“Most likely you’re talking like a wall-eyed ijit!” cut in Garry. “Eleven of my sheep found, an hour ago, with their throats torn out.”
“Huh?” grunted Fenno, with much the sound that might have been expected had he been kicked in the stomach.
“Eleven of ’em!” reiterated Garry. “Down in my Number Two range. I had a bunch of five hundred wethers and old ewes down there. My poor collie, Tiptop, was in charge of ’em. We found him with both forelegs broke and his jugular slit. He’d done his best. I c’d see that, by the way the soft ground was mussed up, all around him. But he’s a little feller; and pretty old, besides. So the Killer got him. And then he got eleven of my sheep. Simmons found what’d happened, when he made his rounds, at sunrise. He came, lickety-split, to me. I phoned up and down the line; but the Golden Fleece seems to be the only ranch he came to.”
“He didn’t come here,” said Royce. “We’d have got word, before now, if he’d done any killing at one of the outlying ranges. He—”
“That’s the Killer of it!” commented Fenno, savagely. “I know. I’ve been in sections where one of ’em worked. Never visit the same place twice in the same month. Never go back to their kill. Clean up at one ranch to-night; then at another, twelve miles away, to-morrow night; then maybe a week later at one that’s fifty miles away; then back next door to where they killed fust. No way to dope out where they’ll landnext. They’re wise to pizen an’ traps an’ guns an’ sich. Send out parties to track ’em, an’ they give ’em the slip an’ double back an’ kill, right behind ’em. Put night guards on the ranges, an’ next mornin’ you’ll find dead sheep not fifty feet from where the guards was posted. Killers are smarter than folks are. We’re sure in for a passel of trouble—the lot of us. That’s the way with luck!” sighed the old pessimist with the sorrily triumphant air of one whose worst fears are realized. “Yep, that’s what I always say about luck. It’s pretty bad, for a while. Then all at once it begins to get a heap worse. Now—”
“Well, I’m out to round up a posse of hunters,” interrupted Garry. “That’s the only hope. Post good shots everywhere, on every range; and then let a posse comb the country for the Killer’s lair. Most likely he has a hide-out, somewheres along the foothills of the Dos Hermanos peaks, or maybe down in the coulée. And maybe, with the right men, we can root him out. Anyhow, with men hunting him all day and with the ranges close-guarded all night, he’s li’ble to figger that this ain’t a healthy region for his work; and he’ll shift to somewheres else.”
“You said just now that my partner is a wall-eyed ijit,” drawled Fenno. “I’m not denyin’ it. Lord knows he is. I found it out, a long whileback. But he’s plumb sensible, compared to you, Mister Garry; with your talk of trackin’ down a Killer or makin’ the region too hot to hold him. Why, that sort of a thing is meat an’ drink to a Killer! That’s what a Killer likes better’n to be ’lected Pres’dent. It gives him a chance to amoose himself by gettin’ the best of folks. He’ll run circles around your posse an’ he’ll toll it into a swamp. He’ll sneak behind your range-guards; just like I said; an’ they’ll find a bunch of killed sheep, next mornin’, not fifty feet from where they was standin’ guard. You’re wastin’ your time, a whole lot and you’re losin’ sleep. No, sir, it’s you that’s the wall-eyed ijit; not Royce Mack;—when you hand out that line of chatter. Why, son, you couldn’t even strike the Killer’s trail; let alone foller it! He’ll—”
“Maybe there’sthreewall-eyed ijits, then,” spoke up the Golden Fleece foreman, “with you for the middle one, Mister Fenno. ’Cause we’ve found his trail, as plain as if it was wrote in big print. Likewise we follered it. Follered it clean to the main road; and lost it, there, on a ridge of hardpan and rock that didn’t leave any marks like the wet ground did. Headed for the coulée, I’ll bet he was. It’s a trail that ain’t to be mistook for any other, neither.”
“Huh?” grunted Joel, with reluctant interest.“If it’s a queer trail, maybe that’ll help. Did—?”
“It’s a queer trail, all right,” said Garry. “It’s a three-legged trail.”
“Awhich?”
“A three-legged trail,” repeated Garry. “Left front foot don’t touch ground at all.”
“A lame Killer!” ejaculated Mack. “That’s something new.”
“Maybe so. Maybe not,” said Garry. “It struck me queer, first-off. But I got figgering on it. If it’s a wolf or a coyote that’s hurt its left front foot, that means it can’t run as fast as it used to; and it can’t run down its food in the hills. The only way it can get square meals is to slink down to the ranges and stalk a bunch of sleeping sheep. That’s simple enough, ain’t it? My foreman’s right. We studied those tracks of the Killer, in the mud of the range and in the muck at the edge of the road. Three legs. I c’n swear to that. Left forefoot off the ground.”
“Some sheep dog, gone bad, most likely!” ruminated Mack, half to himself. “I’ve read about such. And—”
“Nope,” denied Garry. “Nothing like it. I thought of that, too. But it ain’t.”
“How d’youknow?” challenged Fenno, ever eager for argument. “Can’t a sheep dog hurt his left front foot as easy as a wolf can? Huh?Tell me that! Is there anything in the Constitootion that forbids a—”
“Sure he can,” assented Garry. “Only, this time he didn’t. A dog that’s spent his life running, thirty miles a day, over this country’s hardpan, after straying or bolting sheep—that dog’s feet gets as splayed as a cimmaron bear’s. A wolf’s don’t. A wolf don’t have to run, except when he wants to. And his pads don’t splay, to any extent. No more’n a house dog’s feet splay. These tracks was of feet that weren’t hardly splayed at all. So that’s the answer to that.... Well, we’re wasting time. I wanted to pass the word to you boys, and I wanted to see if one of you or both of you would maybe join up with the posse we’re going to form. How about it?”
Before either of the partners could answer, the Golden Fleece foreman cried out and pointed a stubby forefinger, dramatically. Around the corner of the farthest outbuilding, from the direction of the coulée, appeared a bedraggled figure.
The newcomer was Treve. His golden-tawny coat and his immaculate white ruff and frill were stained with mire and blood. Bloodstreaks marred his classic muzzle and his jaws.
He was hobbling on three legs; his left forepaw dangling helpless in air.
The dog made straight for Mack and Fenno; his plumed tail essaying to wag greeting to his masters. He was a sorry sight. In his dark deepset eyes lurked the glint of half-shame, half-fun, which is the eternal expression of a collie that has been in delightful mischief and fears a scolding for his pranks.
After that first loud exclamation from the foreman, none of the onlookers spoke or moved; for the space of perhaps ten seconds. Frozen, wide-eyed, jaws adroop, they stared at the oncoming Treve.
In every brain raced the same line of glaringly simple logic. And in every brain was registered the dire word: “Guilty!”
Treve, ignoring the battery of horrified eyes, came limping up to Royce Mack, and stood in front of the younger man, gazing in friendly fashion into the whitened face and holding out for sympathy his sprained foreleg.
But, for once in his life, Treve received from his adored god neither sympathy nor a pat, nor any other sign of welcome. Royce simply blinked down at him in unbelieving horror.
As Mack gave no response to his overtures, Treve limped over to Joel Fenno, thrusting his bloodstained muzzle affectionately into the oldster’s cupped palm. At the touch, a violent shudder wrenched Joel’s whole meager body.He did not withdraw his hand from the caress. But he turned his sick eyes miserably toward Bob Garry. In response to the look, Garry said curtly:
“The Killer’s found; sooner’n I thought. I’m sorry, boys. I know what store you set by the brute. But there’s only one thing to do. You know that, as well as I do.”
There was no answer. Royce Mack took an impulsive half-step between the speaker and the wondering collie. Fenno did not speak nor stir. His sick old eyes were still fixed on Garry with a world of appeal in them. Garry spoke again; this time with a tinge of angry impatience in his tone.
“Well,” he rasped, “I’m waiting to see it done. I reckon I’ve paid for my seat to the show. I paid for it with eleven killed sheep. And I don’t aim to go from here till I make sure the Killer is put out of the way for good. We can settle, later, for the sheep of mine he slaughtered and for my good little old collie, too. But that can wait. Just now, the main thing is to see he don’t do any more killing.”
Neither partner answered. Garry laid a hand on the rifle he had strapped across his saddlebow when he had started forth on the Killer-hunt. The gesture made old Fenno shake from head to foot as with a congestive chill.
Royce Mack, hollow-eyed and desperate, pushed the amazed collie behind him; and stood shielding him with his own athletic body.
“That won’t get you nowheres!” sternly reproved Garry, noting the instinctive motion, and unstrapping his rifle as he spoke. “You know the law as well as I do. You ought to be thankful we’ve nailed him before he could do any more killing. It isn’t once in a blue moon that a Killer is nabbed at the very start; before he c’n get away to the hills. We’re plumb lucky. Now, then, will you shoot him; or do you want me to do it? Which’ll it be? Speak up, quick!”
“Wait!” sputtered Royce, stammering in his heartsick eagerness. “Wait! This dog’s my chum. He’s never done anything like this, before. He’d never have done it, now; if he hadn’t gone crazy, some way. I’ve read about sheep dogs ‘going bad,’ like this. It isn’t their fault. Any more’n it’s a human’s fault, if he goes crazy. Folks don’t shoot a human that’s lost his wits. They shut him up somewheres and treat him kind; and then, like as not, he gets his mind back again. It’s likely the same with a dog. I—”
“It’syouthat’s lost your mind!” scoffed Garry, angrily, as he fingered his rifle. “If you haven’t the whiteness or the nerve to shoot him, stand clear; and I’ll do it, myself. He—”
“Wait!” implored poor Mack, the sweat running down his tortured face. “Hold on! Let me finish. Here’s my proposition:—I’ll pay you double market price on your eleven killed sheep and on your dog he killed. And I’ll put up a thousand-dollar bond to keep Treve tied or else in the house, all the time. I’ll do this, if you and your man will call it square and keep your mouths shut about his going bad. I’m offering this, on my own hook. My partner hates Treve, anyhow. So I’m not asking him to share the cost or the responsibility. How about it, Garry? Is it a go?”
“It is—not!” refused Garry, his voice like the scraping of a file upon rust. “I’m not in the bribe-taking game. Besides, I’d feel grand, wouldn’t I, first time the cur sneaked loose and began killing sheep again, all up and down the Valley? Nice responsibility I’d have, hey? And that’s what he’d do. Once a Killer, always a Killer. I’m clean s’prised at you for making such a crack as that! Cleans’prised! Stand clear, there! I’m going to put a stop to this Killer danger, here and now. The law will uphold me. Stand clear of him, unless you want me to take a chance at shooting him between your knees.”
He swung the rifle to his shoulder, as hespoke. Then it was that Joel Fenno came out of his brief trance of dumbness.
“You’re right,” agreed Fenno, grumpily. “The law’ll uphold you. But the law gives a owner the right to shoot his own dog, if he’s willin’ to. Royce, here, ain’t willin’ to. But I am. And I’m the cur’s joint owner.”
“Go ahead and do it then,” ordered Garry forestalling a fierce interruption from Royce Mack. “Only, cut out the blab; anddoit. I got a morning’s work to catch up with. And I don’t stir from here till the dog’s dead.”
“All right!” agreed Joel; a tinge of gruff anticipation in his surly voice. “That suits me. An’ when you tell this yarn around, jes’ bear witness thatoneof the Dos Hermanos partners was willin’ and ready to obey the law; even if t’other one was too white-livered. Gimme the rifle. My own gun’s up to the house.”
He reached out for the weapon; and snatched, rather than accepted it, from Garry’s hands. Hefting it, and turning toward Treve, he grumbled:
“I never did get the right hang of a rifle. A pistol’s a heap handier. Got a pistol along, either of you?”
“No,” said Garry.
The foreman shook his head.
“That’sall right, then,” cheerily remarked Fenno. “I—”
“You’ll shoot Treve, throughme!” panted Royce, shoving the collie behind him again; and advancing in hot menace on his detested partner. “It’s bad enough to have—”
He got no further. Eyes abulge, he stared at Fenno.
Joel had caught the rifle deftly in both hands and was hard at work pumping the cartridges from its magazine. In clinking sequence they fell to earth. Three seconds later, he picked up and pocketed the shells and laid the empty and useless gun on the ground. Then he faced the loudly blaspheming Garry.
“I’ll send the rifle back to you by one of the men,” said he. “I’m not givin’ it to you, now; for fear you may have a spare ca’tridge or two in your jeans. I was afraid maybe one of you had packed a revolver, too. That’s why I made sure. Your teeth is drawed, friends. S’pose you traipse off home?”
“Joel!” cried Mack, overjoyed, incredulous. “Joel!”
The old man spun about on him; scowling, shrill with peevish wrath.
“What’ve I always told you about that dog?” he accused. “Didn’t I always say he wa’n’t wuth his salt? You’ve cosseted him an’ you’vemade much of him an’ you’ve sp’iled him. Not that he ever ’mounted to anything, to begin with. An’ now you see what you’ve brang him to. Made a Killer of him! He—”
“I’m going to have the sheriff here, inside of one hour!” the enraged Garry was declaiming, unheeded, at the same time. “And after the Killer is shot by an off’cer of the court, I am going to bring soot agin you for impeding the course of the law and likewise for stealing my gun. Then I’m going to sue you both, in the Dos Hermanos County Court, for the loss of my sheep and—”
“Likewise,” snarled on old Joel Fenno, still haranguing his partner, “this comes of tryin’ to make a dog a c’mpanion instead of a beast of burden, like the Almighty intended him to be. I hope you’re plumb sat’sfied with the passel of trouble you’ve yanked down onto us, an’—”
“My foreman, here, is witness to it all,” raged on Garry, in the same breath. “He’ll test’fy how you d’prived me of my rifle, by trick’ry; and then—”
“Don’t go pirootin’ off with the idee I put Friend Garry’s gun out of c’mission, jes’ to save Treve from the death he’s deservin’,” orated Joel, to his dizzy partner. “I didn’t crave to have outsiders come here an’ give me orders. And if I help you hide Treve away somewheresor ship him East to my nephew, before the sheriff gets here, it’ll only be because—”
The advent of two new figures, around the corner of the barns, cut short the dual flood of oratory.
Toni, the Basque chief herder of the Dos Hermanos ranch, came into view. He was bent far forward under the weight of something that was balanced across his spine and which dangled lifelessly to either side of his ox-like shoulders.
Close behind him walked a smaller man, in soiled khaki and puttees; a repeating rifle slung by a bandolier athwart his back.
At sight and scent of the thing, carried by the big herdsman, Treve abandoned his puzzled efforts to make out what all the din and elocution were about. Wheeling, he bared his teeth and lowered his blood-stained head.
Then and only then did his human companions make out the nature of Toni’s burden. It was the scarred and lifeless body of a giant gray wolf.
The partners, at the same time, recognized the slender khaki-clad rifleman who moved lightly along in the herdsman’s wake. Twice, on his journeys, this man had stopped at the ranch for a meal. For hundreds of miles in all directions, he was known and admired.
For this was Eleazar Wilton, of the “Hunters’and Trappers’ Service,” operated by the governmental Biological Survey;—one of the best shots in the West; and a huntsman who had done glorious work from Texas to northern Wyoming, in ridding the range country of predatory wolves. His fame was sung at a score of campfires and bunkhouses. He was a royally welcome guest wherever he might choose to set foot.
At sight of him, now, Bob Garry shouted aloud:
“Here’s the man who’ll do the job you tricked me out of doing! Cap’n Wilton, this dog has kilt eleven of my sheep! I call on you, in the name of the law, to put a bullet through his head. I’d ’a’ done it myself; if these fellers hadn’t fooled me out of it. He—”
“This dog, here?” asked Wilton in his quietly uninterested voice; as he strolled past Toni and up to Treve.
“Yep! That’s the one!” trumpeted Garry. “See? He’s still got their blood all over him. And his forefoot’s bit and chawed where my collie died fighting him. There’s other bitemarks on him, too. He—”
Royce and Fenno, by common consent, moved in front of their imperilled chum. But, before either of them could speak, Wilton interrupted Garry’s harangue by stepping past the twopartners and laying his bronzed hands on Treve’s blood-streaked head.
There was greeting—almost benediction—in the gesture. At the touch, Treve left off growling at the huge dead wolf which Toni was laying on the ground, nearby; and glanced quickly up at the stranger who had offered him this unwonted familiarity.
At what he read behind Wilton’s steady eyes, the collie’s glint of suspicion softened to friendliness. His tail wagged, hospitably; and he laid his cut head against the huntsman’s khaki knee.
Meantime, Wilton was turning to the gesticulating Garry.
“They ‘fooled you’ out of shooting this collie, did they?” he asked. “Then it was the luckiest bit of fooling done in Dos Hermanos County for a long time. I was afraid of something like that. So I came on here, as soon as I could. I got that double-sized herder to give me a lift with the wolf; so we could get here quicker.”
He nodded over his shoulder, as he spoke. The others, for the first time, took full cognizance of the wolf that Toni was stretching out on the muddy ground.
The giant animal measured well over six feet from muzzle to tail-tip. His hide was plentifully scored with olden wounds and with very new gashes. But it was Bob Garry who, with a gaspof amaze, pointed out the beast’s most striking peculiarity.
His left forefoot was gone.
It had been cut off, clean, at the ankle-joint. The injury had occurred long ago, for the skin and the hair had grown over the wound.
“Ever hear of him?” asked Wilton.
Nobody answered. Wilton continued:
“No, you wouldn’t have been likely to hear. But, up in the Mateo country, there isn’t a sheepman or a cattleman that hasn’t heard of him. I was sent up there, to get him. He had visited every range from San Mateo to Hecker’s. Always they could trace him by his three-footed track. Must have been caught in a steel trap, years ago, and got loose by gnawing his foot off. He seems to have navigated faster on three legs than most animals can, on four. He was a ‘lone wolf,’ too. And he had all the sense of a dozen stage-detectives. Never tackled the same place twice in succession. Poison-wise and trap-wise. He could throw off pursuit as easily as any dime-novel Sioux. They sent me up to the Mateo district to get him. He fooled me, every time. Then he started south. The rains helped me track him. I suppose he didn’t bother to confuse his trail or to double, on a long hike like that. More than a hundred miles, it was. And I could never catch up with him. Sometimes I lost histrail, altogether; and I’d pick it up, more by chance than by any skill.”
A second time his hand dropped caressingly on Treve’s head. The collie paused in the task of licking his own various flesh wounds and licked the caressing hand. Wilton smiled, rubbed clean his licked hand with his other sleeve, and resumed:
“Last night, at dusk, I lost the trail again. He was beginning to get cautious, once more. I figured that meant he was planning to stop and do some raiding. There was no use looking for tracks in the twilight. He couldn’t be very far ahead of me. So I rode on. I rode till I got to the coulée, beyond here. It’s a great place for any animal to hide out in;—with all those rocks and bushes. It struck me that would be just the lair for him to crawl into, daytimes; while he was ravaging this part of the world. Besides, it was right in his line of march. So I spent the night there; waiting for him. I was pretty sure I’d gotten in front of him; and that he’d stop there, to hide or else to sleep; before he went farther. Well, he did.”
Again he paused, as if for dramatic effect.
“I watched, from before daybreak,” he continued, presently. “No sign of him. I had crawled into a little niche between two bowlders, at the top of the coulée, just at its mouth. Icouldn’t miss him there. Then, about an hour ago, I got sight of him. He was pelting away, at top speed, on those three pins of his. And he wasn’t using any craftiness, either. He was running, full tilt. And, not a hundred yards behind him, a collie was tearing along. This collie dog, here.”
“They hunted together, hey?” exclaimed Garry. “I knew this cur was—”
“No,” denied Wilton. “Dogs don’t hunt with wolves. Coyotes do, but not dogs. The collie was hunting the wolf. He was after him, with every ounce he had. I take it the collie had been out on an early morning stroll, not far from his own home; when he got sight or scent of the wolf as he was coming this way from a kill And the dog gave chase. The wolf was all blood; so I knew he’d been at a bunch of livestock, somewhere. The dog hadn’t a mark on him. There was light enough for me to see that.”
“Good old Treve!” applauded Mack. “But, Captain, if—”
“Wasn’t the dog even running on three legs?” despairingly asked Garry.
“He was,” admitted Wilton; adding: “And on the fourth leg, too. No lameness, then. I wondered, at first, why a Killer, like the three-legged wolf, should run away from a dog smaller andlighter than himself. But I made a guess; and the guess was right. Dawn had come. People were likely to be astir. It was no time to be caught in the open, in a fight. The wolf was looking for cover. After he found it, there’d be time enough to dispose of the collie. That’s wolf-nature.”
“He—”
“The wolf got to the mouth of the coulée; where another ten steps would hide him in the undergrowth and the rock holes so safely that no hundred hunters could root him out. He was right below me. I drew a bead on him. But I didn’t shoot. Because just then, the collie overtook him. And I saw the prettiest battle ever. It would have been a crime to spoil it by a shot.”
“Lord!” breathed Royce Mack. “Why wasn’t I there?”
“The wolf spun around on him,” went on Wilton, “and made a dive, wolf-fashion, for the collie’s foreleg; to break it. The collie was going too fast to dodge, altogether. But he did his best. And he got off with nothing worse than a pinched left forefoot. Then the fun began. The old wolf was as quick as lightning. But the collie—well, the collie was as quick as—as a collie. I don’t know anything quicker. He got a slash or two; and once he was bowled over in the mud and the wolf got a throat grip.”
“But—”
“But the collie tore free, by leaving a handful of mattress-hair and skin in the wolf’s jaws. And before the wolf could spit it out and get his jaws into action again, the collie had flashed in and gotten to the jugular. He hung on, like grim death; grinding those slender jaws of his deeper and deeper; while the wolf kept thrashing about and hammering him against rocks and against the ground; to make him let go. But the collie hung on. That’s the collie of it. That’s the thoroughbred of it, too. He knew he had the one hold he could hope to win by. And he held it. At last his teeth ground their way down to the jugular and through it. That’s all there was to that fight.”
“Treve!” babbled Joel. “Trevy!”
His unconscious exclamation went unheard in the hum of excitement.
“The collie lay down for a minute, panting,” finished Wilton. “Then he got up and sniffed at the dead wolf. Then, before I had the sense to try to stop him, he limped off, in this direction. It seemed to me I remembered him, when I was at Dos Hermanos, last time. I got to wondering if he’d be shot, by mistake, when news came of killed sheep and when he was all bloody. So I hustled on here, after him. A dog, like that, is too plucky to let die.”
“Mister Bob Garry, Esquire,” drawled Fenno sourly, as Royce bent in keen solicitude over his battered collie chum. “You was sayin’ suthin’, awhile back, ’bout having a mort of work to do, at your own ranch, this mornin’. Well, friend, the mornin’s joggin’ on. Here’s your pop-gun. Here’s your pretty ca’tridges.Scat!”
“You’ll come to the house for some breakfast, won’t you, Captain?” asked Royce, as the disgruntled Garry and his foreman rode off. “Chang can rustle you some grub, in no time. Come on, Treve. I want to wash out those bites of yours; and fix up your paw.”
He set off toward the house, at Wilton’s side. But Joel Fenno, behind their backs, buried his fingers lovingly in the collie’s bloody and muddy ruff.
“Trevy,” he whispered, the other hand groping in his shirt pocket, “here’s some grand lumps of pork I saved out for you, from my breakfast. An’—an’, Trevy, that Garry blowhard would ’a’ had to shoot me as full of holes as these last year’s pants of mine; before I’d ’a’ let him git you. Yep—an’ Wilton, too. Of all the dogs that ever happened, Trevy—you’re that dog.... Hey!” he called grumpily after the departing Royce. “Here’s your cur. Take him along to the house with you. He’s jes’ in my way, down here!”
“The only place where two can live as cheap as one,” ruminated old Joel Fenno, pointing with his chewed pipestem, “is right yonder.”
He indicated Treve, lounging on the puncheon floor in front of the group. Treve had awakened with some abruptness from a snooze and was scratching busily; driving his right hindfoot with great vigor and speed into his furry body in the general direction of the short ribs. On the collie’s wontedly wise face was the grin of idiotic vacuity which goes with flea-scratching.
He was not looking his best or gracefulest or most sagacious, at the moment. Joel Fenno was sharply aware of his chum’s absurd aspect. For the benefit of the ranch guest, he sought to forestall any unfavorable comment on the dog.
“Yep,” he resumed, as Davids, the guest, eyed him in mild curiosity, “the only two, that can live as cheap as one, is not a spouse an’ a spousess; but a flea an’ a dog.”
Davids smiled politely. Royce Mack had read this joke aloud to his partner, from a year-old copy ofThe Country Gentleman, a month before.He forbore to encourage the old fellow’s rare trip into the realms of humor, now, by so much as a grin. But Davids followed up his own civil smile by saying:
“I’ve been looking at that collie of yours, off and on, ever since I got here. He’s a beauty. How’s he bred?”
“They say there’s beautiful things an’ useful things,” answered Fenno, surlily. “An’ I’ve allus found the beautiful things is no use and the useful things ain’t wuth lookin’ at. Yep, Treve must be ‘a beauty,’ all right, all right. For he’s no use to anybody. Jes’ eats and snores and loafs; an’ hunts fleas instead of sheep; an’ tries to make busy folks romp with him. Likewise he succeeds in making ’em do it; so far as Royce, here, is concerned. The work hours my partner wastes in playin’ and trampin’ an’ skylarkin’ with that measly cur—”
“How’s he bred?” repeated Davids, to stem the tide of Joel’s chronic complaints against Mack and the collie.
“Bred?” echoed Fenno. “Who? Royce? All firedillbred, when he has a mind to be. An’ that’s about all the time. He—”
“I mean the collie. What is it you call him? Treve?”
“Treve? Bred? I don’t—”
“He means,” spoke up Royce Mack, fromboyhood memories of pedigreed animals, in the East, “he means, who were Treve’s ancestors? We don’t know, Davids. A queer sort of English tourist hobo came here and sold him to us. The man absconded with all the cash in Joel’s vest and left the pup behind. As far as we know, Treve’s pedigree began on the ranch, here. Why?”
“Because,” said Davids, “he’s a high-bred dog. What’s more, he’s the true show-type of collie. He’s good enough to win a blue ribbon at any bench show in America. The hobo, most likely, stole him. Such dogs aren’t left to roam at will.”
Treve had ceased to pursue the wicked flea; or else his frantic clawing had dislodged the pest. For, with a lazy sigh, he resumed his nap on the cool puncheon. Stretched out there on his left side, silhouetted against the floor, he presented a picture to stir the heart of any collie-judge. The classic head might have been chiseled by a master-hand. The frame was mighty, yet as graceful as any greyhound’s. The coat was unbelievably heavy and it shone like burnished copper.
Joel eyed the couchant dog with outward sourness of visage; but with inward pride that Treve should have won such praise from this Eastern engineer who had halted at the Dos Hermanosranch for the night. It was part of Fenno’s life-creed to maintain a continuous and universal grouchy disapproval of everything and everybody.
“Just what I’ve always said!” exulted Mack, at Davids’ endorsement of his pet. “I’ve always told Joel the dog was good enough to go to any A. K. C. show. He’s—”
“Yep!” snarled Fenno, “he’d make a show of us, all right. Why, most prob’ly they’d laugh him out of the place. Unless it was a flea-chasin’ match. Then he might—”
“If I were you,” put in Davids, addressing Mack and ignoring the peevish oldster, “I’d enter him for the big Dos Hermanos Show, up at La Cerra, next month. I was reading about it, on the way here. Quite a ‘spread’ on it in the SundayClarion. I’ll leave my copy of it with you, if you’d like to glance over it. They’re trying for a record entry. A big English judge is going to handle collies and one or two sporting breeds. On another page of the paper is a sort of primer for novice exhibitors; telling them how to enter their dogs for the show, whom to write to for premium lists and blanks, and all that, and how to make out the blanks. A lot of people don’t understand how to do it. Take my tip and enter Treve at La Cerra.”
“Huh!” snorted Joel, loudly.
“It’s only about a hundred miles from here,” pursued Davids. “You can make most of the trip by train; and get there in less than a day. Think it over. It’d be a fine thing to bring Treve home with a bunch of blue ribbons and maybe a big silver cup; and have all the papers printing his name. It’s as much of a triumph for a dog to win first prizes at such a show as for a man to be elected to Congress.”
Another derisive snort from Joel Fenno interrupted his homily and made Royce frown apologetically at the annoyed guest.
Now there was harrowing ridicule in Fenno’s snort. But in the heart of Fenno an astonishing impulse had swirled into life. The snort was designed to frighten this yearning impulse to death. It could not.
Whenever any one looked or spoke approvingly of Treve, old Fenno had something of the thrill that might come to a man at praise of a cherished brother. While he girded at this feeling, as babyishly absurd, he could not check it. He loved the big collie; and he was inordinately proud of him. That others should admire Treve seemed in a way a sort of backhanded compliment to himself—to Joel who had never in his life been admired or complimented.
And now, at Davids’ careless words, a glowing picture leaped into Fenno’s dazed mental vision—a picture of cheering throngs at the La Cerra show, all admiring and praising his victorious Treve. This and a crazy desire to take the collie there.
As if in contempt for his companions’ chatter about a mere dog, Joel got up, presently, and sauntered into the house. He strolled through the room he and Royce Mack had assigned to Davids for the night. There on the floor, alongside the engineer’s kitbag, lay the crumpled copy of theClarion. Furtively, Joel pouched it and bore it to his own cubbyhole room. There, that night, long after the others were asleep, he crouched on his bunk and read and reread and sought to master the many bewildering bits of information as to the show and as to the mode of conducting dogshows in general.
Much was as Greek to him; until he figured it out with painful patience. Twice he flung the paper on the floor with a grunt of disgust. But ever that glowing vision of his chum’s triumphs goaded him on. Through the silent hours he continued to wrestle with the details; as simplified for the benefit of novices.
Once, during his reading, he looked up guiltily. In the doorway of his little room stood Treve, gravely inspecting him. The soft sound of rustled paper had roused the collie from his nightly slumber alongside Royce’s bunk. He hadset forth to investigate. As Joel peered blinkingly toward him, Treve wagged his plumed tail and came mincing forward; thrusting his classic muzzle into the hand which Fenno instinctively stretched forth.
“Trevy,” whispered the old man, “how’d you like to hear all them folks clappin’ you an’ sayin’ what a grand dog you are? Hey? Think it over, Trevy. There needn’t anybody know, but you and me, Trevy. Royce has got to go to Omaha, with them sheep, next month. He’ll be gone for two days before this show-date an’ for a couple of days after it. Nobody’ll ever know, Trevy. I’ll tell the hands I’m goin’ to run up to Santa Clara to see about a bunch of merinos an’ that I’m totin’ you along to herd ’em. I—Oh, Trevy, we’re a pair of old fools, you an’ me! I never thought I’d be such a dodo-bird as to waste time an’ cash on a dog. I’m gettin’ in my dotage. Granther Hardin used to think he was a postage stamp, when he got old, Trevy. An’ he used to putter around, lookin’ for a env’lope big enough to stick himself to. They put him in a foolish house. I reckon I’m qualifyin’ for one, all right, all right. But—you’re sure a grand dog, Trevy!”
The modernized old Spanish city of La Cerra, at the westerly end of Dos Hermanos County,had come to life in a rackety way, as it did once a year when the annual three-day show of the Dos Hermanos Kennel Association brought to town thoroughbred dogs and humans of all shades of breeding.
It was to this show, two years earlier, that Fraser Colt had been taking his collie pup when the latter’s clash with a police dog in the baggage car had led to the temporary wrecking of one of his tulip ears; and when his resentment of Colt’s kick had led his owner to hurl him bodily out through the car’s open side door.
The memory of his own treatment at the hands—and boot toe—of the gross brute who had bought him on speculation and who had been taking him showward, rankled ever in the far-back recesses of Treve’s brain. Which is the way of a collie. The harsh memory had been glozed over by two years of friendly treatment. Treve himself was not aware it existed. But it was there, none the less.
Joel Fenno, daily, had been more and more ashamed of his queer impulse to take Treve to the show. But, daily, also, the show-virus had infected him, more and more. Any one who has shown dogs will understand. Ever he visualized a more and more gorgeous triumph for his secret chum.
The first twelve miles of the trip were made inthe Dos Hermanos ranch’s wheezy little car—the same in which Joel had piloted his partner to Santa Carlotta, the day before; when Royce set forth on his Omaha journey. Treve sat proudly beside the ever-more nervous Fenno, on the car’s one shabby seat.
The dog was delighted at the jaunt, as is nearly every collie who is taken by his master on an outing. Instinctively, too, he felt Joel’s grouchily suppressed thrill of excitement, and responded to it with a quick gayety. Apparently this was some dazzlingly jolly adventure he and his friend were embarking on.
At Santa Carlotta they took the spur line train for an eighty-mile run. Sixty of these eighty miles were across dreary greenish gray desert, flower-splashed, yet as dismal as the Mojave itself;—rolling miles of sick alkaline sand, skunk-infected, habitat of rattlesnakes—a waste strewn with sagebrush and Joshua trees. A dead and fearsome stretch; steel-hard of outline, shrilly vivid of coloring.
Then came the steep upgrade, over an elephant-backed mountain’s swordcut pass; and a pitch down into the fertile valley whose nearest city was La Cerra.
Joel did not crate his dog; but sat on a trunk in the baggage car, with the collie curled up comfortably at his feet. The train-ride wokedim and not wholly pleasing memories in Treve. Something unpleasant had befallen him on such a ride. Once or twice he glanced up worriedly at the old man; only to be reassured by an awkward pat on the head or a grumbled word of friendliness.
It was so, too, after they had debarked and had found their way to the armory where the dogshow was in progress. As they entered the vast barnlike building, Treve’s ears and nostrils were assailed in a way that made him halt abruptly in his stately advance at Fenno’s side.
To him gushed the multiple plangent racket of hundreds of dogs barking in hundreds of keys. To a dog, even more than to a dogman, each bark carries its own translation. Treve read excitement in many of these barks that now yammered about his sensitive ears. In more, he read terror and loneliness and worried apprehension.
Also, the myriad blended odors of fellow-dogs rushed in upon him, dazing his senses with their incredible volume. It is through ears and nostrils that a dog receives his strongest impressions. And Treve was receiving more than he could assimilate.
His troubled, deepset eyes scanned Joel Fenno’s gnarled face for reassurance. Theoldster was wellnigh as confused and scared as his dog. He was a dweller in the lonely places. Crowds confused and frightened him. Yet he rallied enough to pass his hand comfortingly over the silken head of the collie and to mutter something by way of encouragement. Then man and dog marched valiantly down the intersecting aisles of barking or yelling or silently unhappy exhibits, to the section labeled “Collies.”
There, Joel motioned Treve to jump up on the straw-littered bench that bore his number. He tied him; and tipped a lounging boy to get a panful of fresh water. The collie drank feverishly; but would touch none of the tempting meat scraps which Fenno produced from a greasy newspaper parcel for his benefit.
The great young dog did not cringe or shiver, amid this bedlam which tortured his sensitive soul and which was so hideous a contrast to his wonted life amid the sweet-scented silences. His head was erect. His dark eyes were steady. He was a good soldier. But—well, it was out of the question for him to swallow food, at such a place.
Joel looked about him. On either side of Treve’s bench, and across the aisle, other collies were tied in their stall-like benches. Fenno counted eighteen of them, in all. Some were snipe-nosed and fragile. Some were deep ofchest and massive of coat and had strongly classic heads, much like Treve’s.
A few were snub-nosed and round-eyed and broad of skull. Old-fashioned types, these, and without chance of victory in any contested class.
Their like is seen at nearly every show. They are pets, loved by their masters or mistresses (oftenest mistresses), who think them wonderful. They are brought to shows in the futile hope that a blue ribbon or a cup may lend zest to their owners’ pride in them. To a judge who is luckless enough to have a soft heart, these poor dogs and their cruelly disappointed owners are the saddest features of an exhibition which, at best, is never lacking in sad features.
Fenno stood, eyeing the dogs around him. He had a refreshing ignorance of everything which constitutes a collie’s good or bad show points. All he knew was that Treve was the grandest dog on earth. He had come here to prove it to mankind at large. And the belief did not waver. Yet as he watched the handlers prepare their collies for the ring, he scowled. He had slicked Treve’s glorious coat down smooth, with much water. He knew that humans are supposed to have their hair slicked down when they want to look their best. And he supposed it was the same with dogs.
But now he saw men currying their dogs withexpert touch; brushing the hair up and out; so that it should not cleave to the body and so that its texture and abundance might be fully seen by the judge. After watching this process for several minutes and catching sight of a collie poster on one of the benchbacks, Joel unearthed a mangy dandy-brush from his kitbag; and proceeded to fall to work right vigorously on Treve. The water had, for the most part, evaporated from the slicked coat. What was left of it made the coat and frill stand out with redoubled luxuriance as Joel brushed it upward.
Then Fenno scanned his neighbors, once more, for further tips in collie-dressing. He was vaguely aware that several spectators had paused at Treve’s bench, as they drifted past. They were eyeing the dog in open admiration. This pleased Joel, but it did not surprise him. To him it seemed only natural that people should stop to admire such a dog. Then he heard one of the spectators read aloud to another from a gray-backed catalog he held:
“‘217. J. Fenno. TREVE. Particulars Not Given. Entered in Class 68.’
“That’s funny!” went on the reader, looking up from the catalog’s meager information and studying afresh the collie in front of him. “That’s mighty funny, Chris! Here’s one of the best collies I’ve set eyes on. Class in everyinch of him. He’ll give Champion Howgill Rival the tussle of his life, for Winners, to-day. And yet he isn’t even registered. ‘Particulars not given.’ It doesn’t seem possible the owner of a championship-timber collie, like that, shouldn’t know his pedigree and his breeder’s name. ‘Particulars not given.’ Gee! That’s the stock phrase they use for mutts. This dog’s a second Seedley Stirling. It doesn’t make sense. Who’s ‘J. Fenno,’ anyway? Ever hear of him?”
“Some yap, out here, who bought the dog as a month-old pup, I s’pose,” answered the man addressed, “and who doesn’t know what he’s got. I’m going to hunt him out, before the judging; and see what I can buy this collie for. Maybe I can pick him up for a song. It’s a cinch his value will boom, after he’s been judged. Everybody’ll be wanting him, then. I’m going on a still hunt, right away, for J. Fenno.”
“Meanin’ me?” asked Joel, turning on him with a sour suddenness that made the Easterner recoil an involuntary step. “I’m Fenno. An’ I’m the man you’ve got to go on a still hunt for, to buy this dog for a song.”
“No offense,” disclaimed the other, mistaking Joel’s normal manner for snarling displeasure. “I like this dog of yours. That is,” he hedged, craftily, “I like him in spots. He’s more good than bad. I don’t mind making you an offer forhim, if you’ve got the sense to sell him cheap. How about it?”
“I don’t know how much cash you’re packin’ in that greasy old ill-fitting handmedown suit you’re wearin’,” replied Joel, with his wonted exquisite courtesy. “Nor yet I don’t know what value you place on the mortgaged hencoop you live in, back home. But the whole price won’t buy this collie of mine. Not if you throw in the million dollars diff’rence between your valuation of yourself and my valuation of you. Have I made it plain, friend? If I haven’t, I’ll try to speak less flatterin’ and talk turkey to you.”
Without awaiting reply he turned his lean back to the flustered Easterner. The move brought Fenno face to face with a stout man in vivid raiment.
“Selling that dog of yours?” queried the stout man, catalog in hand.
“Oh,you’relooking for a bargain, too, from the ‘yap,’ are you?” snorted Joel. “Before the judge c’n tell him he’s got a good dog? Well, the yap don’t need to be told. He knows it. That’s why he brang Treve here to-day. If your fat was wuth a hundred dollars a pound, you’d be a billionaire. But you wouldn’t be able to buy my dog. Get that?”
He was about to turn away from the stout personage, as from his former interlocutor, whenhe noted the man was no longer looking at him Instead, oblivious of the grouchy old hurler of insults, the stranger was once more studying Treve. In his plump face was a glint of perplexity, of struggling recollection.
Fraser Colt had an excellent memory. And the more he examined Treve, the closer he came to verifying a most improbable idea that had come to him, to-day, when first he caught sight of the collie reclining unhappily on the bench.
Back into his trained mind came the picture of a highbred collie pup, lying thus sorrowfully in Colt’s stuffy kennel yard, some two years earlier, after Fraser had picked him up at his first master’s forced sale. The dog’s markings and facial expression were unusual. It seemed impossible. Yet—
Half-unconscious of his own gesture, Fraser Colt stretched out his hand toward Treve’s shapely left ear. If there were sign of break or of ancient teeth-marks therein, the mystery was solved. If not—
Treve had lain resignedly in this place of turmoil, consoling himself by following with his sorrowful eyes the master who, for some unexplainable reason, had brought him here. Then, amid the million disturbing odors of the show, one special scent came to his nostrils in a way to annihilate his heed of all the rest.
Suspiciously, his eyes clouding with half-formulated and long-sleeping recollections, he sniffed the heavy air. At the same instant, came the sound of a voice that was more than vaguely distasteful to him. Into his friendly heart sprang a righteous anger—but against what or whom he scarcely knew.
Then he saw Colt. And sound and scent and sight brought his dormant memories wide awake. He knew the man. Even as he would have recognized Royce and Joel, whom he loved—even as he would have recognized and loved them after two years of absence—so now he knew and hated the man who had maltreated him so abominably as a defenseless puppy. Into the soft eyes flamed red rage.
All ignorant of the emotion he had aroused, Fraser Colt had stretched forth his plump hand, confidently, to inspect the collie’s left ear. The expert big fingers turned over the ear-tip. A glance showed Colt what he sought. There, faintly white, on the ear’s pinkish underside, were the harrow-marks of the police dog’s teeth. There, too, was a far fainter groove-mark where the plaster and splints had once remained for weeks on the healing ear. There could be no doubt.
This in less than a second. Before the big hand could be withdrawn, Treve had completedhis recognition. More, he realized what liberty this loathed ex-owner of his was taking with him. The outstretched hand, too, was reminiscent of the brute blow that once had crashed against that mangled ear. And the dog’s hatred flamed into life.
His white eyeteeth slashed murderously. Colt’s thick sleeve and silken cuff were shorn, as by a razor-sweep. So little did cloth and silk deflect the slash that the eyetooth scored deep in the wide wrist; missing artery and major veins by a hairbreadth.
With a yell, Fraser Colt yanked back his hurt wrist. Yet swift as was his motion, it could not keep pace with the motion of the furious collie’s head. And, before the hand was out of reach, Treve’s front teeth had almost met in the fleshy heel of the thumb.
“You leave my dog be!” shrilled Joel, taking in only the fact that Colt had reached out and done some presumably painful thing to Treve, which the collie was trying angrily to punish.
He spoke too late. At the dog’s assault, Colt’s readily mislaid temper scattered beyond control. Still yelling with pain he kicked with all his might at the collie who ravened at him far over the pine footboard of the bench.
The kick was less well calculated than fervent. The fury-driven toe hit the top of the footboard;shattering the wood to splinters. But it missed Treve. As the leg was withdrawn, Treve exacted tribute from the ankle of the loud-patterned trousers; and his jaws raked the man’s shin, agonizingly.
But not until later did Fraser Colt have chance to note this latest hurt. For scarcely was the kick delivered when a lanky and wrinkled bulk had hurled itself cursingly at his fat throat.
Joel Fenno prided himself on his surly self-control. Yet when this big stranger kicked his beloved chum, self-control burst into a maniacal wrath that could find vent only in homicide.
He flung himself at the big man’s throat; gouging, tearing, hammering; and all the while keeping up a gruesome whimpering noise from between his hard-clenched teeth; unpleasantly like the sound made by a rabid beast worrying its prey.
Back, under that crazy onslaught, staggered the unprepared Colt. His heel caught in a bench support, before he could rally his balance. And he pitched backward onto the aisle floor. Not once had Fenno relinquished his attack on the face and throat of his foe. Now, landing atop the squirming bulk, he drove his fists madly into the upturned visage. As Colt sought to fend off the flailing fists, Joel lunged at his neck with yellowed teeth.
Above them, lurching far over the edge of the bench, Treve tugged and struggled roaringly to free himself and to join in the carnage. Foam spattered from his back-writhen lips. Added to his own hate of Colt was the fact that this man was fighting with Fenno, whom the dog loved. With all his weight and all his might be strove to break free from his chain. A hundred dogs added their din to his.
All at once, the bystanders stirred from their momentary trance of amaze. As crowds came running to the scene of strife, fifty hands dragged Joel away from his enemy and lifted him, yelling and twisting, to his feet. Others helped Fraser Colt to rise. Still others hung officiously to the arms of both combatants, to prevent a resumption of warfare. Scores of voices vociferated and questioned and babbled. Every dog in the show took up the racket, with full-throated barks and howls. Every human jabbered. No human could be heard.
Presently, into the ruck, two policemen shouldered their way; followed by the show’s superintendent. Out of the myriad simultaneous efforts at explanation and accusation, the police could gather only that a lantern-jawed old rancher had committed flagrant assault and battery upon Mr. Fraser Colt, a man well known to dozens present and vouched for by thesuperintendent. The rancher, presumably, was either drunk or insane.
His first madness dissipated, Joel stood trembling and sick; scared to the point of horror at what he had let himself in for; yet furious as ever at the assailant of his collie.
A policeman ended the uproar by taking hold of Joel’s collar and propelling him through the milling crowd to the door of the armory and thence out into the street, where a commandeered automobile bore captive and captor to the police station a mile away.
Twice, on his forced progress through the armory and once during the horrible station-ward drive, Fenno tried to plead with the officer to let him make some arrangement for the comfort of his dog, before going to jail. But the policeman, every time, shut him up and would not let him speak.
Joel sank down in a miserable and all but sobbing heap on the slat bed of his cell. Not for himself was his woe. He foresaw a long jail sentence. In the meantime, what was to become of Treve? Who would feed him? Who would see he got back to the ranch? At the close of the show, would the beautiful collie be thrust out into the streets of this strange city, a hundred miles from home; to fend for himself—he who had always been so well cared for?
Worse yet, would he fall into the hands of the man who had kicked him—the man who seemed all-powerful there at the show—the man who had secured Fenno’s arrest and who had, himself, gone scot free? He had kicked the collie; in the presence of Fenno. What might he not do to luckless Treve, now there was no one to protect the dog?
At the searing thought of his chum’s defenselessness, Joel groaned aloud, rocking back and forth on his hard seat.
“An’ it was all my own fault!” he mumbled, brokenly. “All my own foolishness! What’n blue blazes can I do? What—whatISthere to do? Oh, Trevy, you trusted me! You was glad to come along with me. An’ see what I’ve made happen to you!”
A day earlier, Joel Fenno had been happily, if always grouchily, the master of his own actions.
To-day, Joel Fenno sat huddled miserably in a police station cell, at La Cerra, a hundred miles from home.
The man did not know how long he crouched there in growing mental torment, on the hard cell bench. It seemed to him a handful of centuries in duration. Actually, it was something under an hour.
Then a policeman came to lead him to the captain’s room at the front of the station. Besides the captain, two other men were in the room. One of them was jolly and elderly. The captain treated him with grudging respect and addressed him as “Judge.” The other was a lazy-looking chap, much younger, with a shock of red hair and a snub nose. The awesome police captain, apparently, was on comradely terms with him.
As Joel shuffled miserably into the private room, it was this red-headed youth who greeted him.
“Well, old-timer,” he said, breezily, “it sure was one grand and wakeful little scrap while it lasted. I was in the gallery, looking at the chows benched up there. And I got a fine view of it. But I couldn’t work my way through the crowd, till after you’d been gathered in. I thought they’d just turned you out of the place; till one of the bulls told me, a few minutes ago, that he’d cooped you. Then I hustled for Judge Brough and came here on the run.”
He talked fast and with easy good-fellowship, undeterred by Fenno’s sour glare. Scarcely had he paused for breath when Joel, ignoring him, turned to the uniformed captain in tremblingly eager appeal.
“Mister,” he pleaded, “my dog got left alone there at that show. He’s li’ble to starve or get lost or stole or hurt, without me to watch out for him. I—I’m kind of—kind of fond of him,” he mumbled shamefacedly; adding in a more normal tone: “I got forty-one dollars in my pocket, here. It’s yourn, if you’ll see he’s looked out for an’ shipped back to the ranch, while I’m servin’ my term. If that ain’t enough, I’ll write a check for—”
“You’ll come around to court with me,” interposed Judge Brough, “and write out a check for five dollars, for your fine. Then you can go and look after your own dog. I’m holding specialcourt for your benefit, my man. Because this nosey reporter friend of mine is pestering me to. Come along. My car’s outside.”
“I—I don’t—I don’t just rightly understand!” sputtered Fenno, incredulous, as ever, that any such golden good luck could sift into his morbid life-lot. “I—”
“Gladden, here, was in the gallery,” explained the judge. “Just as he told you. He saw it all. He gives me his word that you didn’t tackle Mr. Colt, till Colt kicked your collie. Of course, that doesn’t excuse you for breaking the law. But—well, I’m glad it was your collie, and not mine, that was kicked. I’m getting too old to punch my fellow-man. Come along.”
In a trance, Joel Fenno trailed to the car, in the wake of Brough and Gladden. In a trance, he answered the Judge’s few official questions, in Brough’s chambers, back of the deserted courtroom. He paid his fine, and then asked, uncertainly:
“C’n I go, now?”
At Brough’s assenting nod, the old man set forth at a shambling run. Too long Treve had been left there, lonely and unhappy, among that mob of strange dogs and stranger men, and possibly at the mercy of Fraser Colt. He must get back to the collie as fast as a lanky pair of legs could carry him.
“Hold on!” called the reporter, hurrying after him. “Judge Brough says I can take you back to the show in his car. It’s a couple of miles from here. Jump in.”
Gladden had been sent to the dogshow, by his paper,The Clarion, in quest of human interest items that might brighten up the technical account of the exhibition. He was not minded to let slip this chance of getting more material for the most worthwhile human interest item the day thus far had produced. Wherefore, he stuck to the excited oldster.
During the drive to the armory, he fired adroit questions at the taciturn and worried Fenno; most of which the old man did not trouble to answer. But, from a word or two forced from Joel’s overburdened soul, the lad gathered something of Fenno’s dread lest harm had befallen Treve through Colt’s ill-will.
“You can go to sleep over that, brother!” Gladden reassured him. “You and Treve, between you, managed to make Friend Colt one hundred per cent eligible for first aid treatment. Before I left, he had been helped across to the hotel and a doctor had been sent for. By the time Doc gets through stitching and bandaging him, Colt will be glad enough to stay in bed for the rest of the day and probably to-morrow, too.He’s in no shape to carry on a canine vendetta, just now. Sleep easy!”
Joel sighed in deep relief and turned upon his companion a look that, in a less forbidding old face, would have been classified as one of gratitude.
“You been mighty decent to me, young feller,” he muttered, grudgingly, as though the effort at graciousness were physically painful. “An’—I’m thankin’ you. Let it go at that.—Say! Can’t this chuffer make his car move a wee peckle faster?”
“Not unless we want to go back to court again for wearing holes in the speed limit,” said Gladden.
Joel sighed, rustily. Speaking to himself rather than to the reporter, he grumbled:
“I’d counted a hull heap on Treve’s winnin’ all them ribbon-gewgaws an’ sich. Most likely the judgin’s been goin’ on while I was to the hoosgow. Luck couldn’t ever hand me out a hundred p’cent parcel but there’d be sure to be a hole punched into it somewheres. I s’pose me an’ Treve has got to lay away them grand hopes of our’n, like they was the pants of some dear dead friend; as the feller said. But if he could ’a’ won just a single ribbon or a—”
“Buck up!” exhorted Gladden, who had caughtnot a distinct word of the mumbled soliloquy but who saw the old man’s first glow of relief was beginning to merge with his chronic gloom. “Buck up, brother. Jail’s better than a lot of dogshows I’ve covered. It’s a funny thing! I’ve covered every line of sport from cockfighting to horse-racing. And I’ve found more bad feeling and less true sportsmanship in the dog game than in all the rest put together. More slams and knocks and poor losers and petty meanness than in every other form of sport, combined.”
Fenno continued to fidget, unheeding. Less to distract the oldster from his worries than to air his own views, the reporter went on:
“I’ve figured it out. I mean the reason for the dog-game’s unsportsmanliness. And I think I’ve hit on the answer. It’s because there are so many women in it.”
He paused, waiting for the exclamation which usually followed this pet speech of his. Fenno was deaf to the harangue. Undeterred, Gladden resumed:
“My wife says I’m a crank for thinking that. But it’s true. In the old days we men were out fighting or fishing or hunting or doing other stunts that call for sportsmanship. The women were at home taking care of the house and the kids. During the centuries, men learned to besportsmen. They learned to lose gracefully and to win modestly. They had to. They had thousands of years start on women in mastering sportsmanship. It wasn’t till a very few years ago that women at large took any part at all in sport. They had to learn it from the beginning. Or rather, they still have to. Most of them haven’t made much of a start at it yet.”
“Uh-huh,” grunted the unhearing Fenno.
“Women don’t take a general part in any forms of sport, even yet,” pursued the reporter, “except dogshowing and tennis. At least those are almost the only sports they’ve achieved any prominence in. And look at the result! The dog game is full of squabbles and backbiting and poor sportsmanship. But for the A. K. C.’s wise guidance it would have gone to pot, long ago. As for women in tennis—well, maybe you’ve read of the Mallory-Lenglen mixups and others of the same sort. There couldn’t be anything like that, on the same scale, in baseball or pugilism or boating. Only in tennis. Because women are prominent in it. And in dog-breeding-and-showing. Not that I’m knocking women. It isn’t their fault. Sportsmanship is a thing that takes hundreds of years to acquire. They’ve been at it for less than a quarter-century. At that, they do fifty times better atit than any man could hope to, in some purely feminine art he was just learning. And many of them are clean sportsmen—these women. Better than most men. But some few of them—”
“Say!” exploded Joel. “You tol’ me that armory wa’n’t but two miles away. We been ridin’ in this open hearse for a—”
“We’ll be there in a minute now,” said Gladden, swallowing the rest of his oration. “It’s just around that corner. Don’t worry about your dog. He’s all right. You won’t even miss the collie judging. It won’t begin for another half-hour. Plenty of time to— Here we are!” he finished, as the car swung a corner and stopped in front of the armory.
Joel scarce waited for the machine to halt; before scrambling out and making his way, at a run, up the steps and into the rackety building. Gladden followed as fast as he could; amusedly interested in the prospect of watching the grouchy old man when he should rejoin his belovèd dog.
This meeting was scheduled to be the most pathetic or the most humorous point in the story the reporter was planning. Would Fenno be as glum in that big moment as in the moment of his release from the cell? Gladden hoped so. He hated to think that the keynote of the story wasto be spoiled by Fenno slopping babyishly over his restored collie chum.
Down the crowded aisles sped Joel; Gladden close in his wake. They reached the collie section. There Fenno came to a standstill with an abruptness that all but threw him off his balance and sent Gladden colliding against him.
Treve’s straw-cluttered bench was empty.
It was the same bench, with the same printed number tacked to it; the same splintered pine footboard that Fraser Colt had kicked. But Treve was no longer there.
Gladden’s trained reportorial eye fixed itself upon another detail of the deserted bench, a fraction of a second earlier than did Fenno’s. The stout chain, affixed to the bench staple, was pulled to its full length and hung over the splintered top of the footboard. From the chain’s snap hung a dog collar—broken. The collie’s frantic plunges had at last made the decaying leather give way.