Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
BUFF: A COLLIE
AND OTHER DOG-STORIES
By
_Albert Payson Terhune_
_Author of_ LOCHINVAR LUCK, LAD, A DOG
GROSSET & DUNLAP _Publishers_ _New York_
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FOREWORD
A swirl of gold-and-white and gray and black,-- Rackety, vibrant, glad with life's hot zest,-- Sunnybank collies, gaily surging pack,-- These are my chums; the chums that love me best.
Not chums alone, but courtiers, zealots, too,-- Clean-white of soul, too wise for fraud or sham; Yet senseless in their worship ever new. These are the friendly folk whose god I am.
A blatant, foolish, stumbling, purblind god,-- A pinchbeck idol, clogged with feet of clay! Yet, eager at my lightest word or nod, They crave but leave to follow and obey.
We humans are so slow to understand! Swift in our wrath, deaf to the justice-plea, Meting out punishment with lavish hand! What, but a dog, would serve such gods as we?
Heaven gave them souls, I'm sure; but dulled the brain, Lest they should sadden at so brief a span Of heedless, honest life as they sustain; Or doubt the godhead of their master, Man.
Today a pup; to-morrow at life's prime; Then old and fragile;--dead at fourteen years. At best a meagre little inch of time. Oblivion then, sans mourners, memories, tears!
Service that asks no price; forgiveness free For injury or for injustice hard. Stanch friendship, wanting neither thanks nor fee Save privilege to worship and to guard:--
That is their creed. They know no shrewder way To travel through their hour of lifetime here. Would Man but deign to serve his God as they, Millennium must dawn within the year.
CONTENTS
PAGE FOREWORD v
I BUFF: A COLLIE CHAPTER ONE: THE FIGHTING STRAIN 11 CHAPTER TWO: "THE HUNT IS UP!" 48 CHAPTER THREE: MASTERLESS! 80 CHAPTER FOUR: THE END OF THE TRAIL 107
II "SOMETHING" 133
III CHUMS 155
IV HUMAN-INTEREST STUFF 183
V "ONE MINUTE LONGER" 215
VI THE FOUL FANCIER 235
VII THE GRUDGE 283
VIII THE SUNNYBANK COLLIES 321
BUFF: A COLLIE
CHAPTER ONE: THE FIGHTING STRAIN
She was a mixture of the unmixable. Not one expert in eighty couldhave guessed at her breed or breeds.
Her coat was like a chow's, except that it was black and white andtan--as is no chow's between here and the Chinese Wall. Her deep chestwas as wide as a bulldog's; her queer little eyes slanted like acollie's; her foreface was like a Great Dane's, with its barrel muzzleand dewlaps. She was as big as a mastiff.
She was Nina, and she belonged to a well-to-do farmer named Shawe, aman who went in for registered cattle, and, as a side line, for prizecollies.
To clear up, in a handful of words, the mystery of Nina's breeding,her dam was Shawe's long-pedigreed and registered and prize-winningtricolour collie, Shawemere Queen. Her sire was Upstreet Butcherboy,the fiercest and gamest and strongest and most murderous pit-terrierever loosed upon a doomed opponent.
Shawe had decided not to breed Shawemere Queen that season. ShawemereQueen had decided differently. Wherefore, she had broken from herenclosure by the simple method of gnawing for three hours at therotting wood that held a rusty lock-staple.
This had chanced to befall on a night when Tug McManus had deputed theevening exercising of Upstreet Butcherboy to a new handy-man. Thehandy-man did not know Butcherboy's odd trick of going slack on thechain for a moment and then flinging himself forward with all hissurpassing speed and still more surpassing strength.
As a result, the man came back to McManus's alone, noisily nursingthree chain-torn fingers. Butcherboy trotted home to his kennel atdawn, stolidly taking the whaling which McManus saw fit to administer.
When Shawemere Queen's six bullet-headed pups came into the world,sixty-three days later, there was loud and lurid blasphemy, at hermaster's kennels. Shawe, as soon as he could speak with any degree ofcoherence, bade his kennelman drown five of the pups at once, and togive like treatment to the sixth as soon as its mother should have nofurther need of the youngster.
At random the kennelman scooped up five-sixths of the litter andstrolled off to the horse-pond.
As a result of this monopoly the sixth puppy throve apace. When shewas eight weeks old, fate intervened once more to save her from thehorse-pond. Mrs. Shawe's sister had come, with her two children, tospend the summer at the farm. The children, after a glimpse of thepure-breed collie litters gambolling in the shaded puppy-run, hadclamoured loudly for a pup of their own to play with.
Shawe knew the ways of a child with a puppy. He was of no mind to riskchorea or rickets or fits or other ailments, for any of his pricelesscollie babies; from such Teddy Bear handling as the two youngsterswould probably give it. Yet the clamour of the pair grew the moreplangently insistent.
Then it was that the bothered man bethought him of the illegitimateoffspring of Shawemere Queen, the nondescript pup he had planned todrown within the next few days. The problem was solved.
Once more, peace reigned at Shawemere. And the two children weredeliriously happy in the possession of a shaggy and shapeless morselof puppyhood, in whose veins coursed the ancient royal blood of purecolliedom and the riotously battling strain of the pit-warriors.
They named their pet "Nina," after a Pomeranian they had mauled andharassed into convulsions. And they prepared to give like treatmentto their present puppy.
But a cross-breed is ever prone to be super-sturdy. The roughlyaffectionate manhandling which had torn the Pom's hair-trigger nervesand tenuous vitality to shreds had no effect at all upon Nina. On thecontrary, she waxed fat under the dual caresses and yankings of hernew owners.
Which was lucky. For, while a puppy is an ideal playmate for a child,the average child is a horrible playmate for a puppy. With noconsciousness of cruelty, children maul or neglect or otherwiseill-treat thousands of friendly and helpless puppies to death, everyyear. And fond parents look on, with fatuous smiles, at their playfuloffsprings' barbarity.
Strong and vigorous from birth, Nina began to take on size at anamazing rate. Before she was eight months old she stood higher at theshoulder than any collie at Shawemere. She looked like no other dog onearth, and she was larger by far than either of her parents.
The cleverest breeder cannot always breed his best stock true to type.And when it comes to crossbreeding--especially with dogs--nothingshort of Mother Nature herself can predict the outcome.
Nina was a freak. She resembled outwardly neither collie nor pitbull-terrier. Withal, she was not ill to look on. There was a compactsymmetry and an impression of latent power to her. And the nondescriptcoat was thick and fine. In spite of all this, she probably would havemet with a swift and reasonably merciful death, on the departure ofthe two children, that autumn, had not Shawe realised that theyoungsters had been invited to the farm for the following summer, andthat the presence of their adored Nina would save some thoroughbredpup from sacrifice as a pet.
So the crossbreed was permitted to stay on, living at Shawemere onsufferance, well enough fed and housed in the stables, permitted towander pretty much at will, but unpetted and unnoticed. The folk atthe farm believed in breeding true to form. A nondescript did notinterest them.
And the loss was theirs. For the gigantic young mongrel was worthcultivating. Clever, lovable, obedient, brave, she was an ideal farmdog. And wistfully she sought to win friends from among theseindifferent humans. Sadly she missed the petting and the mauling ofthe children.
These so-called mongrels, by the way, are prone to be cleverer andstronger than any thoroughbred. Rightly trained, they are ideal chumsand pets and guards--a truth too little known.
If the farm people had troubled to give Nina one-fiftieth of theattention they lavished on the kennel dogs, they would have seen to itthat she did not set forth, one icy moonlight night in late November,on a restless gallop over the hills beyond the farm. And this storywould not have been written.
Champion Shawemere King was one of the four greatest collies inAmerica--perhaps on earth. He was such a dog as is bred perhaps twicein a generation--flawless in show qualities and in beauty and inmind. He had annexed the needful "fifteen points" for his championshipat the first six shows to which Shawe had taken him. Everywhere, hehad swept his way to "Winners" with ridiculous ease. He was thesensation of every show he went to.
Wisely, Shawe had withdrawn him from the ring while King was still inhis glory. And, a few years later, the champion had been takenpermanently from the kennels and had been promoted (or retired) to therank of chief house-dog. As perfect in the home as in the ring, he wasthe pride and ornament of the big farmhouse.
On this particular November night of ice and moonlight, King hadturned his back on the warmth of the living-room fire and thedisreputable old fur rug that was his resting-place, and hadstretched himself upon the veranda mat, head between forepaws; hisdeep-set dark eyes fixed on the highroad leading from town. Shawe hadgone to town for the evening. He had forbidden King to go with him.But, collie-like, the champion had preferred waiting on the cold porchfor a first glimpse of his returning master, rather than to lie insmug comfort indoors.
As he lay there he lifted his head suddenly from between his whiteforepaws and sniffed the dead-cold air. At the same moment the patterof running feet on the icy ground caught his ear. Scent and sound camefrom the direction of the distant stables.
Then, athwart his gaze, loomed something big and bulky, that flashedin the white moonlight, cantering past him with an inviting backwardlilt of the head as it made for the hills.
At once, on the invitation, King forgot his accruing years and hisdignity. With a bound he was at Nina's side. Together the two racedmadly across the yard and across the yellow road and on up into thehills.
It was a wonderful night for such a wild run. Pure-breed andcross-breed were obsessed by the urge of it all. Forgotten was King'sstolidly loyal intent to lie on the chilly mat until Shawe shouldreturn. Forgotten was the wistful loneliness that had saddened Ninasince the departure of the two children.
As the dogs bounded across the bright road, the kennelman, returningfrom a stroll, caught sight of them and recognised them. He shouted toKing to come to heel. The champion did not so much as look back. AtShawe's call he would have obeyed--though with vast reluctance. Butthis man was a hireling. And no dog knows better than a collie thewide difference in the loyal obedience due to a master and thenegligible civility due to an employee. So King kept on, at theshoulder of his galloping new mate.
When Shawe, late in January, followed the kennelman into the corner ofa disused stall and stared down at Nina, his face was creased in afrown of disgust.
There, deep in a pile of bedding, lay the big young cross-bred dog.She looked up at the visitors with a welcoming glint of her roundbrown eyes and a thumping wag of her bushy tail. She was happy attheir notice. She was inordinately proud of what they had come to see.
Snuggled close against her side squirmed seven puppies. They werethree days old. A more motley collection could not have been found indogdom.
Two were short-haired and bullet-headed, and were white except for abrindle spot or two on head and hip. Throwbacks, these, to theirwarlike grandsire, Upstreet Butcherboy. Three more were intermediateof aspect, and might or might not be going to have long coats. A sixthwas enough like a thoroughbred collie to have passed muster in almostany newborn collie litter.
Over this harlequin sextette Shawe's contemptuous glance strayed. Thenhis gaze focused on the seventh pup. And the frown was merged into alook of blank incredulity.
The pup was lying an inch or two away from his dam, and several inchesfrom the huddle of brothers and sisters. Every line of him was clearlyvisible and distinct from the rest.
To a layman, he looked like any three-day-old collie. To Shawe he didnot. Any collie expert will tell you that at the age of three days apup gives far truer promise of his future appearance--to the trainedeye--than he gives at three months. To the man who knows, there is alook--to the head, especially--that foreshadows the lines of maturity.
Later, all this foreshadowing vanishes. At two or three months it isnext to impossible to predict what the pup is going to turn into. Butin that one brief phase of babyhood the future often is writ clear.
Shawe noticed the coffin-shaped skull, the square muzzle, the fullforeface, the set of the tiny ears, the general conformation.Unbelieving, he stared. He picked up the wiggling morsel of fur andflesh and looked more closely at those prophetic head-lines.
"Good Lord!" he mumbled, bewildered, "why,--why, that's a--a DOG! He'sthe living image of what King was, at three days. And I picked outKing for a great collie when he was this youngster's age. I've neverknown it to fail. Never, up to now. What's this measly mongrel doingwith the head and build of a winner?"
"Well," ruminated the kennelman, "we know he's three-quarter bred,don't we? King's his sire. And Shawemere Queen was his dam's mother.Best blood anywhere in colliedom, ain't it? And it had to come out,somewheres, didn't it? Cross-breeding ain't like mixing feed. Youdon't get the same mixture, every measureful you dip out. Some is allone kind and some is all another, and some ain't neither. Look at themtwo white fellows! They're straight bull-pup. (Wherever they got it!)Not a trace of collie to 'em. It's got to be av'raged up, somewheres.And it's av'raged up in that little cuss you're holding there. He'sall collie. Just like the two whitish ones is all bull. It's----"
"I've--I've heard of such cases," muttered Shawe wonderingly, as helaid the tiny pup back at the mother's side. "But--oh, he'll mostlikely develop a body that'll give him away! Or else the head won'tlive up to its promise. Well, leave him, anyhow, when you drown therest. That can't do any harm."
Sheepishly, he gave the order. Still more sheepishly, as he left thestall, he stooped and patted Nina's lovingly upraised head--the firstcaress he had ever wasted on the lonely cross-breed.
Thus it was that a great dog was born; and that his promise ofgreatness was discovered barely in time to save him from death inearliest babyhood. For the collie--or near-collie--pup was destined togreatness, both of body and of brain.
Shawe named him "Buff." This, of course, without the honorary prefixof the kennel name, "Shawemere." For Buff could never be registered.His spotty pedigree could never be certified. He could claim no linein the American Kennel Club's Studbook. He was without recognisedlineage; without the right to wear a number after his name.
A dog, to be registered, must come of registered parents. Theseparents, in turn, must come of registered stock; since no dog,ordinarily, is eligible to registration unless both his sire and damhave been registered. That means his race must have been pure and hisblood of unmingled azure since the beginning of his breed'srecognition by the studbooks.
Buff's sire could have traced his genealogy back, in an unbroken line,for centuries. King's nearer ancestors had been the peerless noblemenof dogdom. Nina's sire and dam--though of widely different stock--wereborn to the purple. Despite all
this, their descendant was a mongrel,and barred by kennel law from any bench show.
The nameless pup grew to beautiful doghood. To all outward appearance,he was a pure-bred collie of the very highest type. The head wasclassic in its perfection. The body had the long, wolf-like lines ofthe true collie. The coat was a marvel. The chest was deep and broad,the body powerfully graceful. No collie judge, unhung, could havedetected the bar-sinister.
The mind and the soul and the heart, too, were of the true colliesort. But, blended with the fiery gaiety and dash of his predominantbreed, ran unseen the steadfastness, the calm, the grimness, the starkwarrior spirit of the pit-bull terrier.
This same strain ran, equally unseen, through the physique as well;giving un-collielike staunchness and iron strength and endurance tothe graceful frame; imparting an added depth of chest, a gripping andrending quality to the jaw muscles; a mystic battling genius to bodyand to spirit.
Yes, old Upstreet Butcherboy was present in this collie grandson ofhis. So were a hundred mighty bull-terrier ancestors. It was a strangeblend. Yet it was a blend; not a mixture. Nature, for once, had beenkind, and had sought to atone for the cruel joke she had played in themaking of poor, neglected Nina.
The first half year or more of Buff's life passed pleasantly enough atShawemere. At the age of three months he was moved from the stablesand put in one of the puppy runs. Nina was miserable at her baby'sabduction. Whenever she was loose she would rush up to the puppy-runsand canter whimperingly around their wire boundaries, seeking toattract her little son's attention.
And always, at first sight or sound or scent of her, Buff would leavehis fellow pups and come hurrying to the wire to greet her. Throughthe wide meshes their noses would meet in a sniffing kiss; and withwagging tails they would stand in apparent converse for minutes at atime. It was a pretty sight, this greeting and talk between the youngaristocrat and his mongrel mother. But, at Shawemere, dogs were bredfor points and for sale; not for sentiment.
At first, Buff was wretchedly lonely for Nina. In the daytime it wasnot so bad. For there was much to amuse and excite him in the populouspuppy-run. But at night, when the rest were asleep, he missed hismother's warm fur and her loving companionship. To some extent, thishomesickness for her wore off. But never entirely. Always Buff soughtmeans to get back to her. And their frequent meetings, on oppositesides of the wire meshes, kept the impulse alive in his heart.
The run contained a nine-pup litter, a couple of months older thanlittle Buff. The biggest pup of the litter, on the hour of Buff'sarrival, undertook to teach the lonesome baby his place. This he didby falling unexpectedly upon Buff as the latter stood disconsolatelyat the fence looking for his absent mother. The bully attacked thesmall newcomer with much bluster and growling and show of youthfulferocity.
It was Buff's first encounter with an enemy--his first hint that theworld was not made up wholly of friendliness. And it staggered him.Making no resistance at all, he crouched humbly under the fierceattack. The bully, at this sign of humility, proceeded to follow uphis advantage by digging his milk teeth into Buff's soft ear.
The bite stung, and with the sting came a swirl of wholesomeindignation into the exiled baby's hitherto peace-loving brain. Awayback in his cosmos snarled the spirit of Upstreet Butcherboy. Scarceknowing what he did, he flashed from under the larger body and made alightning lunge for the bully's throat.
Subconscious fighting skill guided the counter-assault and lent zestto the grappling youngster's onset. As a result, some five secondslater, the bully was on his back, squalling right piteously for mercyfrom the opponent that was barely two-thirds his size, and half hisage.
By this time, Buff had shifted his vise-like grip from throat toforelegs, and thence to stomach. For, along with the pit terrier'sinstinct for biting hard and holding on, he had inherited his collieforbears' knack of being everywhere at once in a fight; and ofchanging one hold for a better at an instant's notice. Which unusualcombination would have delighted the soul of any professionaldogfighter.
Yet, the moment the bully was cowed into subjection, Buff let him up.Nor did he--at food trough or elsewhere--seek to take advantage of hisnew position as boss of the run. He did not care to harass andterrorize lesser pups. He preferred to be friends with all the world,as he had been with his dear and friendly mother.
And so time wore on--time that shaped the roly-poly Buff into a leggybut handsome six-months' pup. And now the promise of the three-daybaby was fulfilled, more and more every hour. With puzzled pride Shaweused to stand and inspect him. The pup was shaping into a truewinner. But what could be done with him--minus pedigree and plusbar-sinister as he was? If Buff had been a thoroughbred he would havebeen worth a small fortune to his owner. But now----
Again fate settled the problem--once and for all.
It was the night after the kennelman had put collars for the firsttime on all the pups in Buff's yard. These collars were of arudimentary sort, and for use only long enough to accustom the youngnecks to such burden. Each collar was a circle of clothesline, withbuckle and tongue attached, and with its wearer's "kennel name"--avery different title from the lofty "pedigree name"--scribbled on atag attached to the steel tongue.
Buff did not like his collar at all. It fidgeted him and made himnervous. The name-tag flapped tantalisingly just beneath the reach ofhis jaws; which added to the annoyance. That was one reason why Buffcould not sleep. After a time he gave up the effort at slumber, andcame out of the sleeping quarters where his companions were snoozingin furry comfort.
He made a few futile attempts to get the fluttering tag between histeeth and to rub off the collar against the wire meshes. Then, with asigh of annoyance, he stretched himself out on the ground near theyard's gate.
He was still lying there when the kennelman came to fill the yard'swater-pans before going to bed. As all the pups, presumably, wereasleep in their houses, the man did not bother to shut the wire gatebehind him as he entered the yard.
Buff saw the open portal. Beyond, somewhere in the dense darkness,were the stables where his mother lived. His mother had always beenable to solve his few perplexities and soothe his hurts in the dayswhen he still had lived with her. Doubtless she could help him worryoff this miserable collar and tag.
On the instant, the pup trotted out, through the swinging gate,without so much as a glance at the dimly seen man who was bending overthe row of pans. And in another second the truant was in the road,sniffing to locate the stables.
But the wind set strong from the opposite direction that night. Itbrought to Buff a faint whiff of stables, it is true; but they werethe stables of a farm a mile down the turnpike.
Now, though stable scents had been Buff's earliest memory, yet he didnot know there were any other stables extant besides those in which hehad been born. So, locating the odour, he ambled eagerly off down theroad in search of his mother.
Perhaps the length of the journey puzzled him, but, as every stepbrought the scent stronger, he kept on. At a bend in the road, ahalf-mile below, he struck off into the fields and woods, taking theshortest cut to the source of the ever-increasing odour.
A furlong from the road, his way led through a thick copse. Into it hegalloped merrily. In its exact centre his run was halted with muchabruptness. Something touched him on the chest, and, in the sameinstant, tightened painfully about his neck.
Buff snorted with scared anger and lunged forward. The thing about hisneck promptly cut off his breathing apparatus, and dug deep into hissoft flesh. Resisting the panic impulse, Buff ceased to plunge androll, and sought to find out what had caught him.
He had run full into the middle of one of several nooses, cunninglystrung through the copse, for foxes.
Twisting his head, he seized the noose's taut end between his jaws andfell to gnawing. But he had his labour for his pains. The thin ropewas braided with strands of copper wire, against just such a move onthe part of some fox.
At gray dawn, the hired man of the farm, toward which Buff had
beenfaring, came out to look at his traps. All the nooses but one hunglimp. In one writhed and struggled a very tired little collie. Atsight of the farm-hand, Buff stopped struggling and wagged his tail.All humans, so far as he knew, were friendly to dogs. Here,presumably, was a rescuer. And Buff greeted him with warm cordiality.
The man stood gaping at him for a space. Then a slow grin began tocrease his leathery mouth. This was no fox he had caught. But it wassomething that might well prove as valuable. He knew Shawemere, andhad often seen the Shawemere collies. He had heard that the Shawemerepups brought big prices. Here, evidently, was one of those pups--aShawemere collie that had strayed in the night and had been noosed.
By taking the dog back to its home he might, perhaps, annex afive-dollar reward; but scarcely more. There seemed better ways ofcapitalising his treasure trove. Paying no heed to Buff's friendlyadvances the man left him there, hurried home, received grudgingpermission for a half-day off, to visit the dentist in town, andpresently returned to the copse, with a pig-crate over his shoulder.
It was market-day at the near-by town. And this would not be the firstor the tenth time a dog had been exhibited for sale in the marketenclosure. So, a hundred yards from his destination, the man liftedthe pup from the too-tight crate and fastened a rope to his collar.Then he prepared to lead his prize across to the market.
But a dog that has never before been led has to be trained to followat the gentle tug of the leash. This training sometimes takes only afew minutes, it is true. But it is needful. Now, never before had Buffbeen on the end of a leash. He did not know what to do. He had lost,moreover, his early liking for his captor, and he wanted to go home.
At first tug of the rope the puppy braced all four feet, and pulledback. A tired-looking man, passing, in a still more tired-lookingmotor runabout, slowed his car at sight of the puppy's resistance, andscanned Buff appraisingly.
A second and more vehement yank of the rope, accompanied by a mouthfulof profanity from the hired man, brought renewed resistance from Buff,and brought the stranger's slowing car to a complete stop.
Buff braced his feet and sought in vain to get some sort of purchasefor his claws on the stone pavement. His conductor gave the rope avicious jerk and struck the puppy over the side of the head.
This was the first blow received by Buff in all his short life. He didnot at all grasp its meaning. But it hurt like the mischief, and itset his delicate ears to ringing. Incidentally, it brought thestranger, at one jump, out of his car and on to the narrow pathway.
"You idiot!" exhorted he, striding up to the farm-hand. "Don't youknow any better than to hit a collie over the head? It might----"
"Don't you know no better'n to butt in?" retorted the wrathful hiredman. "I'll make this mangy cuss mind me, if I have to bust ev'ry bonein his wuthless carcass!"
By way of emphasising his intention, he lifted the amazed Buff cleanoff the ground on the end of the rope, and drew back one large-bootedfoot for a drop-kick at the swinging youngster that had dared todisobey him. The kick might well have smashed every rib in the softyoung body, besides rupturing its victim. But it did not reach itsmark.
The tired-looking man did two things, and he did them in practicallythe same gesture. With his left hand he jerked the rope from thecalloused hand that held it, and lowered Buff gently to earth. Withhis right he caught the farm-hand deftly by the nape of the neck, spunhim around, and bestowed upon him two swift but effective kicks.
Both kicks smote the amazed labourer approximately at the point wherehis short jacket's hem met the seat of his trousers. As his assailantat the same time released his hold of the shirt-collar, his victimcollapsed in a blasphemous heap at the gutter-edge.
Buff had been watching the brief exhibition with keen interest.Gradually it had been dawning on his unsophisticated mind that hisescort was trying in some way to harm him, and that the stranger hadnot only averted the harm, but was punishing the aggressor.
So, in his babyhood, had Nina flown at a stable cat which hadscratched Buff's too-inquisitive nose. Once more the puppy knew theglad thrill of having a protector.
As the fallen man scrambled to his feet, the stranger felt a cold andgrateful little nose thrust into his palm. Instinctively--and withunconscious proprietorship--his hand dropped lightly on the silkenhead of the dog. But he kept his tired eyes unwaveringly on the manwhom he had assaulted.
The latter was on his feet again, swearing and gesticulating. But, allat once, in the middle of a contemplated rush at his antagonist, hechecked himself and looked worriedly up and down the deserted lane. Incase of interference--in case of court proceedings--he might havetrouble in explaining his possession of the dog. A dozen persons incourt might well recognise the puppy as belonging to Shawemere. Andthere would be difficulties--all manner of difficulties--perhaps ajail term. Decidedly it was a moment for wile, rather than for force.There were worse things than a kick. Jail was one of them.
"If you're so stuck on the pup, why don't you buy him?" he whined."'Stead of pickin' on a poor man what's got a livin' to earn? He's forsale."
"I'm not buying livestock----" began the stranger.
Then he paused. The silken head under his hand shifted, and the coldlittle nose again nuzzled his palm.
"If you ain't buyin'," retorted the farm-hand, "give him back to me,and I'll take him to where I c'n git an offer on him."
He snatched the rope before the tired-looking man was aware of theintention. But Buff was aware of it--well aware of it. As the roughfingers grabbed at his collar, the youngster growled fiercely andlaunched himself at the tyrant.
"Good!" applauded the stranger, catching the angry puppy in mid-airand holding him under one arm. "He's got pluck! That means you haven'thad him long. If you had, you'd have cowed or killed him, or made himmean and savage. He's thoroughbred, too. What do you want for him? Ifthe price is fair, I'll buy. If it isn't, I'll carry him to thenearest police-station. Which is it to be?"
Out of a volley of indignant denial, punctuated by such stock phrasesas, "I'm an honest man!" and the like, came at last the grunted words:
"Thutty dollars. He's wuth a sight more. But he b'longs to my boy, andwe're movin', so I gotta sell him, an----"
"Here's the cash," interrupted the stranger, taking out some greasynotes. "But, next time you steal a dog of this kind, just rememberthat thirty dollars is a fool's offer. It proves the dog is stolen.There's no use asking whom you stole him from. If there were, I mightbe able to return him. I had no idea of cluttering my life withanything again--even with a dog. But if I don't, you'll maltreat him.And he's too good for that. There are easier ways, you know, ofshowing how much inferior you are to a dog, than by kicking him."
The stranger was doling out bill after bill from his thin roll.Finishing, he stuck the rest of his money back into his pocket, pickedup Buff, and started for his car. Midway, he hesitated; and lookedback at the gaping and muttering farm-hand.
"By the way," he said carelessly, "think twice before you steal again.Not for the sake of your alleged soul, but because it's liable to landyou in a cell. Nothing is valuable enough to steal. A cell isn't apleasant place to live in, either. I know," he added as anafterthought, "because I've just come out of one."
He lifted Buff into the car, cranked the muddy and battered littlevehicle, and climbed aboard. Then, as the farm-hand still gaped at himwith a new respect in the bulgingly bloodshot eyes, the strangercalled back:
"If you decide to tell this dog's owner what has become of him, myname is Trent--Michael Trent. And I live at Boone Lake, about fiftymiles south of here. At least, I used to--and I'm on my way backthere."
It was Buff's first ride. For a few minutes it startled him to see thecountryside running backwards on either side of him, and to feel thebumping vibration and throb of the car under his feet. But almost atonce he felt the joy of the new sensation, as does the average dogthat gets a chance to motor.
Besides, this rescuer of his was a most interesting person, a manwhose latent
strength appealed to Buff's canine hero-worship; a man,too, who was unhappy. And, with true collie perception, Buff realisedand warmed to the human's unhappiness.
Added to all this, Trent had a delightful way of taking one hand fromthe steering-wheel from time to time and patting or rumpling thepuppy's head. Once the strong slender fingers found the name tag.
"'Buff,' hey?" murmured Trent. "Is that your name or the colour of thegoods that were marked by this tag? How about it, Buff?"
He accented the last word. In response, Buff's tail began to wag, andone forepaw went up to the man's knee.
"'Buff' it is," nodded Trent. "And a good little name at that. A goodlittle name for a good little dog. And now that I've gone broke, inbuying you, will you please tell me what I'm going to do with you? I'man outcast, you know, Buff. An Ishmaelite. And I'm on my way back tomy home-place to live things down. It'll be a tough job, Buff. Allkinds of rotten times ahead. Want to face it with me?"
Much did Trent talk to the dog during that long and bumpy drive. Hisvoice was pleasant, to his little chum. And it was the first time inBuff's six months of life that a human had troubled to waste threesentences of speech on him. The attention tickled the lonely pup. Hisheart was warming more and more to this tired-eyed, quiet-voiced newmaster of his.
Closer he cuddled to the man's knee, looking up into the prison-paleface with growing eagerness and interest. There was a wistfulness inBuff's deep-set eyes as he gazed. With tense effort he was trying tograsp the meaning of the unknown words wherewith from time to timeTrent favoured him. The man noted the pathetic eagerness of look, andhis own desolate heart warmed to this first interested listener he hadencountered in more than a year. He expanded under the flatteringattention, and his talk waxed less disjointed.
"Yes," he said presently, stroking the puppy's head as it restedagainst his knee, "we've a tough row to hoe, you and I, Buff. Just asI told you. Since you're so different from two-footed curs, thatyou're willing to associate with a jail-bird, perhaps it'd amuse youto hear how I came to be one. Eh, Buff?"
At each repetition of his name, Buff wagged his tail in delight athearing at least one word whose meaning he knew.
"Not to take up too much of your time, Buff," proceeded Trent, tryingto negotiate a rutted bit of road with one hand while with the otherhe sought to ease the bumping of the car for the dog, "here's the mainidea: I'd just got that farm of mine on a paying basis, and changed itfrom a liability to something like an asset, when the smash-up came.Just because I chose to play the fool. It was down at the Boone Lakestore one night. I had walked into town for the mail. It was beingsorted. And on the mail stage had come two biggish boxes of goods forCorney Fales. He's the storekeeper and postmaster there, Buff."
Again, at his name, Buff wagged his tail and thrust his cold nose intoTrent's free hand.
"The boxes were left on the store porch while Fales sorted the mail,"went on Trent. "It struck me it would be a corking joke to carry themout behind a clump of lilacs to one side of the store, where it wasblack dark that night. I hid them there for the fun of hearing oldFales swear when he found them gone. Well, he swore, good and plenty.And by the time he'd sworn himself out, I'd had about enough of thejoke. And I was just going to tell him about it and help him carry theboxes back to the store, when a couple of chaps--that I'd ordered offmy land the week before--stepped up and told him they'd seen me lugthe boxes away in the dark. So I went out to the lilac clump to getthe stuff and carry it back to Fales.
"And, Buff, the boxes weren't there. They'd been stolen in deadearnest while I had been standing in the store laughing at Fales'sred-hot language. It had been a silly joke, at best, for a grown manto play, Buff.
"And, anyhow, nobody but a born fool ever plays practical jokes.Always remember that, Buff. But you know how a fellow will limber upsometimes after a lonely day's work, and how he'll do silly things.Well, that's how it happened, Buff.
"Of course I owned up, and offered to pay the sixty dollars Fales saidthe goods were worth. But he wouldn't have it that way. It seemed he'dbeen missing things for quite a while. And his pig-headed brain gotfull of the idea I had taken them all, and that I'd pretended it was ajoke when I was caught at last. So he prosecuted. And the countyattorney was looking for a record. And he got it, Buff. He sure gotit.
"I was sent up for eighteen months. Just for being a fool. And perhapsI'm a fool to go back now and pick up life again in a place whereeveryone thinks I'm a thief. But that's what I'm going to do, Buff.I'm going to win through. It'll take a heap of time and a heap morenerve to do it. But--well, we're headed for Boone Lake. The sooner webegin the fight the sooner we'll win it."
He paused, half ashamed of his babbling, yet half relieved at beingable to speak out at last to some listener who did not greet the talewith a grin of incredulity. Buff snuggled the closer to him, andlicked his clenched hand as the pain underlying the light speechstruck upon the collie's sensitive perceptions.
"Good little pal!" approved Trent, touched at the wordless sympathyand feeling somehow less desolate and miserable than he had felt formany a long month.
It was mid-afternoon when they drove through the edge of a ramblingvillage and on for a mile or so to a lane that led into a neglectedfarm.
"This is home, Buff!" announced Trent, his eyes dwelling with sharpunhappiness upon the tumbledown aspect of the deserted place."Home--including the mortgage that went on to it to pay for my lawyer.Did you notice how those village people stared at us, and how theynudged each other? Well, that's just the first dose. A sort of samplepackage. Are you game to stand for the rest of it? I am, if you are."
Running the battered car into a shed, Trent lifted Buff to the groundand set off towards the closed and forbidding house. Buff capered onahead of him, trotting back at every ten paces to make sure his masterwas following.
Trent paused for a moment in the dooryard, to grope in his pocket fora key. Buff had gained the summit of the low veranda. As Trent halted,the pup took advantage of the delay to rest his car-cramped muscles bystretching out at full length on the narrow strip of porch. Trent tooka step forward, then stopped again; this time to stare in bewilderedsurprise at the collie. For he noted that Buff was lying like acouchant lion, so far as his forequarters were concerned, but thathis hind-legs were both stretched out straight behind him.
Now, as Trent's dog-lore told him, that is a position in which nocollie lies. Nor does any dog lie with his hind legs out behind him,unless he has in his make-up a strong admixture of bulldog blood. Yet,Trent's dog-knowledge also told him that this was apparently apure-bred collie; perfect in every point. Wherefore, he stared inwonder at the phenomenon of Buff's position.
Then, giving up the problem, he advanced into the house. Buff,springing up at once, followed Trent inquisitively through thedoorway, as the key turned noiselessly in the lock and the front doorswung open under the pressure of the man's knee. Out gushed the mustyodour that haunts unused country houses. It filled Trent's nostrilsand deepened his sense of desolation. But, mingled with the smell ofemptiness and disuse, another and more definite scent assailed Trent'snose. It was the reek of tobacco--of rank pipe tobacco, at that. Norwas it stale.
At the whiff of it Trent stiffened like a pointing dog. His lips hadbeen parted in a careless word to Buff. Now he choked back the unbornsyllables.
Treading on tiptoe, he made his way from room to room. Buff, sensingthe other's efforts at silence, padded quietly at his heels. As theymoved along, Trent paused from time to time, to sniff the heavy air.
Presently he flung open a door, with no caution whatever, and spranginto a room beyond. It was the kitchen he entered in this whirlwindfashion. And he saw, as his nose had told him, that it was alreadyoccupied. A mattress had been hauled hither from one of the bedrooms.Sprawled thereon were two men. One of them was snoring, the other waspuffing at a clay pipe.
On the floor beside them lay a full sack. Piled in a corner of theroom was a heterogeneous stack of household articles--a clock, asilv
er candlestick, three gilt picture-frames, a plated soup-tureen,some spoons, and similar loot. Trent had scarce time to note thesefacts and a heap of empty bottles in another corner, before the smokerhad dropped his pipe with a grunt and sprung scramblingly to his feet.The sleeping man, roused by his companion's noise, sat up and blinked.
"H'm!" mused Trent, as the two stared owlishly at him. "I see. Youboys didn't reckon on my time off for good behaviour, eh? Thought Iwasn't due home for another month or so; and in the meantime this wasa dandy place to hide in and to keep the stuff you steal? Clever lads!H'm!"
The two still blinked dully at him. Evidently their density wasintensified by the contents of some of the empty bottles lying nearthe mattress.
"I'm beginning to understand things," pursued Trent evenly. "You twotestified you saw me take away those boxes from Fales' store. I wentto prison on your testimony. You had lived hereabouts all your lives,and there was nothing known against either of you. So your word wasgood enough to send me up--while you pinched the boxes, and plenty ofother things. Since then"--with a glance at the plunder--"you seem tohave gone into the business pretty extensively. And you picked thesafest place to keep it in. Now, suppose you both----"
He got no further. By tacit consent, the two lurched to their feet andflung themselves upon him.
But, careless as had been his pose and his tone, Trent had not beennapping. Even as he spoke, he realised what a stroke of cleverness itwould be for the men to overpower him and to claim that they had foundhim in his own house surrounded by these stolen goods. It would be soeasy a way to fix the blame of such recent robberies as had scourgedBoone Lake on some unknown accomplice of Trent's! The craft that hadonce made them take advantage of his joke on Fales would readilyserve them again.
But as they flung themselves on Trent, he was no longer there. Infact, he was nowhere in particular. Also he was everywhere. Agile as alynx, he was springing aside from their clumsy rush, then dashing inand striking with all his whalebone strength; dodging, blocking,eluding, attacking; all in the same dazzlingly swift set of motions.It was a pretty sight.
A prolonged carouse on raw whisky is not the best training for body orfor mind in an impromptu fight. And the two trespassers speedilydiscovered this. Their man was all over them, yet ever out of reach.Too stupidly besotted to use teamwork, they impeded rather thanreinforced each other. Up and down the broad kitchen raged the trio.
Then, ducking a wild swing, Trent darted in and uppercut one of hisantagonists. The man's own momentum, in the swing, added fifty percent. to the impetus of Trent's blow. Trent's left fist caught hisenemy flush on the jaw-point. The man's knees turned to tallow. Heslumped to the floor in a huddled heap.
Not so much as waiting to note the effect of his uppercut, Trent wasat the other thief; rushing him off his feet and across the room witha lightning series of short-arm blows that crashed through the awkwarddefence and landed thuddingly on heart and wind. In another fewseconds the fight must have ended--and ended with a second cleanknock-out--had not one of Trent's dancing toes chanced to light on asmear of bacon fat on the smooth floor.
Up went both of his feet. He struck ground on the back of his head,after the manner of a novice skater. And, half stunned, he strove torise. But the impact had, for the moment, knocked the speed and thevigour out of him. Before he could stagger half-way to his feet hisopponent had taken dizzy advantage of the slip. Snatching up one ofthe big bottles by the neck, the thief swung it aloft, measuring withhis eye the distance and force needful to a blow over the head of thereeling and dazed Trent.
Then the blow fell. But it did not fall upon Trent. It missed him byan inch or more, and the bottle smashed into many pieces on theboards. This through no awkwardness of the assailant, but because anew warrior had entered the fray.
A flash of gold and white spun through the air, as the bottle wasbrandished aloft; and a double set of white teeth buried themselves inthe striking arm.
Buff, from the doorway, had been watching the battle with quiveringexcitement. In his brief life he had never before seen prolongedstrife among humans. And he did not understand it. To him it seemedthese men must be romping, as he and the other inmates of the puppyrun had been wont to romp. And he watched the wild performance inbreathless interest.
But, all at once, his master was down. And, above him, his foe wasbrandishing something. Thus menacingly had been raised the farm-hand'sarm when Buff was struck. Surely this was not a romp! His master wasthreatened. And into the fight gallant young Buff hurledhimself--attacking the arm that menaced the quiet-voiced man he waslearning to adore.
Just below the elbow he found his grip. Deep drove the sharp whiteteeth; not slashing, collie fashion, but with the grim holding powerthat had won a score of battles for old Upstreet Butcherboy. On theswung canvas strip, a hundred of his bull-terrier ancestors had beenmade to strengthen the crushingly powerful jaw muscles they hadbequeathed to Buff.
The pup's forty pounds of squirming weight deflected the blow's aim,and saved Trent's skull from certain fracture.
The thief, in pain and terror, tore at the clinging furry body infrantic rage. But the bulldog jaws were locked, and the fearlesscollie spirit refused to unlock them at the yells and the hammeringsof the panic-stricken thief.
All this for the merest second. Then, still dizzy, but himself again,Trent was up and at his foe.
The rest was conquest.
Hampered by the ferocious beast that clung to his right arm--weak frompain and exertion--the man was ridiculously easy to overcome.
"You've won your welcome, Buff, old chum!" panted Trent, as he trussedup his prisoners, before marching them to the village. "And you'vesaved a life I don't value overmuch. But you've done a lot more.You've let me clear myself of the other charge. These men will have totalk when the police sweat them. And that will make life worth whilefor me again. Yes, you've paid your way, all right! Something tells meyou and I are going to be the best pals ever. But--where in blueblazes did a thoroughbred collie ever pick up that bulldog grip?"