam relaxed his hold. The big black body slumped to earth and lay there. The collie, panting and swaying, stood over his dead enemy. The bitterly long quest was ended. Heavenward went his bleeding muzzle. And he waked the solemn stillnesses of the summer night with an eerie wolf howl, the awesome primal yell of Victory.
For a few seconds Trask Frayne, unnoticed, stared at his dog. And, as he looked, it seemed to him he could see the collie change gradually back from a wild thing of the forests to the staunch and adoring watchdog of other days. Then the man spoke.
“Tam!” he said, quietly. “Tam!Old friend!”
The exhausted victor lurched dizzily about, at sound of the voice. Catching sight of Trask, he trembled all over.
He took a dazed step towards Frayne. Then,with something queerly like a human sob, the collie sprang forward; and gambolled weakly about the man; licking Trask’s feet and hands; springing up in a groggy effort to kiss his face; patting his master’s chest with eager forepaws; crying aloud in an ecstasy of joy at the reunion.
Then, all at once, he seemed to remember he was a staid and dignified middle-aged dog and not a hoodlum puppy. Ceasing his unheard-of demonstrations, he stood close beside Frayne; looking up into Trask’s eyes in silent worship.
“You’ve done a grand night’s work, Tam,” said Frayne, seeking to steady his own voice. “And your hurts need bathing. Come home.”
His plumed tail proudly wagging, his splendid head aloft, Tam-o’-Shanter turned and led the way to the house he loved.
HERE, at “Sunnybank,”—at Pompton Lakes, in New Jersey,—we raise thoroughbred collies. For many years we have been breeding them. For many years longer, I have been studying them.
The more I study them, the more I realise that there is something about a collie—a mysterious, elusive something—that makes him different from any other dog. Something nearer human than beast. And, for all that, he is one hundred per cent dog.
There is much to learn from him; much to puzzle over; as perhaps the following discursive yarns about a few members of the long line of Sunnybank collies may show.
Greatest of them all was Lad. One would as soon have thought of teaching nursery rhymes to Emerson as of teaching Lad “tricks.” Beyond the common babyhood lessons of obedience and of the Place’s simple Law, he went untaught. And he taught himself; being that type of dog. For example:—
The Mistress had been dangerously ill, with pneumonia. (In my book,Lad: A Dog, I tellhow Laddie kept vigil outside her door, day and night, until she was out of danger; and how he celebrated her convalescence with a brainstorm which would have disgraced a three-months puppy.) Well, on the first day she was able to be carried out of doors, the Mistress lay in a veranda hammock, with Lad on the porch floor at her side.
Friends—several instalments of them—drove to the Place to congratulate the Mistress on her recovery; and to bring gifts of flowers, fruit, jellies, books. All morning, Lad lay there, watching the various relays of guests and eyeing the presents they laid in her lap. After the fifth group of callers had gone, the big collie got up and trotted off into the forest. For nearly an hour he was absent.
Then he came back; travelling with difficulty, by reason of the heavy burden he bore. Somewhere, far away in the woods, he had found, or revisited, the carcase of a dead horse—of an excessively dead horse. From it he had wrenched two ribs and some of the vertebræ.
Dragging this horrible gift along, he returned to the veranda. Before any of us were well aware of his presence (the wind setting in the other direction) he had mounted the steps and, with one mighty heave, had lifted the ribs andvertebræ over the hammock edge and laid them in the lap of his dismayed Mistress.
Humans had celebrated her recovery with presents. And he, watching, had imitated them. He had gone far and had toiled hard to bring her an offering that his canine mind deemed all-desirable.
It was carrion; but it represented, to a dog, everything that a present should be.
Dogs do not eat carrion. They merely rub their shoulders in it; on the same principle that women use perfumes. It is a purely æsthetic pleasure to them. And carrion is probably no more malodorous to a human being than is the reek of tobacco or of whisky or even of some $15-an-ounce scent, to a dog. It is all a matter of taste and of education.
Noting that his gift awoke no joy whatever in its recipient’s heart, Lad was monstrous crestfallen. Nor, from that day on, did he ever bring carrion to the Place. He even abstained henceforth from rubbing his shoulders in it. Evidently he gathered, from our reception of his present, that “it is not done.”
When Lad was training his little son, Wolf, to become a decent canine citizen, he was much annoyed by the puppy’s trick of watching his sire bury bones and then of exhuming and gnawing them himself. Lad did not punish thepuppy for this. He adopted a shrewder and surer way of saving his buried treasures from theft.
Thereafter, he would bury the choice bone deeper in the ground than had been his habit. And, directly above it, just below the surface of the earth, he would inter a second and older bone; a bone that had long been denuded of all meat and was of no further value to any dog.
Wolf, galloping eagerly up to the spot of burial, as soon as Lad moved away, would dig where his father had dug. Presently, he would unearth the topmost and worthless bone. Satisfied that he had exhausted the possibilities of the cache, he dug no deeper; but left the new and toothsome bone undiscovered.
By the way, did it ever occur to you that a dog is almost the only animal to bury food? And did you ever stop to think why? The reason is simple.
Dogs, alone of all wild animals (dogs and their blood-brethren, the wolves), used to hunt in packs. All other beasts hunted alone or, at most, in pairs. When prey was slain, the dog that did not bolt his food with all possible haste was the dog that got the smallest share or none at all. When there was more food than could be devoured at one meal, he had the sense to lay up provision for the next day’s dinner.
He knew, if he left the carcase lying where it was, it would be devoured by the rest of the hungry pack. So he buried as much of it as he could, to prevent his brethren from finding and eating it.
Thus, the dog, alone of all quadrupeds, still bolts his food in huge and half-chewed mouthfuls; and the dog buries food for future use. These two traits are as purely ancestral as is the dog’s habit of turning around several times before settling himself to sleep for the night. His wild ancestors did that, to crush the stiff grasses and reeds into a softer bed and to scare therefrom any lurking snakes or scorpions.
Lad’s “talking” was a byword, at Sunnybank. Only to the Mistress and myself would he deign to “speak.” But, to us, he would sometimes talk for five minutes at a time. Of course, there were no actual words in his speech. But no words were needed to show his meaning.
His conversation used to run the full gamut of sounds, in a way that was as eerie as it was laughable. He could—and did—express every shade of meaning he chose to.
Indignation or disgust was voiced in fierce grumbles and mutters, that were run together in sentence lengths. Sympathy found vent in queer crooning sounds, accompanied by swift light pats of his absurdly tiny white forepaws.Grief was expressed in something too much like human sobs to be funny. And so on through every possible emotion,—except fear. The great dog did not know fear.
No one, listening when Lad “talked,” could doubt he was seeking to imitate the intonation and meanings of the human voice.
Once, the Mistress and I went on a visit of sympathy to a lugubrious old woman who lived some miles from Sunnybank, and who had been laid up for weeks with a broken arm. The arm had mended. But it was still a source of mental misery to the victim. We took Lad along, on our call, because the convalescent was fond of him. We had every cause, soon, to wish we had left him at home.
From the instant we entered the old woman’s house, a demon of evil mirth seemed to possess the dog. Outwardly, he was calm and sedate, as usual. He curled up beside the Mistress, and, with head gravely on one side, proceeded to listen to our hostess’ tale of the long and painful illness. But, scarcely had the whiningly groaning accents framed a single sentence of the recital, when Lad took up the woful tale on his own account.
His voice pitched in precisely the same key as the speaker’s, he began to whine and to mumble. When the woman paused for breath, Lad filled inthe brief interval with the most heartrendingly lamentable groans; then continued his plaint with her. And all the time, his deep-set, sorrowful eyes were fairly a-dance with mischief, and the tip of his plumy tail was quivering in a tense effort not to betray his sinful glee by wagging.
It was too much for me. I got out of the room as fast as I could. I escaped barely in time to hear the hostess moan:
“Isn’t it wonderful how that dog understands my terrible suffering? He carries on, just as if it were his own agony!”
But I knew better, in spite of Lad’s affirmative groan. In personal agony, Lad could never be lured into making a sound. And when the Mistress or myself was unhappy, his swift and heart-broken sympathy did not take the form of lamentable ululations or of such impudent copying of our voices.
It was just one of Lad’s jokes. He realised as well as we did that the old lady was no longer in pain and that she was a chronic calamity howler. That was his way of guying the mock-sufferer. Genuine trouble always stirred him to the depths. But, his life long, he hated fraud.
Lad’s story is told in detail, elsewhere; and I have here written overlong about him. But his human traits were myriad and it is hard for me to condense an account of him.
Then there was Bruce,—hero of my dogbook of the same name. Bruce’s “pedigree name” was Sunnybank Goldsmith; and for many years he brought local dog-show fame to the Place by an unbroken succession of victories. A score of cups and medals and an armful of blue ribbons attest his physical perfection.
But dog-shows take no heed of a collie’s mentality, nor of the thousand wistfully lovable traits which make him what he is. When we carved on Bruce’s headstone the inscription, “The Dog Without a Fault,” we referred less to his physical magnificence than to the soul and the heart of him.
He was wholly different from Lad. He lacked Lad’s d’Artagnan-like dash and gaiety and uncanny wisdom. Yet he was clever. And he had a strange sweetness of nature that I have found in no other dog. That, and a perfect “one-man-dog” obedience and goodness.
Like Lad, he was never struck or otherwise punished; and never needed such punishment. He and Laddie were dear friends, from the moment they met. And each was the only grown male dog with which the other would consent to be on terms of cordiality.
Bruce had a melancholy dignity, behind which lurked an elusive sense of fun.
For his children—he had many dozens of them—he felt an eternal disgust; even aversion. Let visitors start to walk towards the puppy-yards, and Bruce at once lowered his head and tail and slunk away. When a group of the puppies, out for a gallop, caught sight of their sire and bore down gleefully upon him, Bruce would stalk off in utter gloom. Too chivalric to hurt or even to growl at any of the scrambling oncoming babies, he would none the less take himself out of their way with all possible haste.
But, on occasion, he could rise to a sense of his duties as a parent. As when one of the young dogs was left tied for a few minutes to a clothesline, three summers ago. The youngster gnawed the line in two and pranced merrily away on a rabbit hunt, dragging ten feet of rope with him.
When I came home and saw the severed clothesline, I knew what must be happening, somewhere out in the woods. The dangling rope was certain to catch in some bush or stump. And the puppy, in his struggles, would snarl himself inextricably. There, unless help should come, he must starve to death.
For twenty-four hours, two of the men and the Mistress and myself scoured the forests and hills for a radius of several miles. We looked everywhere a luckless puppy would be likely to entangle himself. We shouted ourselves hoarse,in hope of an answering cry from the lost one.
After a day and a night of this fruitless search, the Mistress and I set off again; this time taking Bruce along. At least, we started off taking him. After the first hundred yards, he took us. Why I bothered to follow him, I don’t yet know.
He struck a bee line, through woods and brambles, travelling at a hard gallop and stopping every few moments for me to catch up with him. At the end of a mile, he plunged into a copse that was choked with briars. In the centre of this he gave tongue, with a salvo of thunderous barks. Twice before, I had searched this copse. But, at his urgency, I entered it again.
In its exact centre, hidden from view by a matted screen of briars and leaves, I found the runaway. His rope had caught in a root. He had then wound himself up in it, until the line enmeshed him and held him close to earth. A twist of it, around his jaws, had kept him from making a sound. He was half dead from fright and thirst.
Having found and saved the younger dog, Bruce promptly lost all interest in him. He seemed ashamed, rather than pleased, at our laudations.
On such few times as we went motoring without him, Bruce was always on hand to greet us on our return. And his greeting took an oddform. Near the foot of the drive was a big Forsythia bush. At sight of the approaching car, Bruce invariably rushed over to this bush and hid behind it. At least he bent his head until a branch of the bush hid it from view.
Then, tail a-quiver, he would crouch there; not realising that all of him except his head was in plain sight to us. When at last the car was almost alongside, he would jump out; and stand wagging his plumed tail excitedly, to note our surprise at his unforeseen presence. Never did this jest pall on him. Never did he have the faintest idea that his head was the only part of his beautiful self which was not clearly visible.
Bruce slept in my bedroom. In the morning, when one of the maids knocked at the door to wake me, he would get to his feet, cross the room to the bed, and lay his cold muzzle against my face, tapping at my arm or shoulder with his paw until I opened my eyes. Then, at once, he went back to his rug and lay down again. Nor, if I failed to climb out of bed for another two hours, would he disturb me a second time.
He had waked me, once. After that, it was up to me to obey the summons or to disregard it. That was no concern of Bruce’s. His duty was done!
But how did a mere dog know that the knock on the door was a signal for me to get up? Neverby any chance did he disturb me until he heard that knock.
He was psychic, too. Rex, a dog that I had had long before, used to sleep in a certain corner of the lower hall. He slept there for years. He was killed. Never afterward would Bruce set foot on the spot where Rex had been wont to lie. Time and again I have seen him skirt that part of the floor, making a semi-circular detour in order to avoid stepping there. I have tested him a dozen times, in the presence of guests. Always the result was the same.
Peace to his stately, lovable, whimsical soul! He was my dear chum. And his going has left an ache.
Wolf is Lad’s son—wiry and undersized; yet he is as golden as Katherine Lee Bates’ immortal “Sigurd.” He inherits his sire’s wonderful brain as well as Laddie’s keen sense of humour.
Savage, and hating strangers, Wolf has learned the law to this extent: no one, walking or motoring down the drive from the gate and coming straight to the front door, must be molested; though no stranger crossing the grounds or prowling within their limits need be tolerated.
A guest may pat him on the head, at will; and Wolf must make no sign of resentment. But all my years of training do not prevent him from snarling in fierce menace if a visitor seeks to pathis sensitive body. Very young children are the only exceptions to this rule of his. Toddling babies may maul him to their hearts’ content; and Wolf revels in the discomfort.
Like Lad, he is the Mistress’ dog. Not merely because he belongs to her; but because he has adopted her for his deity.
When we leave Sunnybank, for two or three months, yearly, in midwinter, Wolf knows we are going; even before the trunks are brought from the attic for packing. And, from that time on, he is in dire, silent misery. When at last the car carries us out of the gate, he sits down, points his muzzle skyward, and shakes the air with a series of raucous wolf-howls. After five minutes of which, he sullenly, stoically, takes up the burden of loneliness until our return.
The queer part of it is that he knows—as Lad and Bruce used to know—in some occult way, when we are coming home. And, for hours before our return, he is in a state of crazy excitement. I don’t try to explain this. I have no explanation for it. But it can be proven by anyone at Sunnybank.
The ancestral herding instinct is strong in Wolf. It made itself known, first, when a car was coming down the drive towards the house, at a somewhat reckless pace, several years ago. In the centre of the drive, several of the colliepups were playing. When the car was almost on top of the heedless bevy of youngsters, Wolf darted out, from the veranda, rushed in among the pups and shouldered them off the drive and up onto the bank at either side. He cleared the drive of every one of them; then bounded aside barely in time to escape the car’s front wheels.
He was praised for this bit of quick thought and quicker action. And the praise made him inordinately proud. From that day on, he has hustled every pup or grown dog off the drive, whenever a car has come in sight through the gateway.
When the pups are too far scattered for him to round them up and shove them out of harm’s way, in so short a time, he adopts a still better mode of clearing the drive. Barking in wild ecstasy, he rushes at top speed down the lawn, as though in pursuit of some highly alluring prey. No living pup can resist such a call. Every one of the youngsters dashes in pursuit. Then, as soon as the last of them is far enough away from the drive, Wolf stops and comes trotting back to the house. He has done this, again and again. To me, it savours of human reasoning.
In the car, Wolf is as efficient a guard as any policeman. When the Mistress drives alone, he sits on the front seat beside her. If she stops in front of any shop, he is at once on the alert. Atsuch times, a woman acquaintance may come alongside for a word with her. Wolf pays no heed to the newcomer.
But let amanapproach the car; and Wolf is up on his toes, and ready for trouble. If the man lays a hand on the automobile, in the course of the chat, Wolf is at his throat. When I am driving with the Mistress, he lies on the rear seat and does not bother to act as policeman; except when we leave the car in his keeping.
People, hereabouts, know this trait of Wolf’s and his aversion to any stranger. And they forbear to touch the car when talking with us. Last year, a friend came alongside, while we were waiting, one evening, for the mail to be sorted. Wolf had never before seen this man. Yet, after a single glance, the dog lost his usual air of hostility. There was a slight tremble in our friend’s voice as he said to us:
“My collie was run over to-day and killed. We are mighty unhappy, at our house, this evening.”
As he spoke, he laid his hand on the door of the car. Wolf lurched forward, as usual. But, to our amazement, instead of attacking, he whimpered softly and licked the man’s face. Never before or since, have I seen him show any sign of friendly interest in a stranger—noteven to this same man, when they chanced to meet again, a few months later.
Bruce’s son, Jock, was the finest pup, from a dog-show point of view—and in every other way—that we have been able to breed. Jock was physical perfection. And he had a brain, too; and abundant charm; and a most intensely haunting personality. He had from earliest puppyhood, all the steadfast qualities of a veteran dog; and at the same time a babylike friendliness and love of play.
Nor did he know what it was to be afraid. Always, in presence of danger, he met the menace with a furious charge, accompanied by a clear, trumpet-bark of gay defiance. Once, for instance, he had been lying beside my chair on the veranda. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, with that same gay, fierce bark.
I turned to see what had excited him. A huge copperhead snake had crawled up the vines to the porch floor and had wriggled on; to within a foot or two of my chair.
Jock was barely six months old. Yet he flew to the assault with more sense than would many a grown dog.
All dogs have a horror of copperheads, and Jock was no exception. By instinct, he seemed to know what the snake’s tactics would be. Forhe strove to catch the foe by the back of the neck, before the copperhead could coil.
He was a fraction of a second too late. Yet he was nimble and wise enough to spring back out of reach, before the coiling serpent could strike. Then, with that same glad bark of defiance, he danced about his enemy, trying to take the snake from the rear and to flash in and get a neck grip before the copperhead could recoil after each futile strike.
I put an end to the battle by a bullet in the snake’s ugly head. And Jock was mortally offended with me, for hours thereafter, for spoiling his fun.
When he was eight months old, I took the little chap to Paterson, to his first (and last) dog show. Never before had he been off the Place or in a house. Yet he bore himself like a seasoned traveller; and he “showed” with the perfection of a champion. He won, in class after class; annexing two silver cups and several blue ribbons. His peerless sire, Bruce, was the only collie, in the whole show, able to win over him, that day.
Jock beat every other contestant. He seemed to enjoy showing and to delight in the novelty and excitement of it all. He was at the show for only a few hours; and it was a triumph-day for him.
Yet cheerfully would I give a thousand dollars not to have taken him there.
For he brought home not only his many prizes but a virulent case of distemper; as did other dogs that attended the same show.
Of course, I had had him (as well as all my other dogs) inoculated against distemper, long before; and such precautions are supposed to be effective. But the disease got through the inoculation and infected him.
He made a gallant fight of it—oh, agallantfight!—the fearless little thoroughbred! But it was too much for him. For five weeks, he and I fought that grindingly losing battle.
Then, in the dim grey of a November dawn, he lifted his head from my knee, and peered through the shadows towards one black corner of the room. No one, watching him, could have doubted that he saw Something—lurking there in the dark.
Sharply, he eyed the dim room-corner for an instant. Then, from his throat burst forth that glad, fierce defiance-bark of his—his fearlessly gay battle shout. And he fell back dead.
What did he see, waiting for him, there in the murk of shadows? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps “the Arch-Fear in visible shape.” Who knows?
In any case, whatever it was, he did not fear it. He challenged it as fiercely as ever he hadchallenged mortal foe. And his hero-spirit went forth to do battle with it—unafraid.
God grant us all so gallant an ending!
His little mother, Sunnybank Jean, had never cast Jock off, as do most dog-mothers when their pups are weaned. To the day I quarantined him for distemper, she and her son had been inseparable.
A week after Jock’s death, Jean came running up to me, shaking with glad eagerness, and led me to the grave where the puppy had been buried. It was far off, and I had hoped she would not be able to find it. But she had been searching, very patiently, whenever she was free.
And now, when she had led me to the grave, she lay down close beside it. Not despondently; but wagging her plumed tail gently, and as if she had found at last a clue in her long search. Scent or some other sense told her she was nearer her baby than she had been in days. And she was well content to wait there until he should come back.
All of which is maudlin, perhaps; but it is true.
Perhaps it is also maudlin to wonder why a sane human should be fool enough to let himself care for a dog, when he knows that at best he is due for a man’s size heartache within a pitifully brief span of years. Dogs live so short a time; and we humans so long!
This rambling tale of my dogs leaves no room to tell at length of the collie who was never allowed in the dining-room until the after-dinner coffee was served; and who came the length of the hall and up to the table the moment the maid brought in the coffee cups (how he timed it to the very second, none of us knew; yet not once did he miss connections by the slightest fraction of a minute).
Nor does it permit the tale of the collie pup who was proud of his stunt in learning to take the morning paper off the front steps and carry it into the dining-room; and whose pride in the accomplishment led him presently to collect all the morning papers from all the door steps within the radius of a mile and deposit them happily at my feet.
Nor can I tell of the collie that caught and followed the trail of my footsteps, through the rain, along a crowded city street; in and out of a maze of turnings; and came up with me inside of three minutes. Nor of a long line of other collies, some of whom showed human intelligence; and some, intelligence that was almost more than human.
Not even of the clown pup that was so elated over “rounding up” his first bunch of sheep that he proceeded to round up chickens and cats and every living and round-up-able creature that hecould find; nor of the collie who, taught to fetch my hat, was wont to romp up to me in the presence of many outsiders; bearing proudly in his teeth an assortment of humble, not to say intimate and humiliating, garments.
* * *
Comedian dogs, spectacular dogs, gloriously human dogs, Sunnybank collies of every phase of heart and brain and soul—one common and pathetically early tragedy has waited or waits for you all! Among you, you have taught me more of true loyalty and patience and courtesy and divine forgiveness and solid sanity and fun and a hundred other worth-while lessons, than all the masters I have studied under.
* * *
I wonder if it is heretical to believe that when at last my tired feet shall tread the Other Shore, a madly welcoming swirl of exultant collies—the splendid Sunnybank dogs that have been my chums here—will bound forward, circling and barking around me, to lead me Home!
Heretical or otherwise, I want to believe it. And if I fail to find them there, I shall know I have taken the Wrong Turning and have reached a goal other than I hoped for.
THE END