His Dog
by
Albert Payson Terhune
Part 1 out of 2
HIS DOG
by
ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE
1922
CHAPTER I. The Derelict
Link Ferris was a fighter. Not by nature, nor by choice, but to
keep alive.
His battleground covered an area of forty acres--broken, scrubby,
uncertain side-hill acres, at that. In brief, a worked-out farm
among the mountain slopes of the North Jersey hinterland; six
miles from the nearest railroad.
The farm was Ferris's, by right of sole heritage from his father,
a Civil-War veteran, who had taken up the wilderness land in 1865
and who, for thirty years thereafter, had wrought to make it pay.
At best the elder Ferris had wrenched only a meager living from
the light and rock-infested soil.
The first-growth timber on the west woodlot for some time had
staved off the need of a mortgage; its veteran oaks and hickories
grimly giving up their lives, in hundreds, to keep the wolf from
the door of their owner. When the last of the salable timber was
gone Old Man Ferris tried his hand at truck farming, and sold his
wares from a wagon to the denizens of Craigswold, the new colony
of rich folk, four miles to northward.
But to raise such vegetables and fruits as would tempt the eyes
and the purses of Craigswold people it was necessary to have more
than mere zeal and industry. Sour ground will not readily yield
sweet abundance, be the toiler ever so industrious. Moreover,
there was large and growing competition, in the form of other
huckster routes.
And presently the old veteran wearied of the eternal uphill
struggle. He mortgaged the farm, dying soon afterward. And Link,
his son, was left to carry on the thankless task.
Link Ferris was as much a part of the Ferris farm as was the
giant bowlder in the south mowing. He had been born in the
paintless shack which his father had built with his own rheumatic
hands. He had worked for more than a quarter century, in and out
of the hill fields and the ramshackle barns. From babyhood he had
toiled there. Scant had been the chances for schooling, and more
scant had been the opportunities for outside influence.
Wherefore, Link had grown to a wirily weedy and slouching
manhood, almost as ignorant of the world beyond his mountain
walls as were any of his own "critters." His life was bounded by
fruitless labor, varied only by such sleep and food as might fit
him to labor the harder.
He ate and slept, that he might be able to work. And he worked,
that he might be able to eat and sleep. Beyond that, his life was
as barren as a rainy sea.
If he dreamed of other and wider things, the workaday grind
speedily set such dreams to rout. When the gnawing of lonely
unrest was too acute for bovine endurance--and when he could
spare the time or the money--he was wont to go to the mile-off
hamlet of Hampton and there get as nearly drunk as his funds
would permit.
It was his only surcease. And as a rule, it was a poor one. For
seldom did he have enough ready money to buy wholesale
forgetfulness. More often he was able to purchase only enough
hard cider or fuseloil whisky to make him dull and vaguely
miserable.
It was on his way home one Saturday night from such a rudimentary
debauch at Hampton that his Adventure had its small beginning.
For a half mile or so of Link's homeward pilgrimage--before he
turned off into the grass-grown, rutted hill trail which led to
his farm--his way led along a spur of the state road which linked
New York City with the Ramapo hill country.
And here, as Link swung glumly along through the springtide dusk,
his ears were assailed by a sound that was something between a
sigh and a sob--a sound as of one who tries valiantly to stifle a
whimper of sharp pain.
Ferris halted, uncertain, at the road edge; and peered about him.
Again he heard the sound. And this time he located it in the long
grass of the wayside ditch. The grass was stirring spasmodically,
too, as with the half-restrained writhings of something lying
close to earth there.
Link struck a match. Shielding the flame, he pushed the tangle of
grass to one side with his foot.
There, exposed in the narrow space thus cleared and by the
narrower radius of match flare, crouched a dog.
The brute was huddled in a crumpled heap, with one foreleg stuck
awkwardly out in front of him at an impossible angle. His tawny
mass of coat was mired and oil streaked. In his deep-set brown
eyes burned the fires of agony.
Yet, as he looked up at the man who bent above him, the dog's
gaze was neither fierce nor cringing. It held rather such an
expression as, Dumas tells us, the wounded Athos turned to
D'Artagnan--the aspect of one in sore need of aid, and too proud
to plead for it.
Link Ferris had never heard of Dumas, nor of the immortal
musketeer. None the less, he could read that look. And it
appealed to him, as no howl of anguish could have appealed. He
knelt beside the suffering dog and fell to examining his hurts.
The dog was a collie--beautiful of head, sweepingly graceful of
line, powerful and heavy coated. The mud on his expanse of snowy
chest frill and the grease on his dark brown back were easy to
account for, even to Link Ferris's none-too-keen imagination.
Link, in his own occasional trudges along this bit of state road,
had often seen costly dogs in the tonneaus of passing cars. He
had seen several of them scramble frantically to maintain their
footing on the slippery seats of such cars; when chauffeurs took
the sharp curve, just ahead, at too high speed. He had even seen
one Airedale flung bodily from a car's rear seat at that curve,
and out into the roadway; where a close-following motor had run
over and killed it.
This collie, doubtless, had had such a fall; and, unseen by the
front seat's occupants, had struck ground with terrific force--a
force that had sent him whirling through mud and grease into the
ditch, with a broken front leg.
How long the beast had lain there Link had no way of guessing.
But the dog was in mortal agony. And the kindest thing to do was
to put him out of his pain.
Ferris groped around through the gloom until, in the ditch, his
fingers closed over a ten-pound stone. One smashing blow on the
head, with this missile, would bring a swift and merciful end to
the sufferer's troubles.
Poising the stone aloft, Link turned back to where the dog lay.
Standing over the victim, he balanced the rock and tensed his
muscles for the blow. The match had long since gone out, but
Link's dusk-accustomed vision could readily discern the outlines
of the collie. And he made ready to strike.
Then--perhaps it was the drink playing tricks with Ferris's
mind--it seemed to him that he could still see those deep-set
dark eyes staring up at him through the murk, with that same
fearless and yet piteous look in their depths. It was a look that
the brief sputter of match-light had photographed on Link's
brain.
"I--I ain't got the heart to swat you while you keep lookin' that
way at me," he muttered half-aloud, as if to a human companion.
"Jes' you turn your head the other way, pup! It'll be over quick,
an' easy."
By the faint light Link could see the dog had not obeyed the
order to turn his head. But at the man's tone of compassion the
great plumy tail began to thump the ground in feeble response.
"H'm!" grunted Link, letting the stone drop to the road, "got
nerve, too, ain't you, friend? 'Tain't every cuss that can wag
his tail when his leg's bust."
Kneeling down again he examined the broken foreleg more
carefully. Gentle as was his touch, yet Link knew it must cause
infinite torture. But the dog did not flinch. He seemed to
understand that Ferris meant kindly, for he moved his magnificent
head far enough to lick the man's hand softly and in gratitude.
The caress had an odd effect on the loveless Ferris. It was the
first voluntary mark of affection he had encountered for longer
than he liked to remember. It set old memories to working.
The Ferris farm, since Link's birth, had been perhaps the only
home in all that wild region which did not boast a dog of some
kind. Link's father had had an inborn hatred of dogs. He would
not allow one on the place. His overt excuse was that they killed
sheep and worried cattle, and that he could not afford to risk
the well-being of his scanty hoard of stock.
Thus, Link had grown to manhood with no dog at his heels, and
without knowing the normal human's love for canine chumship.
The primal instinct, long buried, stirred within him now; at
touch of the warm tongue on his calloused hand and at sound of
that friendly tail wagging in the dry grass. Ashamed of the
stirrings in him, he sought to explain them by reminding himself
that this was probably a valuable animal and that a reward might
be offered for his return. In which case Link Ferris might as
well profit by the cash windfall as anyone else.
Taking off his coat, Ferris spread it on the ground. Then,
lifting the stricken collie as gently as he could, he deposited
him on the coat and rolled its frayed edges about him. After
which he picked up the swathed invalid and bore him home.
During the mile trudge the collie's sixty pounds grew unbearably
heavy, to the half-drunk Ferris. More than once he was minded to
set down his burden and leave the brute to his fate.
But always the tardy realization that the journey was more
painful to the dog than to himself gave Link a fresh grip on his
determination. And at last,--a long and tiring last,--they
reached the tumble-down farmhouse where Link Ferris kept
bachelor's hall.
Laying his patient on the kitchen table, Link lighted a candle
and went in search of such rude appliances as his father had
been wont to keep in store for any of the farm's animals that
might be injured.
Three times as a lad Link had seen his father set the broken leg
of a sheep, and once he had watched the older man perform a like
office for a yearling heifer whose hind leg had become wedged
between two brookside stones and had sustained a compound
fracture. From Civil War hospital experience the father had been
a deft bonesetter. And following his recollection of the old
man's methods, Link himself had later set the broken leg of one
of his lambs. The operation had been a success. He resolved now
to duplicate it.
Slowly and somewhat clumsily he went to work at the injured dog.
The collie's brave patience nerved him to greater tenderness and
care. A veterinary would have made neater work of the
bonesetting, but hardly could have rendered the job more
effective.
When the task was achieved Link brought his patient a bowl of
cold water--which the collie drank greedily--and some bread and
meat scraps which the feverish patient would not touch.
As he worked at his bonesetting task, Ferris had more chance to
study his new acquisition. The dog was young--probably not more
than two years old. The teeth proved that. He wore a thin collie
collar with no inscription on its silver band.
Even to Link's inexperienced eye he was an animal of high
breeding and of glorious beauty. Link told himself he would
perhaps get as much as ten dollars for the return of so costly a
pet. And he wondered why the golden prospect did not seem more
alluring.
Three times in the night Link got up to give the collie fresh
water and to moisten and re-adjust the bandages. And, every time,
the sight of his rescuer would cause the dog's tail to thump a
joyous welcome and would fill the dark eyes with a loving
gratitude which went straight to Ferris's lonely heart.
In the morning the dog was prevailed upon to lap a saucer of warm
milk, and even to nibble at a crust of soaked bread. Link was
ashamed of his own keen and growing interest in his find. For the
first time he realized how bleakly lonesome had been his home
life, since the death of his father had left him solitary.
There was a mysteriously comforting companionship in the dog's
presence. Link found himself talking to him from time to time as
to a fellow human. And the words did not echo back in eerie
hollowness from the walls, as when he had sometimes sought to
ease his desolation by talking aloud to himself.
He was embarrassed by his general ignorance of dogs, and by his
ignorance of this particular dog's name. He sought to learn what
the collie had been called; by trying one familiar dog name after
another. But, to such stand-by cognomens as Rover, Tige, Fido,
Ponto, Shep and the rest, the patient gave no further sign of
recognition than a friendly wagging of his plumed tail. And he
wagged it no more interestedly for one name than for another.
So Ferris ceased from the effort, and decided to give his pet a
brand-new name for such brief space as they should be housemates.
After long deliberation he hit upon the name "Chum," as typical
of the odd friendship that was springing to life between the dog
and himself. And he planned to devote much time to teaching
the collie this name.
But, to his surprise, no such tedious period of instruction was
necessary. In less than a single day Chum knew his name,--knew it
past all doubt.
Link was amazed at such cleverness. For three solid months, at
one time, he had striven to teach his horse and his cows and a
few of his sheep to respond to given names. And at the end of the
course of patient tutelage he had been morbidly certain that not
one of his solemn-eyed pupils had grasped the lessons.
It was surprisingly pleasant to drop in at the kitchen door
nowadays, in intervals between chores or at the day's end, and be
greeted by that glad glint of the eye and the ecstatic pounding
of the wavy tail against the floor. It was still pleasanter to
see the gaze of wistful adoration that strengthened daily as
Chum and his new master grew better and better acquainted.
Pleasantest of all was it to sit and talk to the collie in the
once-tedious evenings, and to know that his every word was
appreciated and listened to with eager interest, even if the full
gist of the talk itself did not penetrate to the listener's
understanding.
Link Ferris, for the first time in his life, had a dog.
Incidentally, for the first time in his life, he had an intimate
friend--something of whose love and loyalty he waxed increasingly
sure. And he was happy.
His brighter spirits manifested themselves in his farm work,
transforming drudgery into contentment. And the farm began, in
small ways, to show the effects of its owner's new attitude
toward labor.
The day after he found Chum, Link had trudged to Hampton; and,
there, had affixed to the clapboards of the general store a bit
of paper whereon he had scrawled:
"Found-One white and brown bird
dog with leg broken. Owner can have
same by paying a reward."
On his next huckster trip to Craigswold he pinned a similar sign
to the bulletin board of that rarefied resort's post-office. And
he waited for results.
He did more. He bought two successive copies of the county's
daily paper and scanned it for word of a missing dog. But in
neither copy did he find what he sought.
True, both editions carried display advertisements which offered
a seventy-five dollar reward for information leading to the
return of a "dark-sable-and-white collie lost somewhere between
Hohokus and Suffern."
The first time he saw this notice Link was vaguely troubled lest
it might refer to Chum. He told himself he hoped it did. For
seventy-five dollars just now would be a godsend. And in
self-disgust he choked back a most annoying twinge of grief at
thought of parting with the dog.
Two things in the advertisement puzzled him. In the first place,
as Chum was longhaired and graceful, Link had mentally classified
him as belonging to the same breed as did the setters which
accompanied hunters on mountain rambles past his farm in the
autumns. Being wholly unversed in canine lore, he had, therefore,
classified Chum as a "bird dog". The word "collie", if ever he
had chanced to hear it before, carried no meaning to him.
Moreover, he did not know what "sable" meant. He asked Dominie
Jansen, whom he met on the way home. And the dominie told him
"sable" was another name for "black." Jansen went on to amplify
the theme, dictionary-fashion, by quoting a piece of sacred
poetry about "the sable wings of night."
A great load was off Link's heart. Chum, most assuredly, was not
black and white. So the advertisement could not possibly refer to
him. The reverend gentleman, not being a dog fancier, of course
had no means of knowing that "sable", in collie jargon, means
practically every shade of color except black or gray or white.
Link was ashamed of his own delight in finding he need not give
up his pet--even for seventy-five dollars. He tried to recall his
father's invectives against dogs, and to remind himself that
another mouth to feed on the farm must mean still sharper poverty
and skimping. But logic could not strangle joy, and life took on
a new zest for the lonely man.
By the time Chum could limp around on the fasthealing foreleg, he
and Link had established a friendship that was a boon to both and
a stark astonishment to Ferris.
Link had always loved animals. He had an inborn "way" with them.
Yet his own intelligence had long since taught him that his "farm
critters" responded but dully to his attempts at a more perfect
understanding.
He knew, for example, that the horse he had bred and reared and
had taught to come at his call, would doubtless suffer the first
passing stranger to mount him and ride him away, despite any call
from his lifelong master. He knew that his presence, to the
cattle and sheep, meant only food or a shift of quarters; and
that an outsider could drive or tend them as readily as could he
on whose farm they had been born. Their possible affection for
him was a hazy thing, based solely on what he fed them and on
their occasional mild interest in being petted.
But with Chum it was all different. The dog learned quickly his
new master's moods and met them in kind. The few simple tricks
Link sought to teach him were grasped with bewildering ease.
There was a human quality of sympathy and companionship which
radiated almost visibly from Chum. His keen collie brain was
forever amazing Ferris by its flashes of perception. The dog was
a revelation and an endless source of pleasure to the
hermit-farmer.
When Chum was whole of his hurt and when the injured leg had knit
so firmly that the last trace of lameness was gone, Link fell to
recalling his father's preachments as to the havoc wrought by
dogs upon sheep. He could not afford to lose the leanest and
toughest of his little sheep flock--even as price for the
happiness of owning a comrade. Link puzzled sorely over this.
Then one morning it occurred to him to put the matter up to Chum
himself. Hitherto he had kept the dog around the house, except on
their daily walks; and he had always tied him when driving the
sheep to or from pasture. This morning he took the collie along
when he went out to release the tiny flock from their barnyard
fold and send them out to graze.
Link opened the fold gate, one hand on Chum's collar. Out
billowed the sheep in a ragged scramble. Chum quivered with
excitement as the woolly catapults surged past him. Eagerly he
looked up into his master's face, then back at the tumbling
creatures.
"Chum!" spoke Ferris sharply. "Leave 'em be! Get that? LEAVE 'EM
BE!"
He tightened his hold on the collar as he gave the command. Chum
ceased to quiver in eagerness and stood still, half puzzled, half
grieved by the man's unwonted tone.
The sheep, at sight and smell of the dog, rushed jostlingly from
their pen and scattered in every direction, through barnyard and
garden and nearer fields. Bleating and stampeding, they ran. Link
Ferris blinked after them, and broke into speech. Loudly and
luridly he swore.
This stampede might well mean an hour's running to and fro before
the scattered flock could be herded once more. An hour of panting
and blasphemous pursuit, at the very outset of an overbusy day.
And all because of one worthless dog.
His father had been right. Link saw that--now that it was too
late. A dog had no place on a farm. A poor man could not afford
the silly luxury of a useless pet. With whistle and call Ferris
sought to check the flight of the flock. But, as every farmer
knows, there is nothing else on earth quite so unreasonable and
idiotic as a scared sheep. The familiar summons did not slacken
nor swerve the stampede.
The fact that this man had been their protector and friend made
no difference to the idiotic sheep. They were frightened. And,
therefore, the tenuously thin connecting line between them and
their human master had snapped. For the moment they were merely
wild animals, and he was a member of a hostile race--almost as
much as was the huge dog that had caused their fright.
A wistful whine from Chum interrupted Link's volley of swearing.
The dog had noted his master's angry excitement and was seeking
to offer sympathy or help.
But the reminder of Chum's presence did not check Link's wrath at
the unconscious cause of the stampede. He loosed his hold on the
collar, resolving to take out his rage in an unmerciful beating
should the dog seek to chase the fleeing sheep. That would be at
least an outlet for the impotent wrath which Ferris sought to
wreak on someone or something.
"Go get 'em then, if you're so set on it!" he howled at the
collie, waving a windmill arm at the fugitives. "Only I'll whale
your measly head off if you do!"
The invitation and the gesture that went with it seemed to rouse
some long-dormant memory in the collie's soul. Like a flash he
was off in flying pursuit of the sheep. Ferris, in the crazy rage
which possessed him, hoped Chum might bite at least one of the
senseless creatures that were causing him such a waste of
precious time and of grudged effort.
Wherefore he did not call back the fastrunning collie. It would
be time enough to whale the daylight out of him--yes, and to
rescue his possible victims from death--when the dog should have
overhauled the woolly pests. So, in dour fury, Link watched the
pursuit and the flight.
Then, of a sudden, the black rage in Ferris's visage changed to
perplexity, and slowly from that to crass wonderment.
Six of the sheep had remained bunched in their runaway dash,
while all the rest had scattered singly. It was after this
bleating sextet that Chum was now racing.
Nor did he stop when he came up with them. Tearing past them he
wheeled almost in midair and slackened his pace, running
transversely ahead of them and breaking into a clamor of barks.
The six, seeing their foe menacing them from in front, came to a
jumbled and slithering halt, preparing to break their formation
and to scatter. But Chum would not have it so.
Still threatening them with his thunderous bark he made little
dashes at one or another of them that tried to break away; and he
crowded back the rest.
As a result, there was but one direction the dazed sheep could
take--the direction whence they had come. And, uncertainly,
shamblingly, they made their way back toward the fold.
Scarce had they been fairly started in their cowed progress when
Chum was off at a tangent, deserting his six charges and bearing
down with express train speed on a stray wether that had paused
in his escape to nibble at a line of early peas in the truck
garden.
At sight of the approaching collie the sheep flung up its head
and began again to run. But the dog was in front of it,
whichever way the panic-stricken animal turned;--in every
direction but one. And in that direction fled the fugitive. Nor
did it stop in its headlong flight until it was alongside the six
which Chum had first "turned".
Pausing only long enough to round up one or two sheep which were
breaking loose from the bunch Chum was off again in headlong
chase of still another and another and another stray.
Link Ferris, in blank incredulity, stood gaping at the picture
before him--staring at the tireless swiftness of his dog in
turning back and rounding up a scattered flock which Ferris
himself could not have bunched in twenty times the space of
minutes. Chum, he noted, did not touch one of the foolish beasts.
His bark and his zigzag dashes served the purpose, without the
aid of teeth or of actual contact.
Presently, as the dumbfounded man gazed, the last stray was added
to the milling, bleating bunch, and Chum was serenely trotting to
and fro, driving back such of the sheep as sought to break loose
from the huddle. Terrified and trembling, but mastered, the flock
cowered motionless. The work was done.
As in a dream Link tumbled toward the prisoners. His mind
functioning subconsciously, he took up his interrupted task of
driving them to pasture. The moment he succeeded in getting them
into motion they broke again. And again, like a furry whirlwind,
Chum was encircling them; chasing the strays into place. He saw,
without being told, the course his master was taking, and he
drove his charges accordingly.
Thus, in far less time and in better order than ever before, the
flock reached the rickety gateway of the stone-strewn sheep
pasture and scuttled jostlingly in through it.
Link shut the gate after them. Then, still in a daze, he turned
on the dog.
"Chum," he said confusedly, "it don't make sense to me, not even
yet. I don't get the hang of it. But I know this much: I know you
got ten times the sense what I'VE got. Where you got it an' how
you got it the good Lord only knows. But you've got it. I--I was
figgerin' on lickin' you 'most to death, a few minutes back.
Chum. Honest, I was. I'm clean 'shamed to look you in the face
when I think of it. Say! Do me a favor, Chum. If ever I lift hand
to lick you, jes' bite me and give me hydrophoby. For I'll sure
be deservin' it. Now come on home!"
He patted the silken head of the jubilant dog as he talked,
rumpling the soft ears and stroking the long, blazed muzzle. He
was sick at heart at memory of his recent murderous rage at this
wonder-comrade of his.
Chum was exultantly happy. He had had a most exhilarating ten
minutes. The jolliest bit of fun he could remember in all his two
years of life. The sight of those queer sheep--yes, and the scent
of them, especially the scent--had done queer things to his
brain; had aroused a million sleeping ancestral memories.
He had understood perfectly well his master's order that he leave
them alone. And he had been disappointed by it. He himself had
not known clearly what it was he would have liked to do to them.
But he had known he and they ought to have some sort of
relationship. And then at the gesture and the snarled command of
"Go get them!" some closed door in Chum's mind had swung wide,
and, acting on an instinct he himself did not understand, he had
hurled himself into the gay task of rounding up the flock.
So, for a thousand generations on the Scottish hills, had Chum's
ancestors earned their right to live. And so through successive
generations had they imbued their progeny with that
accomplishment until it had become a primal instinct. Even as the
unbroken pointer of the best type knows by instinct the rudiments
of his work in the field so will many a collie take up sheep
herding by ancestral training.
There had been nothing wonderful in Chum's exploit. Hundreds of
untrained collies have done the same thing on their first sight
of sheep. The craving to chase and slay sheep is a mere
perversion of this olden instinct; just as the disorderly
"flushing" and scattering of bird coveys is a perversion of the
pointer or setter instinct. Chum, luckily for himself and for his
master's flock, chanced to run true to form in this matter of
heredity, instead of inheriting his tendency in the form of a
taste for sheep murder.
The first collie, back in prehistoric days, was the first dog
with the wit to know his master's sheep apart from all other
sheep. Perhaps that is the best, if least scientific, theory of
the collie's origin.
But to Link Ferris's unsophisticated eyes the achievement was all
but supernatural, and it doubled his love for the dog.
That afternoon, by way of experiment, Ferris took Chum along when
he went to drive the sheep back from pasture to the fold. By the
time he and the dog were within a hundred yards of the pasture
gate Chum began to dance, from sheer anticipation; mincing
sidewise on the tips of his toes in true collie fashion, and
varying the dance by little rushes forward.
Link opened the crazy gate. Waiting for no further encouragement
the dog sped into the broad field and among the grazing sheep
that were distributed unevenly over the entire area of the lot.
Ordinarily--unless the sheep were ready to come home--it was a
matter of ten or fifteen minutes each evening for Link to collect
them and start them on their way. To-day, in less than three
minutes, Chum had the whole flock herded and trotting through the
opening, to the lane outside.
Nor, this time, did the sheep flee from him in the same panic
dread as in the morning. They seemed to have learned--if indeed a
sheep can ever learn anything--that Chum was their driver, not
their enemy.
From the fold Link as usual went to the woodlot where his five
head of lean milch cattle were at graze. Three of the cows were
waiting at the bars for him, but one heifer and a new-dry
Holstein were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the
second-growth timber.
The afternoon was hot; it had been a hot day. Link was tired. He
dreaded the labor of exploring ten acres of undergrowth for his
two missing cattle. An inspiration came to him. Pointing to the
three stolidly waiting cows at the bars he waved his arm in the
general direction of the lot and called on Chum.
"Go find 'em! Bring 'em in!"
Almost before the words were spoken Ferris regretted them. He
hated to dim the luster of his dog's earlier exploits by giving
him a job beyond his skill. And this time Chum did not flash
forward with his former zest. He stood, ears cocked, glancing
uncertainly from Link to the three cows already waiting.
Then, as he still peered doubtfully, one of the bovine trio took
fright at the dog and trotted clumsily away toward the woods.
Link gave chase. He had not gone three steps before Chum caught
the idea. Whirling past Ferris he headed off the surprised,
indignant cow, and by dint of a flurry of barks and dashes
started her back toward the bars.
Her bell jangled dolefully as she obeyed the noisy urge. And from
somewhere among the bushes, two hundred yards away, a second
cowbell sounded in answer. At this distant tinkle Chum evidently
grasped the meaning of his master's earlier mandate. For he
galloped away in the direction of the sound.
And presently, with much crashing of undergrowth, appeared the
rebellious heifer, driven on by Chum. After depositing her, sulky
and plunging, at the bars, Chum vanished again--in apparent
response to another far-off bell jangle. And in three minutes
more he was back at the bars with the fifth cow.
"Lucky one was a heifer an' the other one dry!" commented Link to
the collie, after petting him and praising him for the exploit.
"I'll have to learn you to drive milch cows easy an' quiet. You
can't run 'em like you run sheep an' yearlin's. But apart from
that, you sure done grand. You can lop off an hour a day of my
work if I c'n send you reg'lar for the critters. That ought to be
worth the price of your keep, by itself. Now if I c'n learn you
how to milk an' maybe how to mow--well, 'twouldn't be a hull lot
queerer'n the stunts you done to-day!"
It was perhaps a week later that Link Ferris received his
quarterly check from the Paterson Vegetable Market. These checks
hitherto had been the brightest spots in Link's routine. Not only
did the money for his hard-raised farm products mean a
replenishing of the always scant larder and an easing of the
chronic fiscal strain between himself and the Hampton general
store's proprietor, but sometimes enough spare cash was left over
to allow Ferris to get very satisfactorily drunk.
Since Chum's advent, the old gnawing of loneliness had not goaded
Link to the Hampton tavern. As a consequence, he had a dollar or
two more on hand than was usual at such times. This wealth was
swelled still further by the fact that a boost in vegetable
prices had fattened his quarterly check beyond its wonted size.
All this and his long abstinence seemed to call for a real
celebration. And Link looked forward with a thrill of merry
anticipation to the coming of night.
As soon as he could clear away his evening chores and swallow
some supper he fared forth to the village. This was going to be
one of those nights to date time from. Not a miserable half-jag,
stopped in mid-career by lack of funds and of credit--a
nipped-in-the-bud debauch, such as so often had sent him home
cranky and unsatisfied and railing against poverty. No, this was
going to be the real thing--a record performance, even for these
pre-prohibition times.
Ferris fed the collie and shut him into the kitchen, pending his
own return from Hampton. If Link were going to become blissfully
and helplessly drunk, as he had every hope of being, someone
might take advantage of his condition to steal his precious dog.
Therefore Chum was best left safe at home. This Link explained
very carefully to the interestedly listening collie. And Chum,
with head and brush a-droop, walked meekly into the kitchen at
his master's behest.
Link set off for the village, happy in the feeling that his home
was so well guarded and that he would find a loving friend
waiting to welcome him on his return. What with ready money and a
real friend and the prospect of getting whole-souledly drunk the
world was not such a rotten place to live in after all!
As a rule, on these occasions, Ferris first went to the Hampton
store. There he was wont to cash his check, pay his longstanding
bill, order his new supplies--and then, with a free heart, sally
forth to the Hampton tavern. But to-night, having money in his
pocket apart from the check, he decided to pay a preliminary call
at the tavern, just by way of warming up, before going on to the
store.
There were few people in the barroom at so early an hour of the
evening and on so early an evening of the week. Link nodded
affably to one or two men he knew and bade them line up at the
bar with him. After the second drink he prepared to leave. To the
tavern's proprietor, who was mildly surprised at the brevity of
his call, Ferris explained that he was going across to the store
to get his check cashed and that he would be back later.
Whereat the proprietor kindly offered to save Link the journey by
cashing the check for him; a suggestion Ferris gladly accepted.
He passed the indorsed check across the bar and received for it a
comfortably large wad of wilted greenbacks which he proceeded to
intern with tender care in an inside pocket of his vest, where
he moored them with a safety-pin. Then he ordered another drink.
But to this new order there was an instant demurrer. Two
strangers, who had been drinking at a corner table, bore down
upon Link right lovingly; and recalled themselves to his memory
as companions of his on a quite forgotten debauch of a year or
two back.
Link did not at all remember either of the two. But then he often
failed to recall people he had met on a spree, and he did not
like to hurt these cordial revelers' feelings by disclaiming
knowledge of them. Especially when they told him merrily that,
for this evening at least, his money was made of wood and that he
must be their guest.
Never before had he met with such wholesouled hospitality. One
drink followed another with gratifying speed. Once or twice
Ferris made halfhearted proffers to do some of the buying. But
such hints seemed to hurt his hosts' feelings so cruelly that he
forbore at last, and suffered himself to drink entirely at their
expense.
They were much the nicest men Link had ever met. They flattered
him. They laughed uproariously at his every witticism. They had a
genius for noting when his glass was empty. They listened with
astonished admiration to his boastful recital of Chum's
cleverness. One of them, who, it seemed, was an expert in dog
lore, told him how to teach the collie to shake hands and to lie
down and to "speak." They were magnificent men, in every way.
Link was ashamed to have forgotten his earlier meetings with such
paragons.
But the call of duty never quite dies into silence. And finally
Link remembered he had still his store bill to pay and his
supplies to order. So he announced that he must go. The store, he
knew, closed at nine. He looked up at the barroom clock. But its
face was hazy and it seemed to have a great many hands. There was
no use trying to learn the hour from so dissolute a timepiece.
His two friends persuaded him to have one more drink. Then they
volunteered to go across to the store with him. He left the
tavern, with one of the two walking on either side of him. He was
glad to be in the center of the trio; for, as the night air
struck him, he became unaccountably dizzy. His friends' willing
arms were a grand support to his wavering legs.
On the unlighted threshold of the tavern Link stumbled heavily
over something--something that had been lying there and that
sprang eagerly toward him as he debouched from the doorway. The
reason he stumbled over it was that the creature, which had
bounded so rapturously toward him, had come to a sharp halt at
noting his condition. Thus, Ferris stumbled over it; and would
have fallen but for the aid of his friends.
The single village street was pitch black. Not a light was to be
seen. This puzzled Link; who had no means of knowing that the
time was close on midnight. He started toward the store. At least
that was the direction he planned to take. But when, at the end
of five minutes, he found he was outside the village and on a
narrow road that bordered the lake, he saw his friends had
mistaken the way. He stopped abruptly and told them so.
One of them laughed; as if Link had said something funny. The
other did something quickly with one foot and one arm. Ferris's
legs went from under him. The jar of his fall shook from him a
fraction of his drunkenness, and it gave him enough sense to
realize that the man who had laughed was trying to unfasten the
pinned inner pocket of the fallen man's vest.
Now for years that pocket had been the secret repository of Link
Ferris's sparse wealth. The intruder's touch awakened him to a
drowsy sense of peril. He thrust aside the fumbling hand and made
a herculean effort to rise.
At this show of resistance his two comrades, as by concerted
signal, threw themselves upon him. With a yell of angry fright
Link collapsed to earth under the dual impact.
CHAPTER II. The Battle
He felt one of the men pinion his waving arms, while the other
crouched on his legs and proceeded to unpin the money pocket.
Ferris struggled for an instant in futile fury, trying to shout
for help. The call was strangled in his throat. But the help came
to him, none the less.
Scarce three seconds had passed since the attempt to rob him had
set Link into action and had wrung from him that yell of
consternation.
But in answer came a swirling patter of feet on the road, a snarl
like a wolf's, a shape that catapulted through the dark. Sixty
pounds of fur-swathed dynamic muscle smote athwart the shoulders
of the man who was unfastening the cash pocket's pin.
The impact hurled the fellow clean off his crouching balance and
sent him sprawling, face downward, his outflung hands splashing
in the margin of the lake. Before he could roll over or so much
as stir, a set of white fangs met in his shoulder-flesh. And he
testified to his injury by an eldritch screech of pain and terror
that echoed far across the water.
His companion, rallying from the momentary shock, left Ferris and
charged at the prostrate thief's assailant. But Chum met him,
with a fierce eagerness, more than half way.
A true collie--thanks to his strain of wolf bloodfights as does
no other dog. What he lacks in stubborn determination he atones
for by swiftness and by his uncanny brain power.
A bulldog, for example, would have flown to his master's relief
quite as readily as did Chum. But a bulldog would have secured
the first convenient hold and would have hung on to that hold,
whether it were at his victim's throat or only on the slack of
his trousers--until someone should hammer him into senselessness.
Chum--collie-fashion--was everywhere at once, using his brain far
more than his flying jaws. Finding the grip in his foe's shoulder
did not prevent the man from twisting round to grapple him, the
collie shifted that grip with lightning speed, and with one of
his gleaming eyeteeth slashed his opponent's halfturned cheek
from eye to chin. Then he bored straight for the jugular.
It was at this crisis that he sensed, rather than saw, the other
man rushing at him. Chum left his fallen antagonist and whirled
about to face the new enemy. As he was still turning, he sprang
far to one side, in bare time to elude a swinging kick aimed at
his head.
Then, before the thief could recover the balance endangered by so
mighty a kick, the collie had whirled in and sunk his teeth deep
in the man's calf. The bitten man let out a roar of pain, and
smote wildly at the dog's face with both swinging fists.
Chum leaped back out of range, and then, with the same
bewildering speed, flashed in again and buried his curved fangs
in the nearest of the two flailing forearms.
The first victim of the collie's attack was scrambling to his
feet. So was Link Ferris. Sobered enough to recognize his beloved
dog, he also saw the newrisen thief catch up a broken fence rail,
brandish it aloft and charge upon the collie, who was still
battling merrily with the second man.
To Link it seemed that nothing could save Chum from a
backbreaking blow from the huge club. Instinctively he ran at the
wielder of the formidable weapon. Staggering and sick and
two-thirds drunk, Ferris, nevertheless, made valiant effort to
save the dog that was fighting so gallantly for him.
His lurching rush carried him across the narrow road and to the
lake edge, barely in time to intercept the swinging sweep of the
fence rail. It caught him glancingly across the side. And its
force carried him clean off his none-too-steady feet. Down went
Ferris--down and backward. His body plunged noisily into the
water.
Chum had wheeled to face the rail's brandisher. But at sight of
his master's sudden immersion in the lake, he quitted the fray.
At top speed the dog cleared the bank and jumped down into the
water in pursuit of Ferris.
It evidently dawned on both men at once that there had been a
good deal of noise, for what was to have been a silent and
decorous holdup. Also that a raging collie is not a pleasant foe.
The racket might well draw interference from outside. The dog was
overhard to kill, and his bites were murderous. The game had
ceased to be worth the candle. By common impulse the pair took to
their heels.
Link Ferris, head down in the cold water, was strangling in his
maudlin efforts to right himself. He dug both hands into the
lake-bottom mud and strove to gain the surface. But the effort
was too much for him. A second frantic heave had better results.
And vaguely he knew why.
For Chum had managed to get a firm hold on the shoulder of his
master's coat--twelve inches under water--and had braced himself
with all his wiry strength for a tug which should lift Ferris to
the surface.
This added leverage barely made Link's own struggle a success.
The half-drowned man regained his footing. Floundering waist-deep
in water, he clambered up the steeply shelving bank to shore.
There at the road's edge he lay, gasping and sputtering and
fighting for breath.
Chum had been pulled under and out of his depth by Link's
exertions. Now, coming to the surface, he swam to shore and
trotted up the bank to the road. Absurdly lank and small, with
his soaking coat plastered close to his slim body, he stood over
his prostrate master.
The dog's quick glare up and down the road told him his foes were
gone. His incredible sense of hearing registered the far-off
pad-pad-pad of fast-retreating human feet, and showed him the
course the two men were taking. He would have liked to give
chase. It had been a good fight--lively and exciting withal--and
Chum wished he might carry it into the enemies' own country.
But his god was lying helpless at his feet and making queer
sounds of distress. The dog's place was here. The joy of battle
must be foregone.
Solicitously Chum leaned over Ferris and sought to lick the
sufferer's face. As he did so his supersensitive nostrils were
smitten by an odor which caused the collie to shrink back in
visible disgust. The sickly, pungent smell of whisky on Ferris's
labored breath nauseated Chum. He stood, head recoiled, looking
down at Link in bewilderment.
There were many things, this night, which Chum did not
understand. First of all, he had been grieved and offended that
Ferris should have locked him in the kitchen instead of taking
him along as usual on his evening stroll. It had been lonely in
the unlighted kitchen. Link had not ordered the dog to stay
there. He had simply shut Chum in and left him.
So, tiring at last of solitude, the collie had leaped lightly out
of the nearest window. The window had been open. Its thin
mosquito net covering had not served in the least as a deterrent
to the departing Chum.
To pick up his master's trail--and to hold to it even when it
merged with a score of others at the edge of the village--had
been absurdly simple. The trail had led to a house with closed
doors. So, after circling the tavern to find if his master had
gone out by any other exit, Chum had curled himself patiently on
the doorstep and had waited for Link to emerge.
Several people had come in and out while he lay there. But all of
them had shut the door too soon for him to slip inside.
At last Ferris had appeared between his two new friends. Chum had
been friskily happy to see his long-absent god again. He had
sprung forward to greet Link. Then, his odd collie sense had told
him that for some reason this staggering and hiccuping creature
was not the master whom he knew and loved. This man was strangely
different from the Link Ferris whom Chum knew.
Puzzled, the dog had halted and had stood irresolute. As he stood
there, Ferris had stumbled heavily over him, hurting the collie's
ribs and his tender flesh; and had meandered on without so much
as a word or a look for his pet.
Chum, still irresolute and bewildered, had followed at a distance
the swaying progress of the trio, until Link's yell and the
attack had brought him in furious haste to Ferris's rescue.
Link presently recovered enough of his breath to enable him to
move. The ducking in icy water had cleared his bemused brain.
Approximately sober, he got to his feet and stood swaying and
dazed. As he rose, his groping hand closed over something cold
and hard that had fallen to the ground beside him. And he
recognized it. So he picked it up and stuck it into his pocket.
It was a pint flask of whisky--one he had received as a farewell
gift from his two friends as the three had left the tavern. It
had been an easy gift for the men to make. For they were
confidently certain of recovering it a few minutes later when
they should go through their victim's clothes. Dawning
intelligence told Link he had not come through the adventure very
badly, after all--thanks to Chum. Ferris well understood now why
the thieves had picked acquaintance with him at sight of his
money, and why they had gotten him drunk.
The memory of what he had escaped gave him a new qualm of nausea.
The loss of his cash would have meant suspended credit at the
store and the leanest three months he had ever known.
But soon the joy in his triumph wiped out this thought.
The native North Jersey mountaineer has a peculiar vein of
cunning which makes him morbidly eager to get the best of anyone
at all--even if the victory brings him nothing worth while.
Link Ferris had had an evening of limitless liquor. He still had
a pint of whisky to take home. And it had cost him not a cent,
except for his first two rounds of drinks.
He had had his spree. He still had all his check money. And he
had a flask of whisky. True, he had been roughly handled. And he
had had a ducking in the lake. But those were his sole
liabilities. They were insignificant by comparison to his assets.
He grinned in smug self-gratulation. Then his eye fell on Chum,
standing ten feet away, looking uncertainly at him.
Chum! To Chum he owed it all! He owed the dog his money, perhaps
his very life. Yes--as he rehearsed the struggle to get out of
the lake--he owed the collie his life as well as his victory over
the holdup men. To Chum!
A great wave of love and gratitude surged up in Ferris. He had a
sloppily idiotic yearning to throw his arms about the dog's furry
neck and kiss him. But he steadied himself and chirped to the
collie to come nearer. Slowly, with queer reluctance, Chum
obeyed.
"Listen," mumbled Link incoherently, "I saved you from dying from
a bust leg and hunger the night I fust met you, Chummie. An'
tonight you squared the bill by saving me from drownin'. But I'm
still a whole lot in your debt, friend. I owe you for all the
cash in my pocket an'--an' for a pint of the Stuff that Killed
Father--an'--an' maybe for a beatin' that might of killed me.
Chum, I guess God did a real day's work when He built you.
I--I--Let it go at that. Only I ain't forgettin'. Nor yet I ain't
li'ble to forget. Come on home. I'm a-gittin' the chatters!"
He had been stroking the oddly unresponsive dog's head as he
spoke. Now, for the first time, Link realized that the night was
cool, that his drenched clothes were like ice on him, and that
the cold and the shock reaction were giving him a sharp
congestive chill. Walking fast to restore circulation to his
numbed body he made off for his distant farmhouse, Chum pattering
along at his heels.
The rapid walk set him into a glow. But by the time he had
reached home and had stripped off his wet clothes and swathed
himself in a rough blanket, his racked nerves reasserted
themselves. He craved a drink--a number of drinks--to restore his
wonted poise. Lighting the kitchen lamp, he set the whisky bottle
on the table and put a thick tumbler alongside it. Chum was lying
at his master's feet. In front of Ferris was a pint of good
cheer. The lamplight made the kitchen bright and cozy. Link felt
a sense of utter well-being pervade him.
This was home--this was the real thing. Three successive and
man-size drinks of whisky presently made it seem more and more
the real thing. They made all things seem possible, and most
things highly desirable. Link wanted to sing. And after two
additional drinks he gratified this taste by lifting his voice in
a hiccup-punctuated ditty addressed to one Jenny, whom the singer
exhorted to wait till the clouds rolled by.
He was following this appeal by a rural lyric which recited in
somewhat wearisome tonal monotony the adventures of a Little
Black Bull that came Over the Mountain, when he observed that
Chum was no longer lying at his feet. Indeed, the dog was in a
far corner of the room, pressed close to the closed outer door,
and with crest and ruff a-droop.
Puzzled by his pet's defection, Link imperiously commanded Chum
to return to his former place. The collie, in most unwilling
obedience, turned about and came slowly toward the drinker.
Every line of Chum's splendid body told of reluctance to approach
his master. The deep-set, dark eyes were eloquent of a frightened
disgust. He looked at Ferris as at some loathely stranger. The
glad light of loyalty, which always had transfigured his visage
when Link called to him, was woefully lacking. Drunk as he was
Ferris could not help noticing the change. And he marveled at it.
"Whasser matter?" be demanded truculently. "What ails yer? C'm
here, I'm tellin' you!"
He stretched out his hand in rough caress to the slowly
approaching collie. Chum shrank back from the touch as a child
from a dose of castor oil. There was no fear now in his aspect.
Only disgust and a poignant unhappiness.
And, all suddenly, Link Ferris understood.
He himself did not know how the knowledge came to him. A canine
psychologist might perhaps have told him that there is always an
occult telepathy between the mind of a thoroughbred dog and its
master, a power which gives them a glimpse into each other's
processes of thought. But there was no such psychologist there to
explain the thing. Nor did Link need it explained. It was enough
for him that he knew.
He knew, as by revelation, that his adoring dog now shunned him
because Link was drunk.
From the first, Chum's look of utter worship and his eagerly
happy obedience had been a joy to Link. The subtly complete
change in his worshiper's demeanor jarred sharply on the man's
raw nerves. He felt vaguely unclean--shamed.
The contempt of such of his pious human neighbors as had passed
him in the road during his sprees had affected Link not at all.
Nor now could he understand the queer feeling of humiliation that
swept over him at sight of the horrified repugnance in the eyes
of this mere brute beast. It roused him to a gust of hot
vexation.
"Shamed of me, are you?" he grunted fiercely. "A dirty
four-legged critter's 'shamed of a he-man, hey? Well, we'll lick
that out of you, dam' soon!"
Lurching to his feet, he snatched up a broom handle. He waved it
menacingly over the dog. Chum gave back not an inch. Under the
threat of a beating he stood his ground, his brave eyes
steadfast, and, lurking in their mystic depths, that same glint
of sorrowful wonder and disgust.
Up whirled the broomstick. But when it fell it did not smite
athwart the shoul ders of the sorrowing dog. Instead, it
clattered harmlessly to the board floor. And to the floor also
slumped Link Ferris, his nerve all gone, his heart soggy with
sudden remorse.
To his knees thudded the man, close beside the collie. From
Link's throat were bursting great strangled sobs which tortured
his whole body and made his speech a tangled jumble that was not
pretty to hear.
"Chum!" he wailed brokenly, clutching the dog's huge ruff in both
shaky hands. "Chum, old friend! Gawd forgive me! You saved me
from drowndin' an' from goin' broke, this night! You been the
only friend that ever cared a hang if I was alive or dead!
An'--an' I was goin' to lick you! I was goin' to lambaste you.
Because I was a beastlier beast than YOU be. I was goin' to do it
because you was so much better than me that you was made sick by
my bein' a hawg. An' I was mad at you fer it. I'm--oh, I'm
shameder than you are! Chum! Honest to Gawd, I am! Won't you make
friends again? PLEASE, Chum!"
Now, of course, this was a most ridiculous and maudlin way to
talk. Moreover, no man belongs on his knees beside a dog, even
though the man be a sot and the dog a thoroughbred. In his calmer
moments Link Ferris would have known this. A high-bred collie,
too, has no use for sloppy emotion, but shuns its exhibition
well-nigh as disgustedly as he shuns a drunkard.
Yet, for some illogical reason, Chum did not seek to withdraw his
aristocratic self from the shivering clutch of the repentant
souse. Instead, the expression of misery and repugnance fled as
if by magic from his brooding eyes. Into them in its place leaped
a light of keen solicitude. He pressed closer to the swayingly
kneeling man, and with upthrust muzzle sought to kiss the
blubbering face.
The whisky reek was as strong as ever. But something in Chum's
soul was stronger. He seemed to know that the maudlin Unknown had
vanished, and that his dear master was back again--his dear
master who was in grievous trouble and who must be comforted.
Wherefore, the sickening liquor fumes no longer held him aloof
from Link. Just as the icy lake had not deterred him from
springing into the water after his drowning god, although, like
most collies, Chum hated to swim.
Link, through his own nervous collapse, recognized the instant
change in Chum's demeanor, and read it aright. It strengthened
the old bond between himself and the dog. It somehow gave him a
less scornful opinion of himself.
Presently he got to his feet, and with the collie at his side
went back to the table, where stood the threeparts-empty flask.
His face working, Link opened the window and poured what was left
of the whisky out on the ground. There was nothing dramatic about
his action. Rather it was tinged by very visible regret. Turning
back to Chum, he said sheepishly:
"There it goes. An' I ain't sayin' I'm tickled at wastin' such
good stuff. But--somehow I guess we've come to a showdown, Chum;
you an' me. If I stick to booze, I'm li'ble to see you looking at
me that queer way an' sidlin' away from me all the time; till
maybe at last you'd get plumb sick of me for keeps, an' light
out. An'--I'd rather have YOU than the booze, since I can't have
both of you. Bein' only a dawg and never havin' tasted good red
liquor, you can't know what a big bouquet I'm a-throwin' at you
when I say that, neither. I--Oh, let's call it a day and go to
sleep."
Next morning, in the course of nature, Link Ferris worked with a
splitting headache. He carried it and a bad taste in his mouth,
for the best part of the day.
But it was the last drink headache which marred his labor, all
that long and happy summer. His work showed the results of the
change. So did the meager hill farm. So did Link's system and his
pocketbook.
As he was a real, live human and not a temperance tract hero,
there were times when he girded bitterly at his self-enforced
abstinence. Where were times, too--when he had a touch of malaria
and again when the cutworms slaughtered two rows of his early
tomatoes--when he yearned unspeakably for the solace of an
evening at the Hampton tavern.
He had never been a natural drinker. Like many a better man he
had drunk less for what he sought to get than for what he sought
to forget. And with the departure of loneliness and the new
interest in his home, he felt less the need for wet conviviality
and for drugging his fits of melancholy.
The memory of Chum's grieving repulsion somehow stuck in Ferris's
mind. And it served as a brake, more than once, to his tavernward
impulses. Two or three times, also, when Link's babyish gusts of
destructive bad temper boiled to the surface at some setback or
annoyance, much the same wonderingly distressed look would creep
into the collie's glance--a look as of one who is revolted by a
dear friend's failure to play up to form. And to his own amused
surprise, Ferris found himself trying to curb these outbursts.
To the average human, a dog is only a dog. To Ferris, this collie
of his was the one intimate friend of his life. Unversed in the
ways of dogs, he overestimated Chum, of course, and valued his
society and his good opinion far more highly than the average man
would have done. Thus, perhaps, his desire to stand well in the
dog's esteem had in it more that was commendable than ludicrous.
Or perhaps not.
If the strange association did much for Link, it did infinitely
more for Chum. He had found a master who had no social interests
in life beyond his dog, and who could and did devote all his
scant leisure hours to association with that dog. Chum's sagacity
and individuality blossomed under such intensive tutelage, as
might that of a clever child who is the sole pupil of its
teacher.
Link did not seek to make a trick dog of his pet. He taught Chum
to shake hands, to lie down, to "speak" and one or two more
simple accomplishments. It was by talking constantly to the
collie, as to a fellow human, that he broadened the dog's
intelligence. Chum grew to know and to interpret every inflection
of Ferris's voice, every simple word he spoke and every gesture
of his.
Apart from mere good fellowship the dog was proving of great use
on the farm. Morning and night, Chum drove the sheep and the
cattle to their respective pastures and then back to the barnyard
at night. At the entrances to the pastures, now, Ferris had
rigged up rude gates with "bar catch" fastenings--simple
contrivances which closed by gravity and whose bars the dog was
readily taught to shove upward with his nose.
It was thus a matter of only a few days to teach Chum to open or
close the light gates. This trick has been taught to countless
collies, of course, in Great Britain, and to many here. But Link
did not know that. He felt like another Columbus or Edison, at
his own genius in devising such a scheme; and he felt an
inordinate pride in Chum for learning the simple exploit so
quickly.
Of old, Link had fretted at the waste of time in taking out the
sheep and cows and in going for them at night. This dual duty was
now a thing of the past. Chum did the work for him, and reveled
in the excitement of it. Chum also--from watching Link perform
the task twice--had learned to drive the chickens out of the
garden patches whenever any of them chanced to stray thither, and
to scurry into the cornfield with harrowing barks of ejection
when a flock of crows hovered hungrily above the newly-planted
crops.
All of which was continual amusement to Chum, and a tremendous
help to his owner.
Link, getting over his initial wonder at the dog's progress,
began to take these accomplishments as a matter of course.
Indeed, he was sometimes perplexed at the otherwise sagacious
dog's limitations of brain.
For example, Chum loved the fire on the chilly evenings such as
creep over the mountain region even in midsummer. He would watch
Link replenish the blaze with fresh sticks whenever it sank low.
Yet, left to himself, he would let the fire go out, and he never
knew enough to pick up a stick in his mouth and lay it on the
embers. This lack of reasoning powers in his pet perplexed
Ferris.
Link could not understand why the same wit which sent Chum half a
mile, of his own accord, in search of one missing sheep out of
the entire flock, should not tell him that a fire is kept alive
by the putting of wood on it.
In search of some better authority on dog intelligence, Link paid
his first visit to Hampton's little public library. There,
shamefacedly, he asked the boy in charge for some books about
dogs. The youth looked idly for a few minutes in a crossindex
file. Then he brought forth a tome called "The Double Garden,"
written by someone who was evidently an Eyetalian or Polack or
other foreigner, because he bore the grievously un-American name
of "Maeterlinck".
"This is all I can find about dogs," explained the boy, passing
the linen-jacketed little volume across the counter to Link.
"First story in it is an essay on 'Our Friend, the Dog,' the
index says. Want it?"
That evening, by his kitchen lamp, Ferris read laboriously the
Belgian philosopher's dog essay. He read it aloud--as he had
taken to thinking aloud--for Chum's benefit. And there were many
parts of the immortal essay from which the man gleaned no more
sense than did the collie.
It began with a promising account of a puppy named Pelleas. But
midway it branched off into something else. Something Link could
not make head nor tail of. Then, on second reading, bits of
Maeterlinck's meaning, here and there, seeped into Ferris's
bewilderedly groping intellect.
He learned, among other things, that Man is all alone on earth;
that most animals don't know he is here, and that the rest of
them have no use for him. That even flowers and crops will desert
him and run again to wildness, if Man turns his back on them for
a minute. So will his horse, his cow and his sheep. They graft on
him for a living, and they hate or ignore him.
The dog alone, Link spelled out, has pierced the vast barrier
between humans and other beasts, and has ranged himself,
willingly and joyously, on the side of Man. For Man's sake the
dog will not only starve and suffer and lay down his life, but
will betray his fellow quadrupeds. Man is the dog's god. And the
dog is the only living mortal that has the privilege of looking
upon the face of his deity.
All of which was doubtless very interesting, and part of which
thrilled Ferris, but none of which enlightened him as to a dog's
uncanny wisdom in certain things and his blank stupidity in
others. Next day Link returned the book to the library, no wiser
than before, albeit with a higher appreciation of his own good
luck in being the god of one splendid dog like Chum.
July had drowsed into August, and August was burning its sultry
way toward September. Link's quarterly check from the Paterson
Market arrived. And Ferris went as usual to the Hampton store to
get it cashed. This tine he stood in less dire need of money's
life-saving qualities than of yore. It had been a good summer for
Link. The liquor out of his system and with a new interest in
life, he had worked with a snap and vigor which had brought
results in hard cash.
None the less, he was glad for this check. In another month the
annual interest. on his farm mortgage would fall due. And the
meeting of that payment was always a problem. This year he would
be less cruelly harassed by it than before.
Yet, all the more, he desired extra money. For a startlingly
original ambition had awakened recently in his heart--namely, to
pay off a little of the mortgage's principal along with the
interest.
At first the idea had staggered him. But talking it over with
Chum and studying his thumbed-soiled ledger, he had decided there
was a bare chance he might be able to do it.
As he mounted the steps of the store, this evening in late
August, he saw, tacked to the doorside clapboards, a truly
gorgeous poster. By the light of the flickering lamp over the
door, he discerned the vivid scarlet head of a dog in the upper
corner of the yellow placard, and much display type below it.
It was the picture of the dog which checked Link in passing. It
was a fancy head--the head of a stately and long muzzled dog with
a ruff and with tulip ears. In short, just such a dog as Chum.
Not knowing that Chum was a collie and that poster artists
rejoice to depict collies, by reason of the latter's decorative
qualities, Ferris was amazed by the coincidence.
After a long and critical survey of the picture, he was moved to
run his eye over the flaring reading matter.
The poster announced, to all and sundry, that on Labor Day a
mammoth dog show was to be held in the country club grounds at
Craigswold--a show for the benefit of the Red Cross. Entries were
to be one dollar for each class. "Thanks to generous
contributions, the committee was enabled to offer prizes of
unusual beauty and value, in addition to the customary ribbons."
Followed a list of cups and medals. Link scanned them with no
great interest, But suddenly his roving gaze came to an
astonished standstill. At the bottom of the poster, in
forty-eight-point bold-face type, ran the following proclamation:
COL. CYRUS MARDEN
OF CRAIGSWOLD MANOR
OFFERS A CASH AWARD OF
ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($100) TO THE
BEST DOG OF ANY BREED EXHIBITED
One hundred dollars!
Link reread the glittering sentence until he could have said it
backward. It would have been a patent lie had he heard it by word
of mouth. But as it was in print, of course it was true.
One hundred dollars! And as a prize for the finest dog in the
show. Not to BUY the dog, mind you. Just as a gift to the man who
happened to own the best dog. It did not seem possible. Yet--
Link knew by hearsay and by observation the ways of the rich
colony at Craigswold. He knew the Craigswolders spent money like
mud, when it so pleased them--although more than one fellow
huckster was at times sore put to it to collect from them a bill
for fresh vegetables.
Yes, and he knew Col. Cyrus Marden by sight, too. He was a
long-faced little man who used to go about dressed in funny knee
pants and with a leather bag of misshapen clubs over his
shoulder. Link had seen him again and again. He had seen the
Colonel's enormous house at Craigswold Manor, too. He had no
doubt Marden could afford this gift of a hundred dollars.
"TO THE BEST DOG OF ANY BREED!"
Ferris knew nothing about the various breeds of dogs. But he did
know that Chum was by far the best and most beautiful and the
wisest dog ever born. If Marden were offering a hundred dollar
prize for the best dog, there was not another dog on earth fit to
compete with Chum. That was a cinch.
As for the hundred dollars--why, it would be a godsend on the
mortgage payment! Every cent of it could go toward the principal.
That meant Ferris could devote the extra few dollars he had
already saved for the principal to the buying of fertilizers and
several sorely-needed utensils and to the shingling of the house.
Avid for more news of the offer, he entered the store and hunted
up the postmaster, who also chanced to be the store's proprietor
and the mayor of Hampton and the local peace justice. Of this
Pooh-Bah the inquiring Ferris sought for details.
"Some of the Red Cross ladies from up Craigswold way were here
this morning, to have me nail that sign on the store," reported
the postmaster. "They're making a tour of all the towns
hereabouts. They asked me to try to int'rest folks at Hampton in
their show, too, and get them to make entries. They left me a
bunch of blanks. Want one?"
"Yep," said Link. "I guess I'll take one if it don't cost
nothin', please."
He studied the proffered entry blank with totally uncomprehending
gaze. The postmaster came to his relief.
"Let me show you," he suggested, taking pity on his customer's
wrinkled brow and squinting helplessness. "I've had some
experience in this folderol. I took my Airedale over to the
Ridgewood show last spring and got a third with him. I'm going to
take him up to Craigswold on Labor Day, too. What kind of dog is
yours?"
"The dandiest dawg that ever stood on four legs," answered Link,
afire with the zeal of ownership. "Why, that dawg of mine c'n--"
"What breed is he?" asked the postmaster, not interested in the
dawning rhapsody.
"Oh--breed?" repeated Link. "Why, I don't rightly know. Some kind
of a bird dawg, I guess. Yes. A bird dawg. But he's sure the
grandest--"
"Is he the dog you had down here, one day last month?" asked the
postmaster, with a gleam of recollection.
"Yep. That's him," assented Link. "Only dawg I've got. Only dawg
I ever had. Only dawg I ever want to have. He's--"
But the postmaster was not attending. His time was limited. So,
taking out a fountain pen, he had begun to scribble on the blank.
Filling in Link's name and address, he wrote, in the "breed and
sex" spaces, the words, "Scotch collie, sable-and-white, male."
"Name?" he queried, breaking in on Ferris's rambling eulogy.
"Huh?" asked the surprised Link, adding: "Oh, his name, hey? I
call him 'Chum.' You see, that dawg's more like a chum to me
than--"
"No use asking about his pedigree, I suppose," resumed the
postmaster, "I mean who his parents were and--"
"Nope," said Link. "I--I found him. His leg was--"
"Pedigree unknown," wrote the postmaster; then, "What classes are
you entering him for?"
"Classes?" repeated Link dully. "Why, I just want to put him into
that contest for 'best dawg,' you see. He--"
"Hold on!" interposed the postmaster impatiently. "You don't
catch the idea. In each breed there are a certain number of
classes: 'Puppy,' 'Novice,' 'Limit,' 'Open,' and so on. The dogs
that get a blue ribbon--that's first prize--in these classes all
have to appear in what is called the 'Winners Class.' Then the
dog that gets 'Winner's'--the dog that gets first prize in this
'Winners' Class'--competes for best dog of his breed in the show.
After that--as a 'special'--the best in all the different breeds
are brought into the ring. And the dog that wins in that final
class is adjudged the 'best in the show.' He's the dog in this
particular show that will get Colonel Marden's hundred-dollar
cash prize. See what I mean?"
"Ye-es," replied Link, after digesting carefully what he had
heard. "I guess so. But--"
"Since you've never shown your dog before," went on the
postmaster, beginning to warm with professional interest, "you
can enter him in the 'Novice Class.' That's generally the
easiest. If he loses in that, no harm's done. If he wins he has a
chance later in the 'Winners' Class.' I'm mailing my entry
to-night to the committee. If you like, I'll send yours along
with it. Give me a dollar."
While Link extracted a greasy dollar bill from his pocket, the
postmaster filled in the class space with the word "Novice."
"Thanks for helpin' me out," said Ferris, grateful for the lift.
"That's all right," returned the postmaster, pocketing the bill
and folding the blank, as he prepared to end the interview by
moving away. "Be sure to have your dog at the gate leading into
the Craigswold Country Club grounds promptly at ten o'clock on
Labor Day. If you don't get a card and a tag sent to you, before
then, tell your name to the clerk at the table there, and he'll
give you a number. Tie your dog to the stall with that number on
it, and be sure to have him ready to go into the ring when his
number is called. That's all."
"Thanks!" said Link, again. "An' now I guess I'll go back home
an' commence brightenin' Chum up, a wee peckle, on his tricks.
Maybe I'll have time to learn him some new ones, too. I want him
to make a hit with them judges, an' everything."
"Tricks?" scoffed the postmaster, pausing as he started to walk
away. "Dogs don't need tricks in the show ring. All you have to
do is to lead your dog into the ring, and parade him round with
the rest of them till the judge tells you to stop. Then he'll
make them stand on the show platform while he examines them. The
dog's only 'tricks' are to stand and walk at his best, and to
look alert, so the judge can see the shape of his ears and get
his expression. Teach your dog to walk around with you, on the
leash, without hanging back, and to prick up his ears and stand
at attention when you tell him to. That's all he needs to do. The
judge will do the rest. Have him clean and well brushed, of
course."
"I--I sure feel bitter sorry for there other dawgs at the show!"
mumbled Link. "A hundred dollars! Of all the dawgs that ever
happened, Chummie is that one! Why, there ain't a thing he can't
do, from herdin' sheep to winnin' a wad of soft money! An'--an'
he's all MINE."
CHAPTER III. The Ordeal
By dawn on Labor Day Link Ferris was astir. A series of
discomfiting baths and repeated currying with the dandy brush had
made Chum's grand coat stand out in shimmering fluffiness. A
course of carefully-conducted circular promenades on the end of a
chain had taught the dog to walk gaily and unrestrainedly in
leash. And any of several cryptic words, relating to hypothetical
rats, and so forth, were quite enough to send up his ears.
It was sheer excitement that brought Link broad awake before
sunrise on that day of days. Ferris was infected with the most
virulent form of that weird malady known as "dog-showitis." At
first he had been tempted solely by the hope of winning the
hundred-dollar prize. But latterly the urge of victory had gotten
into his blood. And he yearned, too, to let the world see what a
marvelous dog was his.
He hurried through the morning chores, then dressed himself in
his shabby best and hitched his horse to the antiquated Concord
buggy--a vehicle he had been washing for the state occasion
almost as vehemently as he had scrubbed Chum.
After a gobbled breakfast, Ferris mounted to the seat of the aged
buggy, signaled Chum to leap to the battered cushion at his side
and set off for Craigswold. Long before ten o'clock his horse was
safely stabled at the Craigswold livery, and Ferris was leading
Chum proudly through the wicket gate leading into the
country-club grounds.
All happened as the postmaster had foretold. The clerk at the
wicket asked him his name, fumbled through a ledger and a pile of
envelopes and presently handed Ferris a numbered tag.
"Sixty-five," read the clerk for Link's benefit. "That's down at
the extreme right. Almost the last bench to the right."
Into the hallowed precinct Link piloted the much-interested Chum.
There he paused for a dazzled instant. The putting green and the
fore-lawn in front of the field-stone clubhouse had been covered
with a mass of wooden alleyways, each lined with a double row of
stalls about two feet from the ground, carpeted with straw and
having individual zinc water troughs in front of them. In nearly
every one of these "benches" was tied a dog.
There were more dogs than Link Ferris had seen before in all his
quasi-dogless life. And all of them seemed to be barking or
yelping. The din was egregious. Along the alleyways, men and
women in sport clothes were drifting, in survey of the chained
exhibits. In a central space among the lines of benches was a
large square enclosure, roped off except for one aperture. In the
middle of this space, which Link rightly guessed to be the
judging ring, stood a very low wooden platform. At one side of
the ring were a chair and a table, where sat a steward in a Palm
Beach suit, fussily turning over the leaves of a ledger and
assorting a heap of high-packed and vari-colored ribbons.
Link, mindful of instructions, bore to the right in search of a
stall labeled "65." As he went, he noted that the dogs were
benched in such a way that each breed had a section to itself.
Thus, while he was still some distance away from his designated
bench, he saw that he was coming into a section of dogs which, in
general aspect, resembled Chum. Above this aggregation, as over
others, hung a lettered sign. And this especial sign read "Collie
Section."
So Chum was a "collie"--whatever that might be. Link took it to
be a fancy term for "bird dog." He had seen the word before
somewhere. And he remembered now that it had been in the
advertisement that offered seventy-five dollars for the return of
a lost "sable-and-white collie." Yes, and Dominie Jansen had
said, "sable" meant "black." Link felt a glow of relief that the
advertisement had not said "a brown-and-white collie."
Chum was viewing his new surroundings with much attention,
looking up now and then into his master's face as they moved
along the rackety line--as though to gain reassurance that all
was well.
To a high-strung and sensitive dog a show is a terrific ordeal.
But Chum, like the aristocrat he was, bore its preliminaries with
debonair calm.
Arriving at Bench 65 in the collie section, Link enthroned his
dog there, fastening the chain's free end to a ring in the
stall's corner. Then, after seeing that the water pan was where
Chum could reach it in case he were thirsty and that the straw
made a comfortable couch for him, Ferris once more patted the
worried dog and told him everything was all right. After which
Link proceeded to take a survey of the neighboring collies, the
sixteen dogs which were to be Chum's competitors.
His first appraising glance of the double row of collies caused
the furrow between his eyes to vanish and brought a grin of
complacent satisfaction to his thin lips. For he did not see a
single entrant that, in his eyes, seemed to have a ghost of a
chance against his idolized pet--not a dog as handsome or with
half the look of intelligence or with the proudly gay bearing of
Chum.
Of the sixteen other collies the majority were sables of divers
shades. There were three tricolors and two mist-hued merles. Over
nearly all the section's occupants a swarm of owners and handlers
were just now busy with brush and cloth. For word had come that
collies were to be the second breed judged that day. The first
breed was to be the Great Danes. As there were but three Danes in
the show, their judging would be brief. And it behooved the
collies' attendants to have their entries ready.
Link, following the example of those around him, took from his
pocket the molting dandy brush and set to work once more on
Chum's coat. He observed that the rest were brushing their dogs'
fur against the grain, to make it fluff up. And he reversed his
own former process in imitation of them. He had supposed until
now that a collie's hair, like a man's, ought to be slicked down
smooth for state occasions. And it troubled him to find that
Chum's coat rebelled against such treatment. Now, under the
reverse process, it stood out in wavy freedom.
At the adjoining stall to the left a decidedly pretty girl was
watching a groom put the finishing touches to the toilet of her
tricolor collie. Link heard her exclaim in protest as the groom
removed from the dog's collar a huge cerise bow she had just
affixed there.
"Sorry, Miss," Ferris heard the groom explain, "but it's agin
rules for a dog to go in the ring with a ribbon on. If the judge
thinks he's good enough for a ribbon he'll award him one. But--"
"Oh, he simply can't help awarding one to Morven, here!" broke in
the girl. "CAN he, Stokes?"
"Hard to say, Miss," answered the groom imperturbably, as he
wrought with brush and cloth. "Judges has their own ideas. We'll
have to hope for the best for him and not be too sick if he gets
gated."
"Gated?" echoed the girl--an evident newcomer to the realm of
showdom.
"Yes, Miss," expounded the groom. "'Gated' means 'shown the
gate.' Some judges thins out a class that way, by sending the
poorest dogs out of the ring first. Then again, some judges--"
"Oh, I'm glad I wore this dress!" sighed the girl. "It goes so
well with Morven's color. Perhaps the judge--"
"Excuse me, Miss," put in the groom, trying not to laugh, "but
the collie judge to-day is Fred Leightonhe bred the great Howgill
Rival, you know--and when Leighton is in the ring, he hasn't got
eyes for anything but the dogs themselves. Begging your pardon,
he wouldn't notice if you was to wear a horse blanket. At that,
Leighton's the squarest and the best--"
"Look!" whispered the girl, whose attention had wandered and
whose roving gaze had settled on Chum. "Look at that dog in the
next bench. Isn't he magnificent?"
Link swelled with pride at the lowspoken praise. And turning away
to hide his satisfaction, he saw that quite a sizable knot of
spectators had gathered in front of Chum's bench. They were
inspecting the collie with manifest approval. Chum, embarrassed
by the unaccustomed notice, had moved as far as possible from his
admirers, and was nuzzling his head into Ferris's hand for
refuge.
"Puppy Class, Male Scotch Collies!" droned a ring attendant,
appearing for a moment at the far end of the section. Numbers 60,
61, 62."
Three youngsters, ranging in age from seven to eleven months,
were coaxed down from their straw couches by three excited owners
and were convoyed fussily toward the ring.
"Novice Class next, Miss," Link heard the groom saying to the
girl at the adjoining bench. "Got his ring leash ready?"
"Ring leash!" This was a new one to Ferris. His eyes followed the
trio of puppies shuffling ringward. He saw that all three were on
leather leashes and that their chains had been left in the
stalls. Presumably there was a law against chains in the ring.
And Link had no leash.
For an instant he was in a quandary. Then his brow cleared. True,
he had no leash. Yet, if chains, like bows of ribbon, were barred
from the ring, he could maneuver Chum every bit as well with his
voice as with any leash. So that problem was solved.
A minute later, the three pups reappeared at the end of the
section. And behind them came the attendant, intoning:
"Novice Class, Male Scotch Collies! Numbers 64, 65, 66, 67."
There was an absurd throbbing in Link Ferris's meridian. His
calloused hands shook as he unchained Chum and motioned him to
leap from the bench to the ground.
Chum obeyed, but with evident uneasiness. His odd surroundings
were getting on the collie's nerves. Link bent over him, under
pretense of giving him a farewell rub with the brush.
"It's all right, Chummie!" he crooned soothingly. "It's all
RIGHT! I'm here. An' nobody's goin' to bother you none. You're
a-helpin' me win that hundred. An' you're lettin' these
gold-shirt folks see what a clam' gorgeous dawg you be! Come
along, ol' friend!"
Under the comfort of his god's voice, Chum's nervousness fled.
Safe in his sublime trust that his master would let no harm
befall him, the collie trotted toward the ring at Ferris's heels.
Three other novice dogs were already in the ring when Link
arrived at the narrow opening. The steward was sitting at the
table as before. At the corner of the ring, alongside the
platform, stood a man in tweeds, unlighted pipe in mouth,
half-shut shrewd eyes studying the dogs as they filed in through
the gap in the ropes. The inscrutable eyes flickered ever so
little at sight of Chum, but at once resumed their former
disinterested gaze.
"Walk close!" whispered Link as the parade started.
Chum, hearing a command he had long since learned, ranged himself
at Ferris's side and paced majestically in the procession of
four. Two of the other novice dogs were straining at their
leashes; the third was hanging back and pawing frantically to
break away. Chum, unleashed, guided only by the voice, drew every
eye to him by his rare beauty and his lofty self-possession.
But he was not allowed to finish the parade. Stepping up to
Ferris, Judge Leighton tapped him on the arm.
"Take your dog over to that corner," he ordered, "and keep him
there."
Link fought back a yearning to punch the judge, and surlily he
obeyed the mandate. Into his memory jumped the things the groom
had said about a dog being "gated." If that judge thought for one
second that any of those mutts could hold a candle to Chum--.
Again he yearned to enforce with his two willing fists his
opinion of the judge.
But, as he well knew, to start a fight in this plutocratic
assemblage would mean a jail term. And in such case, what would
befall the deserted Chum? For the dog's sake he restrained
himself, and he began to edge surreptitiously toward the ring
exit, with a view to sliding out unperceived with his splendid,
underrated dog.
But Ferris did not reach the gate unchecked.
Judge Leighton had ended the parade and had stood the three dogs,
one by one and then two at a time, on the platform while he
studied them. Then he had crossed to the table and picked up the
judging book and four ribbons--one blue, one red, one yellow and
one white. Three of these ribbons he handed to the three
contestants' handlers.
Then he stepped across the ring to where Ferris was edging his
way toward the exit; and handed Link the remaining ribbon. It was
dark blue, with gilt lettering.
Leighton did not so much as subject Chum to the handling and
close inspection he had lavished on the three others. One expert
glance had told the judge that the dark-sable collie, led by this
loutish countryman, was better fitted to clean up prizes at
Madison Square Garden than to appear in a society dog show in the
North Jersey hinterland.
Leighton had viewed Chum, as a bored musician, listening to the
piano-antics of defective children, might have regarded the
playing of a disguised Paderewski. Wherefore, he had waved the
dog to one side while he judged the lesser entrants, and then had
given him the merited first-prize ribbon.
Link, in a daze of bliss, stalked back to the bench; with Chum
capering along at his side. The queer sixth sense of a collie
told Chum his god was deliriously happy, and that Chum himself
had somehow had a share in making him so. Hence the dog's former
gloomy pacing changed to a series of ecstatic little dance steps,
and he kept thrusting his cold muzzle into the cup of Ferris's
palm.
Again Bench 65 was surrounded by an admiring clump of spectators.
Chum and Link vied each other in their icy aloofness toward these
admirers. But with a difference.
Chum was unaffectedly bothered by so much unwelcome attention
from strangers. Ferris, on the other hand, reveled in the
knowledge that his beloved pet was the center of more adulation
than was any other dog in all the section.
Class after class went to be judged. Link was sorry he had not
spent more money and entered Chum in every class. The initial
victory had gone to his head. He had not known he could be so
serenely happy. After a while, he started up at the attendant's
droning announcement of,
"Winners' Class, Male Scotch Collies! Numbers 62, 65, 68,70, 73!"
Again Link and Chum set out for the ring. Link's glee had merged
into an all-consuming nervousness, comparable only to a maiden
hunter's "buck ague." Chum, once more sensing Ferris's state of
mind, lost his own glad buoyancy and paced solemnly alongside,
peering worriedly up into Link's face at every few steps.
All five entrants filed into the ring and began their parade.
Leighton, in view of the importance of this crowning event, did
not single out any one dog, as before, to stand to one side; nor
did he gate any. He gave owners and spectators their full due, by
a thorough inspection of all five contestants. But as a result of
his examination, he ended the suspense by handing Link Ferris a
purple rosette, whereon was blazoned in gilt the legend,
"Winners."
A salvo of handclaps greeted the eminently just decision. And
Chum left the ring, to find a score of gratulatory hands
stretched forth to pat him. Quite a little crowd escorted him
back to his bench.
A dozen people picked acquaintance with Link. They asked him all
sorts of questions as to his dog. Link made monosyllabic and
noncommittal replies to all of these--even when the great Col.
Cyrus Marden himself deigned to come over to the collie section
and stare at Chum, accompanying his scrutiny with a volley or
patronizing inquiries.
From the bystanders Link learned something of real
interest--namely, that one of the "specials" was a big silver
cup, to be awarded to "best collie of either sex"; and that after
the females should have been, judged, the winning female and Chum
must appear in the ring together to compete for this trophy.
Sure enough, in less than thirty minutes Chum was summoned to the
ring. There, awaiting him, was a dainty and temperamental merle,
of the Tazewell strain. Exquisite and high-bred as was this
female competitor, Judge Leighton wasted little time on the
examination before giving Ferris a tricolored ribbon, whose
possession entitled him to one of the shimmering silver mugs in
the near-by trophy case.
After receiving full assurance that the big cup should be his at
the close of the show, Link returned to Chum's bench in ecstasy
and sat down beside his tired dog, with one arm thrown lovingly
round the collie's ruff. Chum nestled against his triumphant
master, as Link fondled his bunch of ribbons and went over,
mentally, every move of his triumphal morning.
The milling and changing groups of spectators in front of Bench
65 did not dwindle. Indeed, as the morning went on, they
increased. People kept coming back to the bench and bringing
others with them. Some of these people whispered together. Some
merely stared and went away. Some asked Ferris carefully worded
questions, to which the shyly happy mountaineer replied with
sheepish grunts.
The long period of judging came at last to an end. And the "Best
Dog in Show" special was called.
Into the ring Ferris escorted Chum, amid a multitude of fellow
winners, representing one male or female of every breed
exhibited. Leighton and another judge stood in the ring's center,
and around them billowed the heterogeneous array. The two went at
their Gargantuan task with an expert swiftness. Mercilessly, dog
after dog was weeded out and gated. At last, Chum and two others
were all remaining of the many which had thronged the ring. The
spectators were banked, five deep and breathless, round the
ropes.
The two judges went into brief executive session in one corner.
Then Leighton crossed to Link, for the fourth time that day, and
gave him the gaudy rosette which proclaimed Chum "best dog in the
show." A roar of applause went up. Link felt dizzy--and numb.
Then, with a gasp of rapture, he stooped and gathered the bored
Chum in his long arms, in a bearlike, ecstatic hug.
"We done it, Chummie!" he chortled. "WE DONE IT!"
Still in a daze, he followed the steward to the trophy case,
where he received not only the shining silver cup, but a
"sovereign purse," wherein were ensconced ten ten-dollar gold
pieces.
It was all a dream--a wonder dream from which presently he must
awaken. Link was certain of that. But while the golden dream
lasted, he knew the nameless joys of paradise.
Chum close at his side, he made his way through the
congratulating crowd toward the outer gate of the country club
grounds. He had almost reached the wicket when someone touched
him, with unnecessary firmness, on the shoulder.
Not relishing the familiarity, Link turned a scowling visage on
the interrupter of his triumphal homeward progress. At his elbow
stood a stockily-built man, dressed with severe plainness.
"You're Lincoln Ferris?" queried the stranger, more as if stating
aggressively a fact than making an inquiry.
"Yep," said Link, cross at this annoying break-in upon his trance
of happiness. "What d'j' want?" he added.
"Please step back to the clubhouse a minute with me," returned
the stranger, civilly enough, but with the same bossy firmness in
his tone that had jarred Ferris in his touch. "One or two people
want to speak to you. Bring along your dog."
Link glowered. He fancied he knew what was in store. Some of the
ultra select had gathered in the holy interior of the clubhouse
and wanted a private view of Chum, unsullied by the noisy
presence of the crowd outside. They would talk patronizingly to
Link, and perhaps even try to coax him into selling Chum. The
thought decided Ferris.
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