"Dere was ninety an' nine dat safely layIn de shelter ob de fol',But one had wandered fur away,Fur from de streets ob gol'."
"Dere was ninety an' nine dat safely layIn de shelter ob de fol',But one had wandered fur away,Fur from de streets ob gol'."
"Dere was ninety an' nine dat safely lay
In de shelter ob de fol',
But one had wandered fur away,
Fur from de streets ob gol'."
At sight of the boy's flushed face, and in the presence of his eager request, hymn and churning ceased together.
"What you gwine do wid mo' bread, honey?" she asked.
"I'm going to kill some birds," declared the boy with a burst of optimism, forgetting for the moment that Pete might have decreed otherwise.
The old woman rose chuckling from her churn and waddled across the floor to the cupboard, no bigger and broader than she.
"Whar you baitin' 'em, honey?" she asked next.
"Behind the barn!"
She sat down, bread in hand, pulled him to her, and patted his back. That was the price he had always to pay for bread or butter or jam. Finally, she gave him the bread and let him go. Down the back steps he came, running eagerly and calling Frank. Once more in the kitchen began the flop of the churn, once more rose the wail of the song.
"Away on de mountings he heered its cry,Sick an' helpless an' ready to die——"
"Away on de mountings he heered its cry,Sick an' helpless an' ready to die——"
"Away on de mountings he heered its cry,
Sick an' helpless an' ready to die——"
Twice more did Tommy drive the intolerable rooster away. The first time he chased him deep into the corn, almost to the pasture. The second time he tried to corral him and the hens and drive the whole bunch into the chicken yard, running here and there with eager face and outstretched hands.
He almost succeeded, for Frank helped him at this like a collie dog herding sheep. Right to the gate of the chicken yard Pete went, followed by the excited hens. Then he seemed to suspect some sort of trap or hidden mine in there, and, with loud ejaculations, broke away and ran streaming toward the corn, followed by the hens.
Grim of face, the boy took his stand once more at the knothole. Boastful as ever, after an interval, came Pete. Not only to-day, but to-morrow and the next day and through all the days to come, he wouldhave to give up shooting sparrows because Pete liked bread crumbs.
"Shoo!" he said for the last time, rather quietly now.
"Caw, caw!" retorted Pete, throwing up his head.
The shiny sight of the air rifle glistened against the beady, vicious, triumphant eye, cocked a little sideways. "Ping!" spoke the air rifle. In a stall a frisky young mule wheeled around and kicked the bars continuously like a rapid-fire gun. Old Frank, who had lain soberly down, sprang to his feet with pricked ears and eager eyes. From without came a hoarse, faint squawk and heavy flopping of wings. Out of breath, Tommy turned round. "I hit him, F'ank!" he gasped.
Pete, big and heavy as a turkey gobbler, was flopping round and round when they reached him, beating the ground with lusty wings, sliding his limp head along the dirt, acting crazy generally, as if Aunt Cindy had wrung his neck.
"Aw, get up!" said Tommy.
But Pete did not get up, and, sobered, the boy glanced around. The hens had fled the violent scene; the hulk of the barn hid what was going on from the yard. Only Frank had seen, and Frank never told anything. Tommy leaned his rifle against the barn, straddled the heavy rooster and, face flushed, lifted him, limp and dangling, to his feet.
"Stand up, Pete," he coaxed. "You ain't dead!"
But when he released him Pete collapsed like an empty sack, kicked frantically a time or two, and was still. Then the boy saw the blood that trickled from his head. Straight into his eye and into his brain, if he had any, the BB shot had gone. Pete would never eat any more crumbs. Breathing fast, the boy looked at Frank. Ears drooped, eyes worried, Frank looked at the boy. And while they looked, down the back steps came the solid tread of Aunt Cindy's broganned feet, and her regular afternoon summons broke the silence:
"Chick! Chick! Chick!"
Through the corn the silly hens went running toward the yard, their appetites nowise affected by the calamity. Again the old woman called. Then she spoke, and Tommy's heart jumped up into his mouth. His father had evidently sauntered round the house, as fathers have a way of sauntering, just at the wrong time.
"Mr. Steve—whar dat rooster?" asked the old woman.
Earle laughed. "I haven't got him, Aunt Cindy."
"It sho a funny thing," she declared. "He allis de fust to come when dey's anything to eat. Somethin' done happen to him. You stay here. I lay I kin fin' him!"
Tommy hastily picked up his rifle. The old woman was coming; he could hear her skirts draggingacross the weeds at the side of the barn. A short distance in the opposite direction was the corn crib. To the side of it away from the barn he retreated, followed closely by Frank.
He heard her exclamation when her eyes fell on the dead rooster.
"Honey!" she called gently, "whar you, honey?"
He didn't answer; he didn't have to answer. She could stand there calling till night if she wanted to. Then he heard her grunt and sigh as she stooped down. When he peeped cautiously around the corner, she had picked up the rooster and started for the yard. They would all know now.
His heart grew bitter at the thought. He ought to have hid the rooster. He ought to have got a spade and buried him. He was full of regrets, not for what he had done, but for what he had not done. He would stay here till dark. He would stay here all night. He never would go home any more. He would hide in the woods, and he and Frank would hunt. He would kill what they wanted to eat and cook it over a fire. His face was set. His mind was full of grim little desperate outcast thoughts.
Then his dark romance was shattered. From the yard his father had called him. The call seemed to search out this very spot, but he did not answer. Let them find him if they wanted him. He wasn't going to them, and he wasn't going to run, either. They would try to take his gun away now. Therewas a lump in his throat as he thought of the injustice of it, of the insults he had patiently borne, of the futility of explanations where grown people, who loved and treasured roosters above everything else, were concerned.
He heard them coming through the lot and flattened himself against the wall, his eyes full of fight. They would have to throw him down and beat him into insensibility. To the end he would cling to his gun, asking no quarter, making no explanations. And thus they found him—Aunt Cindy first, then his father and his mother. He glanced sullenly at them and said nothing.
"Hiding, old man?" asked his father.
At something kind and comradely in the tones he looked up with sudden hope beyond the belt and the shirt into the clean-cut face and gray, twinkling eyes bent down upon him.
"No, sir," he said. "I wasn't hidin'."
"Well, who killed Pete?"
His heart began to pound in his ears; the eyes of his father held him; he had almost owned up; then it came over him, as all such things come, by inspiration. There stood old Frank, gently wagging his tail. Frank had nothing to lose; nothing would be done to Frank. Frank's reputation was spotless; it could stand a stain or two. Eagerly he smiled up into his father's face.
"F'ank killed him!" he said.
For a moment the air was electric with uncertainty. Then his mother spoke, her eyes full of pain and reproach.
"Why, dear!"
"Honey, honey!" remonstrated Aunt Cindy, "you know dat dawg——!"
But a quick glance from his father silenced this feminine outburst. "All right, old scout," said Earle gravely. "Just as you say. We'll go back to the house now; and we'll see to it that Frank doesn't kill any more chickens."
Tommy took a deep breath; he could hardly believe his ears. He had braced himself for fight, prepared himself to defend his assertion, and now there wasn't going to be any fight at all. At first he thought his father must have understood and becomeparticepsin the secret with him and Frank and the gun. Then it dawned on his delighted mind—his father actually believed what he had said!
He went back to the yard with them, profoundly relieved, as if he were walking on air. He even had for a moment a virtuous feeling as if Frank had really killed the rooster, and he had only spoken the truth. Then he began to feel proud in a secret sort of way. It had been quite a stroke. He had never experimented sufficiently with this method of getting out of trouble. It was really quite simple. He would try it again some time.
He had a vague idea that something had hurt his mother, and he was sorry for that. But she would get over it; he would be unusually loving to her. Really, all one had to do was to make a statement, and grown people would swallow it. They were easy marks.
Yet, somehow, though he had won out by superior intelligence, he wasn't as happy as he should have been. He felt some of the loneliness of genius. And when in the back yard his father turned and called Frank sternly to him, he began to fear that the affair might not be so simple after all.
With growing uneasiness he watched old Frank go to Earle, tail depressed, eyes troubled. Earle led him to the kennel at the side of the house and chained him up. Frank sat down on his haunches and looked up into his master's face.
"Now," said Earle, "I'm going to give you time to think about it. Then I'm going to wear you out!"
"Pete ate my crumbs, Papa!" cried the boy, the blood rushing to his face.
His father turned and spoke to him confidentially, as man to man. They would have to cure Frank, right now, before killing chickens got to be a habit. They couldn't afford to have a chicken-killing dog on the place—it was too expensive.
And that was just the beginning of his troubles and complications. Every afternoon since he could remember, he and his father and Frank had goneto the pasture to see about the cattle. But now old Frank was chained up. And when his father askedhimto come along, he shook his head. He didn't want to be alone with his father. He had an idea that it would be terribly and silently embarrassing down there with no one around but the two of them.
"I don't want to go," he declared.
"Very well," said Earle, and went off alone, through the lot and into the corn.
And he got no comfort whatever out of the talk he had with his mother a little later in the living room, though she smiled at him when he entered, and put her sewing aside.
Encouraged, he went to her and leaned against her knee; she brushed his hair back off his forehead, just as she always did.
"What is it, dear?" she asked.
"Papa ain't goin' to whip F'ank, is he, Mama?"
"Why, yes—he has to."
"I tol' F'ank to kill him!"
"But Frank's a grown dog—he knew better."
He grew suddenly angry—angry at her very simplicity.
"F'ank won't kill any more chickens!"
"How do you know?"
"I know!" he cried, and stamped his foot. "I know!"
He came away from this futile interview in a suppressed rage. From the hall he saw old Aunt Cindywaddling about in the dining room. No use to appeal to her. She knew too much, anyhow, that old woman. There was in her nature none of the simple credulity that characterized his parents. She was worldly wise, like himself.
He avoided her, therefore, his face turned over his shoulder, afraid she would see and call him. He went out on the front porch, down the steps, and, gun under his arm, sauntered round the house to the kennel. Old Frank came to meet him as far as the chain would allow. Frank thought he was going to be turned loose now—his eyes showed it. There was a log of wood beside the kennel, and the boy sat down on it. Frank nestled close to him, tail dragging across the ground.
Suddenly the boy was all attention, and Frank had pricked his ears. Steve Earle had come from the pasture, gone up the back steps, and into the room with the boy's mother. Through the open window just above the kennel he could hear them talking in a confidential sort of way, as grown folks talk when they think no one is listening.
"Where's the boy?" asked Earle.
"I don't know, Steve—he went out just now."
She was silent a while, then she spoke, with a little laugh that didn't sound like a laugh:
"Steve—it's pitiful, pitiful!"
"It's drastic, Mother—but it's the best way."
"But, Steve—suppose it doesn't work?"
It was his father who was silent now.
"Then that will be pretty tough, Mother," he said at last.
They talked some more—meaningless grown folks' talk that didn't get anywhere. It didn't seem to bear even remotely on the essential question in hand, which was whether or not Frank was to be whipped. They weren't even interested enough in the matter to speak of it. They just talked—that was all. They didn't care anything about him and Frank, or what became of them. They thought more of roosters than of anything else. They were all against him and Frank and the gun. All right—he and Frank and the gun would look out for themselves!
Once more his mind filled with visions of a wild life, in which escape and vengeance were mingled in proper and satisfying proportions. In the woods beyond the pasture was a cave, which he and Frank could reach before dark. Then they would ring the farm bell and raise a great hullabaloo, but he and Frank, safe within the dark cavern, would live their own lives.
The more he thought of it, the more enticing it became, and his eyes filled with a caveman's fire. The entrance to the cave was pretty dark and "snaky"; maybe he would compromise and not go in. But the woods round about were thick, and there were plenty of hiding places.
He left Frank, and, heart pounding, went round the side of the house, looking up at the familiar windows high overhead. There came over him a scorn of the civilized existence these people led, and he wondered that he had endured it so long. He went quietly up the back steps, peeped into the kitchen, then entered softly.
Old Aunt Cindy was in the dining room, which was separated from the kitchen by a passageway. He could hear the rattle of dishes in there as she set the table for supper. Well, there would be one seat empty this night, and maybe through a good many nights to come. He got up on a chair in front of the cupboard and filled his pockets with biscuits.
All excited, he came out of the house, hurried to the kennel, and turned Frank loose. Frank had caught the contagion. Frank knew there was somethingsub rosaabout what was going on, and his eyes were glowing. Likely they would shine like a cat's eyes in the dark cave at night—and maybe there would be other wild eyes shining in the recesses that led off here and there and dripped with water!
He hesitated a moment, trying to think of some other spot where they might run, some spot less suggestive of shining eyes. And while he hesitated there came steps on the front porch, and around the house, pipe in mouth, his father sauntered, as fathers have a way of sauntering, just at the wrong time.
"What're you doing there, Tommy?" he demanded.
The cave and the wild life vanished like a bubble that has burst.
"Pete ate my crumbs, Papa!" he cried.
For a moment his father hesitated, looking down into his eyes as if he were perplexed and worried and did not know what to do. Then once more he chained Frank up.
"You mustn't turn him loose again," he said sternly.
"I tol' him to kill Pete! I tol' him to!"
"And he did it?"
The eyes which the boy raised to the man's face were full of fight. He had said it, and he was going to stick to it. It was no longer only a matter of saving the gun; it was a question of principle now.
But his father did not press the question. With just a queer look into the boy's defiant eyes, he turned away and walked across the yard toward the garage, head bowed. Tommy watched him. No doubt his father thought he would follow. He had always liked to hang about the garage, he and Frank, and watch his father tinker with the car. It had been one of the high lights of their daily life. But now old Frank was chained up—and as for him, he didn't care anything about automobiles.
Frank had sat down on his haunches, in his fine old eyes, as he watched his master's retiring form,that disconsolate look of a dog whose feelings are deeply wounded. A moment Tommy regarded his offended friend. No use to think of turning him loose again with his father within hearing. Tommy hardened his heart. All right—so be it—he had done his part. Things would just have to take their course. Gun under arm, face set and grim, he walked round the house, and left old Frank to his fate.
There was a side porch around here, where his mother sometimes sat in the mornings, but which was deserted the rest of the day. On the step he took his seat, a solitary little figure, his gun between his knees. Here he would stay until the beating was over, here where he could not see it, and could not hear it—very plainly.
He was full to the brim of rebellious thoughts. He wished Pete were alive so he could shoot him again. He thought of boys he knew whose parents let them alone, and he envied them their lot in life. Maybe he would go and live with some of them, go where he would be appreciated. He would take Frank with him, of course; that went without saying: life would be a void without Frank.
Yonder was the apple orchard, with the gold of the setting sun glancing through the tree trunks, and yonder in it was the brush pile where, on that memorable morning, he and Frank had "almost" caught a rabbit. Beyond were the woods where anotherafternoon never to be forgotten Frank had jumped a red fox bent on mischief, who, his father said, would have got some chickens that very night if Frank hadn't chased him far into the distant hills.
Then there was the time down in the creek bottoms when he had sat down on a log, and Frank had rushed toward him, leaped the log, and jerked the life out of a big copperhead moccasin coiled just behind him in the grass. And not very long ago, at the country store up the road, when a big boy had tried to bully him, Frank had come to his side and growled, and the boy had backed off, his face white. Frank had always stuck to him.
His face grew solemn, a lump rose in his throat. He could not sit here any longer with Frank chained up around yonder waiting a beating. He got up and started once more around the house. He was just in time to see his father cross the yard and stop in front of a bush.
He stood where he was, watching with alarmed eyes. When his father turned he had a switch in his hand. At sight of it the blood rushed to the boy's face, and every nerve tingled. He had doubted it a little bit up to this time; now there was no doubt left. His father was going to whip Frank.
Once at Tom Belcher's store he had seen a man whip a dog. The dog had writhed rather comically on the ground, and his cries had filled the air. He himself had stood on the store porch and watchedthe performance in a detached, judicial frame of mind. It had been a spectacle, and nothing more; but this was vastly different. That had been an old hound, and this was Frank.
That was a big switch his father had cut, and his father was very strong. It would hurt, hurt even through Frank's long hair, hurt terribly. Frank would writhe on the ground, Frank's cries would fill the air. He watched his father's face as Earle came toward him. It was serious and grim, so serious that it almost hurt. Maybe his father didn't want to whip Frank; maybe he was doing it because he thought, in his ignorance and simplicity, that he ought to; maybe his father hated to do it.
He thought of retreating once more to the side porch where he could not see, of hurrying beyond it to the orchard and there crying, perhaps. But he could not do that. Breathing fast, he followed his father, led by the fascination of horror. Anybody looking at him, unless it was his mother, would have thought he was going out of curiosity, to see the thing well done. But there was a humming sound in his ears; the lump was choking him cruelly; the whole yard was swimming round, and everything looked strange.
As they drew near the kennel, Frank rose quickly to his feet, his tail tapping the taut chain, his eyes eager and glowing as he looked from one friend to another. Frank thought they had come to turn himloose and give him his supper in his tin plate on the back steps. Then he saw, and his ears drooped—saw the look on their faces, saw the switch, and he sank down on his stomach and laid his big head humbly between his paws at his master's feet.
"Don't!" shrieked the boy. "Papa, Papa, don't!"
In the midst of the whirling yard and barns and things, his father had turned and looked down at him with strange burning eyes.
"I can't let him kill chickens, son."
It all happened in a flash. He hadn't intended doing any such thing. His last resolve, even as he came around the house, had been to stick to his spoken word. But now passionately he threw the air rifle away from him, and stood looking up at his father with dilated eyes and heaving, sturdy chest.
"Take the old gun!" he cried. "I don't want it! I killed Pete—F'ank never done it. I shot him through the head!"
His father had stooped down now, and he was in strong arms. His cheek was pressed against his father's cheek, and over a broad shoulder, through a haze of tears, he looked miserably into the red glow of the setting sun.
"I tol' F'ank to kill him," he sobbed brokenly, "an' he wouldn't. I drove—drove him off, an' he kept comin' back. I killed him—I shot him through the head!"
The arms tightened about him, the cheek pressed closer to his cheek.
"That's all right, old man," said his father. "I understand."
Gradually the sobs ceased, for he fought them down like a little man. And when at last Earle rose, Tommy looked up clear-eyed into his father's face, as he used to look before he ate of his forbidden fruit. Then his father went to the gun, picked it up, and came back to him.
"It's yours," he said gently.
For the second time that day Tommy could hardly believe his ears; his eyes were uncomprehending, for he had never expected to own the gun again.
"You've earned it," said Earle, with a smile.
Then, within the house, swung lustily by old Aunt Cindy's strong wrist, the supper bell rang. At the top of the kitchen steps the mother waited with happy face. And up these steps, the sinking sun shining upon them, went father and boy and dog together.
One January afternoon there got off the train at a straggling little Southern town a massive man past middle age, with a craggy face and deep-set eyes, and the looks and manner of one with power and wealth. His name was William Burton, manufacturer of the famous Burton ploughs, and he could have bought this town out, lock, stock, and barrel, and the county in which the town sat, and a very considerable portion of the state itself. What he had come to buy, though, was a dog.
During the trip down, in his stateroom, instead of examining financial reports or reading the latest magazines, old Burton had studied, with the aid of his spectacles and of Ferris, his professional dog handler, the pedigree of a young pointer that lived in this town. He had noted how at recurrent intervals in the family tree occurred the word Champion. Already, in the years since he entered, as a hobby, the field-trial game, he had bought, at the recommendation of handlers, some hundreds of bird dogs. All of them had been disappointments. Now hehad taken the matter into his own hands. Usually when he took charge of a thing, that thing succeeded.
A lazy Negro at the dreary railroad station showed him and Ferris the way to Jim Arnold's place—a neat, modest cottage on the edge of the town from whose back yard, as they approached, came a challenging bark. A telegram had preceded them, and Jim Arnold himself, veteran bird-dog trainer, owner of the young pointer, came out to meet them, hobbling painfully on a stick.
Ferris could have explained the hobble and the stick. It's the kind of thing you see now and then among field-trial men. Earlier in the season, while running in a field trial the very dog who had brought the visitors here, his horse had fallen, crushing Arnold's knee. Jim Arnold could never ride a horse again. Consequently, Jim Arnold could never again run a dog in a National Championship race.
With the crippled man came his daughter Jessie, a slim, dark-eyed girl, pretty in a serious sort of way. Burton was hardly conscious of her, but Ferris respectfully raised his hat. Dog men knew Jessie Arnold because she sometimes rode with her father and helped him handle. She had been with him when his knee was crushed, and had held his head in her lap till the doctor came.
After the briefest of greetings the three men, followed by the girl, went around to the rear yard.Here, in a lot enclosed by a high wire fence, wagging his tail like any other dog, was the National Championship hope.
Great dogs, like great men, do not always look the part. This one did. He was a big white fellow, his ears and a portion of his head liver brown. His head was nobly carved, his back long and straight, his legs rangy, clean-cut, his tail thin, like a lance; he was all a pointer of the highest breeding ought to be. But to the man who knows dogs there was in his eyes something wild, headstrong, untamed, the kind of thing you see in the eyes of young aviators.
"Let him out, Jess," said Arnold.
The girl opened the gate and he sprang out. He ran eagerly around the yard, inspecting the familiar premises to see if there had been any other dog there recently. Every motion showed unbounded power, as if the yard, and even the town itself, were too small for him. Not until Arnold called him twice, and severely, did he come to them. But he had no attention to bestow upon his distinguished visitor. His eyes sought first his master's face, then the face of the girl. There they rested a moment in adoration. Then he reared gently up against her, ears thrown back, upraised eyes affectionately searching her face.
Old Burton had been looking on with impassive countenance. But from the moment his eyes rested on this dog he wanted him. His hunch told himthat here was a champion, and he went by hunches. He looked at Ferris, quickly, significantly. Ferris nodded in a way which indicated that he would like to speak in private. Millionaire and handler withdrew a few steps from father and daughter and dog.
"I don't like that look in his eyes!" whispered Ferris vehemently.
"I do!" said old Burton.
In Arnold's little over-furnished parlour the business was transacted. But neither the young pointer out there, nor the girl who remained with him, were to know anything about it. So far as the dog was concerned, man, his master and god, moves in mysterious ways. As for the girl, it was her father who requested that the trade be kept a secret from her.
"She sets a lot of store by Drake," he explained. "She picked him out from the litter when he was a pup. She's fed him and raised him. People are always comin' to see him. She thinks that's the reason you come—just to look at him."
Burton glanced at the crippled trainer with slightly hardened eyes. He resented this intrusion of the human element into a deal, particularly when that human element was a girl. It has a way of breaking things up. However, for a while, things went smoothly, though the conversation was carried on in lowered tones. Three thousand was the price agreed upon. It was a good price for Arnold to get if the dog didnot win the championship. It was a poor price if he did.
For to own a national champion means a steady income from his puppies. It brings fame to the owner and to the trainer. He has trained one champion—maybe he can train another. Men send him their dogs; his price goes up, like that of the teacher who had turned out a prima donna. To own and train a national champion may put a man like Arnold on the map.
And now he was gambling with the chance. His face showed the strain he was under. However, it was he who set the price. But when Burton, thinking the matter closed, got out his check book, again the crippled trainer introduced the element of mystery.
"One minute, sir," he said. "There's something I ought to tell you. I'm sellin' Drake because I can't afford to take chances on his winnin'. But I want him to win, sir, just the same as if he was goin' to be mine."
"Well?" said Burton.
"There's one thing goin' to stand in his way. After this year I think he'll settle down. But right now, I'll be honest with you, Drake's a bolter. You know what a bolter is, I guess. He's a dog that won't keep in the course, that will run away. Drake's one of 'em. When you turn him loose in the field he forgets there's such things as human bein's onthis planet. Don't I know him? I won the Southern Championship with him. I managed to keep up and hold him in. But I come mighty nigh ridin' a horse to death. Here's the price I paid myself, sir," and he tenderly felt his warped and shattered knee, "paid it the last five minutes of the race."
Burton was silent. Arnold went on:
"There's two people in the world Drake will listen to: One's me an' the other's Jessie. I can't run him, I'm stove up. Jess is expectin' to run him. If she does, he may win. If she don't, he won't win. I tell you, I know. I know that dog inside and out. Nobody but me or the girl can stop him when he gets started. He'll hunt where he darn pleases, or he'll strike a bee line for the next state. You know what that means, Mr. Burton. If you don't, Ferris does. The judges will rule him out."
But old Burton wanted that big young pointer though there were ascoreof wild devils in him. He wanted him worse than ever now he had heard. He had been a bolter himself when young—had run away from home. He liked bolters. But, also, he wanted to win the championship.
"Let the girl run him, then," he said. "Suits me. I'll pay her, and pay her well. If the dog wins, she'll get the stake."
Arnold flushed. "She'll run the dog, sir; but not for you. I mean, she won't run him if she knows it's for you. She's a high-strung girl—and proud; shemustn't know a thing about this deal. She must think she's runnin' her dog an' mine."
"Then you mean to deceive her in the matter?" demanded Burton.
Again Arnold flushed. "Sometimes, Mr. Burton, a man has to do a thing he don't like to do. I'll have to deceive the girl until after the trial. It ain't easy. I lay awake all night last night, after I got your telegram. It's this way, sir. I have to tell you in order for you to understand: If I can tell the bank positively that I'll have three thousand dollars in a month, I can renew a note I've got to renew—or lose the place here. That's the reason I'm sellin' Drake. But if I tell Jess now that I have sold him, even if she consents to run, the life won't be in her to handle him. It'll take it all out of her, sir. She'll be ashamed in the midst of all them people. She's a high-strung girl.
"And that brings me to the matter of the check you started to write," he went on. "I don't want that check now. Ever since I was laid up Jess has tended to things for me. You know how women are when they take charge. If that check's in the house she's liable to find it. If I deposit it, in a little town like this, people will find it out, and somebody'll blab to her. You send it to me after the trial, when I'm ready to explain to the girl without ruinin' your prospect of winnin', an' Drake's. That's my condition."
As he went up the street toward the station, Burton heard from behind the cottage the challenging bark of the championship hope—his dog now.
"Ferris," he said, "I believe we've got the champion this time. I think I'll attend that trial myself."
For more than a generation, the National Championship, bird-dog classic of America, had been run near Breton Junction where, two weeks later, Burton got off the train and was met by Ferris.
"Your dog's here, sir," was Ferris's whispered greeting. "Wilder looking than ever. The girl's here, too. Jim Arnold couldn't come. Laid up with his knee."
Burton looked around. He had reached a spot where for a few weeks every winter the bird dog is undisputed king. Down the sunlit village streets pointers and setters were out with their handlers. They came from every section of the country, from Canada, from England. Each dog represented in himself the survival of the fittest. There was not one who had not gained a victory in some trial. Now they were to try for the greatest victory of all.
Many were already champions with majestic names—champions of the South, the prairies, the Pacific coast. Some, younger and more eager than others, strained at their leashes, and looked about alertly at the passing show. Others, reserved veterans, gazed into space with the dignified abstractionof those who have travelled far and seen the world and tasted the vanity of all things under the sun.
On the way to the boarding-house where Ferris had engaged a place for him, Burton came face to face with his dog. He was pulling hard at the leash, held by the girl. She nodded and smiled quickly, wistfully, at these men who had been to her father's house to see her father's dog. But she did not stop or speak; for so strong was the pull of the big pointer that she was hurried along as if a high wind were blowing her from behind.
Old Burton stopped and looked back at them. His dog was the finest fellow of the bunch. He would take that dog back with him, National Champion tacked to his name. He would keep him in his own kennels, show him to his friends, run him again next year, own him in name as well as in fact.
As for the girl, it would be a big disappointment to her when she learned the truth. But she was young. Young people get over things quickly. Besides, it was her father's arrangement, not his. He wasn't responsible.
But when at supper in the boarding-house he saw her at the other end of the table, he was a bit sorry. This was rather too forcible a reminder of the bargain. He noticed that the girl was browned with Southern suns, but that she was pretty and looked thoroughbred. Also, she was very quiet, and her manners were nice.
She was present again at the meeting of handlers and owners and club officials, who packed the parlours and hall after supper. She was to be the first woman who ever ran a dog in a National Championship race, he heard somebody say. It occurred to him that she must be pretty brave, for she didn't seem to be the pushing kind.
The order in which dogs are to run is decided by lot. He had hoped Drake would be drawn for the first week. But in the lottery Drake came on Friday. "Arnold's Drake," he heard the official read: "Owner, Jim Arnold; handler, Jessie Arnold—handling for her father."
"Will you stay over, sir?" whispered Ferris.
Burton nodded.
All day long, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, in morning and afternoon heats of three hours each, dogs were run in braces on the plantation of Steve Earle, who was, like his father before him, one of the judges. Gruelling heats they were that tested every nerve and fibre, run under the eyes of judges who saw every move.
As for Burton, he went out to the testing ground but once. He was not used to hard horseback riding, and he wanted to be fresh on Friday. But once every day, either in the morning or the afternoon, he saw the girl set out on her pony. She was learning the course, getting ready for her own race.
Most of the time when she wasn't riding the course,she spent with the dog, exercising him, all alone, on the streets of the town. Once when Burton went out to the barn lot to look at him, where he waited, chained to his kennel, the girl came, also. He watched her as she stooped before the eager dog, and stroked his head.
"Tired of waiting, old man?" she asked.
Again he reared up against her and looked into her face.
"Do you—er—think he will bolt?" asked Burton as they went back toward the house.
She stopped and looked him straight in the eyes; her own were brown, frank, high-spirited, like a boy's.
"No!" she said bravely. "I can handle him."
"She's over-confident, sir," declared Ferris when the two reached Burton's room. "She don't know what she's up against. She's nothing but a kid. That dog was born a bolter, and he will die a bolter."
On Thursday morning the girl spoke to Burton as they came out of the dining room. She was going to take Drake out to the edge of town for a practise run, she said. Would he care to go along? He had seemed to be so interested in Drake.
He had Ferris hire a car. One of the women of the house went with them. In the edge of the town Jessie took the dog out and, Burton and Ferris following, led him into a field. Here she snapped the leash.
"Go!" she cried.
He needed no such command. Like a white meteor he sped across the field and dashed into the woods. She called him, but he did not turn. Again and again the shrill command of her little nickel-plated whistle echoed in fields and woods. At last, in the direction he had taken, she started running swiftly. Behind her hurried the two men, Burton breathing hard.
"This will never do!" gasped Ferris.
"Leave it to her!" commanded Burton.
At last, on top of a ridge, half a mile away, he reappeared. Three times shriller and shriller she blew, and now he came galloping toward them.
"Come in!" she commanded.
He came to her, and she caught him quickly by the collar.
"I told you I could handle him!" she said proudly.
But her eyes were dilated. She was quiet on the ride home. She was silent at the table.
Ferris joined his boss when the latter went to his room. Ferris stopped with the postmaster down the street, as he had stopped for twenty years when he was handling other men's dogs.
Ferris was depressed. That showing, he said, was terrible. If he bolted to-day, what would he do to-morrow, with another dog to spur him on and the crowd to excite him. They ought to do something—warn her, advise her.
Burton smoked away. "Suppose we just leave it to the girl, Ferris," he said quietly.
She was gone when next morning he came down to breakfast. She had left with the wagon that hauled her dog to the place of trial, the other diners said. Not once during the night or the morning had she let him out of her sight.
The crowd, all mounted, had gathered at the beginning of the course when Burton and Ferris rode up that brilliant winter morning. And a little to one side, standing beside a wagon in which were two dog's crates, one containing Arnold's Drake, the other Count Redstone, his brace mate, stood the girl.
At her side a wiry Texas pony waited patiently. In a scabbard on the saddle was strapped a twenty-gauge shotgun.
The girl looked small, slight, and brown in her riding suit. Underneath a roughrider hat Burton glimpsed her face as she looked off across the fields that marked the beginning of the course. Though brave and composed, it showed the strain she was under. In that crate nearest her, as she thought, was the hope of her crippled father.
Burton noticed that she did not glance up at the people about her, or speak to them. Her eyes were fixed on those sunlit straw fields, so soon to be her battleground. He liked her silence. From the beginning she had played the game—had asked no odds because she was a woman. He thought of his own youngest daughter. Suppose she were standing there, as that girl stood!
When the three judges rode up, she herself lifted the big pointer out of the crate. Once more he reared up on her, once more her hand stroked his head. Then, at a command of the judges, she was leading him into the field, her pony following; at her side walked the handler of Count Redstone, and in front of him, the Count strained at his leash.
"Are you ready?" asked the senior judge.
Count Redstone's handler, a bronzed, gray-haired veteran, said "Ready!" as he had said it a hundred times. The girl merely looked up at the judge and nodded.
"Let go!" ordered the judge.
Burton saw the dogs dash away. The girl, like an athlete, sprang into her saddle. Both handlers galloped after their dogs. Behind followed the judges, then, after an interval, the field, among them old Burton, his heart beating fast. The fight was on—but it was more than a fight between dogs. It was a conflict between a girl's will and the wild heritage in a dog's nature.
The dogs have to be kept within a course some half-a-mile wide and many miles long. If a dog gets out of the course and is lost for a length of time—that varies according to the conception of the judges, but is usually confined to half an hour—that dog is ruled out. This much Burton knew. The question was whether the girl by her whistle and the wave of her handkerchief to right and left could keep the dogwithin the course. The test is, which dog will find the most birds in that course and handle them with the greatest speed and dash.
At first the girl succeeded in handling her dog, though she had to ride hard to do so. Far ahead of the judges she kept, a slim figure against the hills. Now and then came the shrill of her whistle and the wave of her handkerchief. Then it began to be rumoured among the field that she had lost him. But not for long. On top of a hill she appeared, her right arm thrown up high. Judges, then the field, galloped toward her. The upraised hand meant her dog had scored—had found birds.
Burton, spurring up his horse, kept up with the crowd. There, in the midst of a straw field, head up, tail straight out, stood the pointer. The girl had dismounted, taken the little gun out of the scabbard, and was advancing, slim, straight, flushed of cheek, toward him.
"Flush your birds!" ordered the senior judge.
The birds rose with a whirr; the little gun barked; the pointer dropped to his haunches; it was perfect work.
"Go on, old man!" she ordered.
Then she was running back to her pony, which Ferris was holding for her. Again Burton saw in her face the strain she was under. How precious was every moment with a wild dog like this! She rammed the little gun in the scabbard, sprang intothe saddle, hardly seeming to touch the stirrups, and was off.
Again Drake scored, then Count Redstone. Nearly an hour had flitted away. Then Burton, loitering among the rearmost of the field, heard rumours that something was wrong, and, anxiously spurring up his mount, came upon a body of horsemen gathered in a patch of woods.
Out yonder in a cotton field, he could see the three judges gathered on their horses like consulting generals on a battlefield. They had called time, the men explained to Burton, until Jessie Arnold could find her dog. A short distance from the judges Count Redstone was sitting on his haunches, panting, and beside him stood his handler, dismounted. This was giving Count Redstone a chance to rest, and the handler was taking full advantage of it.
Some of the men, the group explained to Burton, were scouting for the girl, among them Ferris. They were riding about the fields and woods outside the course, looking for her dog. The rest of them had better stay here; the judges would not allow too many helpers. The girl had ridden up yonder creek bottom, the last they saw of her. She was going like mad, they said.
But she was using her brains, they added. There are two kinds of bolters—those who run away for the sheer love of running, and those who from hilltops pick out the country that looks like containing birds,and make for that country of their own sweet will. Arnold's Drake belonged to the latter class. The girl was looking for him in the "birdy" spots. But heaven only knew how far he had taken it into his head to go! Old Burton got out his handkerchief and mopped his face. Five minutes passed, then ten—and still Arnold's Drake was lost, and out yonder the judges waited.
Then across the field toward the group in the woods came the girl. Off to the side of these woods were extensive fields of broom straw that lay outside the course. But they looked "birdy," those fields, and the girl was making for them.
As she swept past, Burton glimpsed her face. It was tense with anxiety, but the little mouth was set in a straight line. Her pony was flecked with foam; his eyes were wild; and Burton heard his hoarse panting and the pounding of his hoofs.
Careless of tree limbs, the girl swept through the woods. It came over Burton that, in this way, and, in trying to keep up with this very dog, her father had broken his knee. He wheeled his own horse about and tried to follow. But she had disappeared in her mad search; even the sound of her pony's hoofs had died away. Burton drew up his horse, and looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed, and still the judges waited. Again Burton mopped his face with his handkerchief.
He had been an object of admiration among themen, and now they gathered about him. The faces of them all showed with what sympathy they were watching Jess Arnold's gallant fight. Again Burton looked at his watch. Twenty minutes—and the judges still waited out yonder, and Count Redstone rested.
"Can't we do something?" demanded Burton.
Not a thing, they said. Leaving out the fact that the judges would not permit many scouters, it wasn't good for a crowd to ride over the fields. The dog would see them, from a distant hill, perhaps, think he was going right, and keep on. It was all over, anyway, one man ventured: Arnold's Drake was out of the race. It was a pity, too. But for the bolting he was a great dog. They began to talk of this race as of something that might have been.
Then a man cried out excitedly, "Yonder she comes now! She's got him, too! That girl don't give up—she don't know how!"
Burton saw her galloping toward them, and with her the wild dog.
"Is time up?" she panted, reining in her pony.
"Five minutes!" said Burton.
"He was on birds!" she gasped. "But he was off the course. Five minutes, you say?"
She threw herself from the saddle. A man caught the reins of her panting, foam-flecked pony, and she was down on the ground beside the dog, while the others gathered about her. She had made the dog lie down. She was stroking him.
"You devil!" Burton heard her gasp. "You darling! You beauty! You wonder! Oh, I love you, but you don't love me—me or Dad!"
She was oblivious now of the men about her. The slim hand was stroking the head, the long back, quietly, smoothly. "Steady!" she was pleading. "Steady, old man. Look at me!" She had caught his head and raised his eyes to hers. "Can't you see? Oh, you beauty—can't you see? See what it means! Now, now—be quiet—just a minute—quiet—quiet—steady—steady!"
The frantic panting was growing less; but still the wild fire blazed in the amber-brown eyes. Once he started to rise, but she pushed him gently back. Again she lifted his head, and looked at him long, pleadingly.
"Can't you see?" she said. "Can't you see?"
And now there came a change, visible to Burton, and to them all. The panting stopped altogether, the dog choked and swallowed. The pricked, eager ears fell back gently against the long thoroughbred head. The wildness faded out of the eyes that stared into the girl's face, and in them came the light of love, the dawn of understanding.
"You see now, don't you?" she said quietly.
She rose to her feet. He did not move, but lay there looking up at her humbly, wonderingly. She stood above him a moment and still he did not move.
"Time's up!" said one of the men tensely.
She nodded to show she had heard. It was as if she might break the spell if she spoke. The man led the pony to her. With no haste, now, she got into the saddle.
"Heel!" she commanded.
The pointer rose and looked up at her.
"Heel!" she repeated.
When she rode out of the woods, across the sunlit fields toward the judges, at her pony's heels trotted the pointer, obedient now, as if he had left behind him, in that patch of woods, his wild heritage.
No man or woman who saw the work of Arnold's Drake the rest of that morning can ever forget it. Fast as ever, yet he kept the course. Bold, independent, aggressive, yet at every shrill whistle he turned, and according to the wave of her handkerchief went to right or left.
Ten coveys of birds, in the hour and a half that remained to him, he found. From terrific speed men saw him flash ten times into the statuesque immobility of a point. They forgot even so steady and painstaking a fellow as Count Redstone. It was the pointer who captured their imaginations.
On Saturday night, while the crowd was at supper, the decision of the judges, who always stopped at Freedom Hill, was telephoned in. And the decision showed them to be dog men, not martinets—men who can overlook a grievous fault in the face of a magnificent accomplishment and a future full of promise.
A veteran reporter took the message, then stood in the dining-room door a moment, his eyes twinkling at the faces turned his way.
"Champion," he said, and paused a moment, "Champion, Arnold's Drake."
But when the girl declared she must telegraph her father, old Burton pushed through the crowd about her.
"I'll attend to that," he said.
He saw the quick friendliness in her upraised eyes. Had he not shown faith throughout in her dog?
Out in the hall he spoke to the men: "Telephone Ferris," he said. "He's stopping with the postmaster. Tell him to come at once."
In his own room he got out his stationery and pen and wrote, quickly, in a bold hand that dashed across the sheet. But the excitement of it must have told on him, for he dated the letter two days back, on Thursday.
When the door opened he looked up. There was Ferris, his face jubilant. Behind Ferris was the girl. At sight of her old Burton did a funny thing. He put his hand over the letter he had been writing.
"I just wanted to be sure," she said—"Dad, you know."
"I'll attend to that," he said impatiently.
After she was gone he hastily addressed the letter.
"Close the door, Ferris," he said. "You know the postmaster well, don't you? You've known him foryears. Well, tell him he won't get into any trouble over this. Tell him it's often done. Tell him if he does get into trouble, I'll make it all right. Tell him he'll be glad he got into it. Tell him to stamp this letter two days back—January 27th—and mail it to-night. Send a telegram signed 'Jessie' to old Arnold, saying his dog—his dog, mind you—is National Champion. Hurry now!"
Late the next afternoon a crippled dog handler tore open a letter. It had come on the same train with his daughter and with the National Champion, who now lay before the fire. As his master opened the letter this champion looked up, and tapped the floor with his tail.
Beside her father stood Jessie, amazed at what she saw in the letter.
Thursday morning, January 27.Dear Sir:I have just seen your dog work out in a preliminary test. He's a far worse bolter than even you had led me to believe. According to your representation, your daughter could handle him. I find her absolutely incapable of doing so. Under the circumstances I feel justified in cancelling our agreement. Yours truly,William Burton.
Thursday morning, January 27.
Dear Sir:
I have just seen your dog work out in a preliminary test. He's a far worse bolter than even you had led me to believe. According to your representation, your daughter could handle him. I find her absolutely incapable of doing so. Under the circumstances I feel justified in cancelling our agreement. Yours truly,
William Burton.
"The old quitter!" cried Arnold, his eyes blazing. "God knows I'm glad to get my dog. Three thousand couldn't get him now. But who would have thought——"
And eyes still blazing with anger and joy and excitement, he told the girl at his side the bargain they had made, right in this room.
For a moment she was silent, with staring eyes; then she cried out:
"Dad—Dad—he wrote the letter that night—after Drake was made champion. I know—I saw him doing it. He tried to hide it.... I know!"
On the train that very night, in the stateroom, Ferris spoke to his boss.
"I know a man, sir, who owns a dog I believe will win next year."
In the deep-set eyes came a twinkle that lit them up like tiny electrics.
"Has the man a broken leg and a daughter?"
"No, sir."
"Then buy the dog, Ferris."
It was with grave misgiving that old Frank, Irish setter, followed little Tommy Earle out of the precincts of the big shaded yard and into the hot field of rustling corn, twice as tall as they. That this morning of all mornings the boy belonged back there in the yard he knew well enough, but all his efforts to keep him there had failed. He had tried to divert his mind. He had loitered behind. He had glanced back wistfully at the big white house, hoping in the absence of the boy's father and mother to attract the attention of old Aunt Cindy the cook to the fact that Tommy was running away.
But old Aunt Cindy was nowhere to be seen. There was no one to catch his signals of distress. There was no one to see Tommy enter the corn. And no one knew what he knew—that strangers were camped down there in his master's woods. As for him, he had smelled them the night before after everybody was asleep. He had barked a while in their general direction, then gone down there to investigate. They had not seen him, for he had keptout of sight. There had been two men and a woman sitting by a small fire, an old car in the background. He had not liked their looks.
And that wasn't all. Not long ago he had seen one of the men, half hidden in the cornfield, looking toward the house. The man had stood there while Steve Earle, the boy's father, drove off in the car. He had stood there while Marian Earle, the boy's mother, went off across the orchard in another direction with a basket of fruit for a neighbour. He had stood there until Frank, left alone with the boy, had started toward the cornfield, tail erect, eyes fierce. Then the man had turned hurriedly and entered the woods.
But the man was still down there. So were those other people. Frank's nose told him that. Therefore his eyes were deep with trouble and he followed close at the boy's heels. Tommy's objective he knew well enough. A few days before Steve Earle had brought them both through this very corn, into the woods, to the creek. The father had pointed out to the boy the silvery fish darting here and there in a deep-shaded pool. It had made a great impression. Tommy was going to see those fish now. That Frank knew.
And he sympathized with the impulse, so far as that was concerned. Under ordinary circumstances, he was not averse to looking at fish himself. But now, with every step the boy took his anxiety increased. For it was beside the pool that the strangers werecamped. And it was straight in their direction that little Tommy in his ignorance was headed.
The morning sun blazed down through the thin obstacle of the tall corn. It flashed on the white-and-striped shirt and trousers and on the turn-down straw hat with the blue-ribbon band. In the deep-furrowed rows dust puffed up from under the hurrying little sandalled feet. Intent on seeing those darting silvery fish in that deep-shaded pool, Tommy did not once turn to look into the troubled eyes close behind him.
Within sight of the woods Frank made his last attempt. He stopped and sat down firmly on his haunches. Then the boy turned, his face flushed under the white hat.
"Come on, F'ank!" he said impatiently.
A gust of dry summer wind swept across the field and rattled the blades of corn and tossed up the silvery side of the leaves in the forest.
The boy grew angry. "Come on, F'ank!" he cried.
Panting hard, saliva dripping into the dust of the corn row, Frank sat where he was and looked everywhere but at the boy in the dignity of his determination.
"Sit there, then!" said Tommy. "I'm goin'!"
He went; and Frank went, too; for obedience, even against his judgment, is the penalty a dog has to pay who loves a boy—and will die for him if need be.
In contrast with the bright glare of the cornfield it was dark in the woods, like passing from out of doors into the cool, shaded living room back home. Here and there shafts of sunlight pierced the dense foliage and touched leaves and tree trunks with silver spots. Down the heavy-wooded slope the boy went, but more cautiously now. Suddenly he stopped breathless, Frank beside him with pricked ears. At the same time the two men, both at work on the car down there by the pool, both burly and flushed of face, glanced quickly around.
A moment they stared; then they began to talk, low, excitedly. The woman came around from the other side of the car. She was young, slim, strong; she was in a crimson shirtwaist and on her cheeks were spots of red. She, too, glanced at boy and dog, then joined the talk of the men. "No! No!" she cried. They brushed her aside; she ran quickly back to them; they brushed her aside again. Finally one of them pushed her into the car, pulled the shabby curtains down, and got in himself. The other man came forward, a smirking smile on his heavy red face.
Close to the boy stood Frank, his challenging eyes fastened on that smirking face. But Tommy, looking up with that eagerness to trust common to all young things from children to puppies, answered the man's questions in his clear boy's voice. Many times before, at Tom Belcher's store, at the Hunt Club, at country fairs, strangers had stopped thus totalk to him, had asked him who he was, where he lived, if his dog would bite. Many times before such strangers had smiled down into his upturned face.
"We got lots of things in the car," the man was saying, "apples, peaches, circus things. We been to a circus. Did you see the lady?"
"I did!" said Tommy, breathless, his eyes big.
"Well, you come along with me. The lady wants to show you them circus things."
Just a moment Tommy hesitated. He looked up wistfully into the smiling face and into the narrowed eyes that somehow frightened him. Then he glanced toward the car and smiled in ecstasy. That rolled-up tent strapped on behind was striped red-and-white like tents at the fair: merry-go-round tents, tents with shawled women who held your hand and told you what was going to happen. The woods became suddenly alive with romance, luring him to see. He hesitated no longer. He went with the man, one hand on his hat brim as if the wind were blowing. Close behind, panting, followed old Frank.
The car flecked with spots of light looked big here in the woods like a strayed elephant. The other man, on the front seat, his hand on the wheel, glanced over his shoulder as they approached. In his wide-brimmed hat he looked like the man who stands in front of tents and shouts for people to come in and see. Half concealed by the curtains and by bundles, the woman, her face strangely white except for red spots,sat on the back seat. Valises and suitcases with gaudy things sticking out of them were strapped here and there to the car. Tommy stopped and stared in wonderment at this travelling splendour. Close beside him stood old Frank, fierce-eyed, wise, suffering.
"Get in, son," said the man at the wheel, his voice gruff and husky. "We're goin' to take you to your ma. You ain't got no business down here in the woods alone. Quick now—no fooling!"
But Tommy drew back.
"Is—is F'ank goin'?"
"Sure. Let the dog in, Bill."
The red-faced man slammed the door on boy and dog and clambered heavily into the front seat. The lumbering car lurched and swayed along the unused wood road. It was stifling hot in here with the curtains down, but old Frank, wedged in between bundles and suitcases, was panting with more than heat. And Tommy, into whose face he looked with flattened ears and eyes solemn with devotion, was suddenly pale.
Just ahead, the big road came into sight, shining in the sun. The car stopped. The woman against whose knees boy and dog were pressed in the crowded space was breathing fast. The crimson, sleazy shirtwaist rose and fell. Her face, in spite of the red spots, was pasty, as if she might faint. The men looked up and down the road, nodded grimly at eachother, and the car started with a jerk. The scream of Tommy broke the terrible silence.
"That ain't the way! That ain't——!"
The red-faced man whirled around, caught the boy by the back of the neck and pressed the other hand over his mouth. And old Frank, rearing up in the crowded confusion, buried his shining fangs deep in that hand and wrist. The other man sprang out of the car, jerked the door open, and caught him by both hind legs.
"Don't stick him, Bill!" he gasped. "They'll find his body. Let him go home!"
Snarling, writhing, fighting, Frank was dragged out and hurled into the road. A savage kick sent him tumbling backward; the man sprang once more into the front seat. The car darted away, Frank after it, barking hoarsely in his rage and horror, his mouth flecked with bloody foam, the road flying dizzily underneath him.
All that blazing August day he followed the car—followed though at the next patch of woods it stopped and a man jumped out with a shotgun. He was a hunting dog; he knew what that meant. Like a big red fox caught prowling about after daylight, he sprang into the bushes and disappeared from sight. After that he did not show himself again. Where he could, he stayed in the woods, running parallel to the road like a swift, silent outrider. At open places he lagged shrewdly behind; by short cuts throughfields, by spurts of speed at the next patch of woods, he caught up again. It was an old trick and a simple one; he had played it often before; but never, as now, with such gnawing anxiety, such bewilderment and rage in his heart.
Once, lumbering old rattletrap though it was, the car left him far behind. Then as he raced frantically along the dusty road under the fierce sun that beat down on his heavy red coat, his eyes were like a mad dog's eyes. But from the top of a long hill over which it had disappeared he glimpsed it again in the distance—glimpsed it just as it turned clumsily out of the highway and pointed its nose toward the distant mountains.
After this it was easy. A mongrel cur might have kept up, much less a seasoned thoroughbred. Up and down hill ahead of him the car swayed and wallowed laboriously in an unused, gully-washed road. There was constant shade in which to stop and pant, there were frequent streams in which to lie for a moment, half submerged, and cool his boiling blood. Noon passed without any halt. The sultry afternoon wore slowly away. Still the big setter, his silver-studded collar tinkling slightly like tiny shining castanets, galloped after that disreputable car as if he belonged to it and had been left carelessly behind.
It never entered his head to turn back. Life was a simple thing to him. There were no pros and cons in his philosophy. Yet he watched every turn ofthat car, always on the alert, always ready to spring aside into the bushes if it stopped. That man had meant murder; to show himself meant death. He was a chauvinist, but he was no fool. The boy needed him alive, not dead.