you was some dogs, that'dbe all right. But not with YOU, Chum. Not with you. You'd mope andgrieve for me, and you'd be wond'ring why I'd deserted you after allthese years. And you'd get to pining and maybe go sick. And the fellerthat bought you wouldn't understand. And most likely he'd whale you fornot being more chipper-like. And you haven't ever been hit. I'd--I'd ablame' sight sooner shoot you, than to let anyone else have you, toabuse you and let you be unhappy for me, Chum. A blame' sight rather."
Side by side they moved on into the darkened house. There, with the dogcurled at his feet, Link Ferris lay broad awake until sunrise.
Early the next afternoon Dorcas decided she stood in need of brisk,outdoor exercise. Olive came running down the path after her, eagerlydemanding to be taken along. Dorcas with much sternness bade her goback. She wanted to be alone, unless--But she refused to admit toherself that there was any "unless."
Olive, grievously disappointed, stood on the steps, watching her bigsister set off up the road. She saw Dorcas take the righthand turn atthe fork. The baby's face cleared. Now she knew in which directionDorcas was going. That fork led to the Glen. And the Glen was afavorite Sunday afternoon ramble for Link and Chum. Olive knew that,because she and Dorcas more than once had walked thither to meet them.
Olive was pleasantly forgetful of her parents' positive command thatshe refrain from walking alone on the motor-infested Sunday roads. Sheset off at a fast jog trot over the nearby hill, on whose other sideran the Glen road.
Link Ferris, with Chum at his heels, was tramping moodily toward theGlen. As he turned into the road he paused in his sullen walk. There,strolling unconcernedly, some yards in front of him, was a tall girl inwhite. Her back was toward him. Yet he would have recognized her at ahundred times the distance. Chum knew her, too, for he wagged his tailand started at a faster trot to overtake her.
"Back!" called Link.
Purposely he spoke as low as possible. But the dog heard and obeyed.The girl, too, started a little, and made as if to turn. Just thenensued a wild crackling in the thick roadside bushes which lined thehillside from highway to crest. And a white-clad little bunch ofhumanity came galloping jubilantly out into the road, midway betweenDorcas and Link.
At the road edge Olive's stubby toe caught in a noose of blackberryvine. As the youngster was running full tilt, her own impetus sent herrolling over and over into the center of the dusty turnpike.
Before she could get to her feet or even stop rolling, a touring carcame round the bend, ten yards away--a car that was traveling at aspeed of something like forty-five miles an hour, and whose fouroccupants were singing at the top of their lungs.
Link Ferris had scarce time to tense his muscles for a futilespring--Dorcas's scream of helpless terror was still unborn--when thecar was upon the prostrate child.
And in the same fraction of a second a furry catapult launched itselfacross the wide road at a speed that made it look like tawny blur.
Chum's mad leap carried him to the baby just as the car's fender hungabove her. A slashing grip of his teeth in the shoulder of her whitedress and a lightning heave of his mighty neck and shoulders--and thelittle form was hurtling through the air and into the weed-filledwayside ditch.
In practically the same instant Chum's body whizzed into the air again.But this time by no impetus of its own. The high-powered car's fenderhad struck it fair, and had tossed it into the ditch as though the doghad been a heap of rags.
There--huddled and lifeless--sprawled the beautiful collie. The car puton an extra spurt of speed and disappeared round the next turn.
Olive was on her feet before Dorcas's flying steps could reach her.Unhurt but vastly indignant, the baby opened her mouth to make way fora series of howls. Then, her eye falling on the inert dog, she ran overto Chum and began to cry out to him to come to life again.
"No use of that, kid!" interposed Link, kneeling beside the collie heloved and smoothing the soiled and rumpled fur. "It's easier to dropout of life than what it is to come back to it again. Well," he went onharshly, turning to the weeping Dorcas, "the question has answereditself, you see. No need now to tell me to get rid of him. He's savedme the bother. Like he was always saving me bother. That being Chum'sway."
Something in his throat impeded his fierce speech. And he bent overthe dog again, his rough hands smoothing the pitifully still body withloving tenderness. Dorcas, weeping hysterically, fell on her kneesbeside Chum and put her arms about the huddled shape. She seemed to betrying to say something, her lips close to one of the furry little ears.
"No use!" broke in Ferris, his voice as grating as a file's. "He can'thear you now. No good to tell him you hate dogs; or that you're gladyou've saw the last of him. Even if he was alive, he wouldn'tunderstand that. He'd never been spoke to that way."
"Don't! Oh, don't!" sobbed the girl. "Oh, I'm so--"
"If you're crying for Chum," went on the grating voice, "there's noneed to. He was only just a dog. He didn't know any better but to gethis life smashed out'n him, so somebody else could go on living. All heasked was to be with me and work for me and love me. After you said hecouldn't keep on doing that, there ain't any good in your crying forhim. It must be nice--if you'll only stop crying long enough to thinkof it--to know he's out of your way. And I'M out of it too!" he went onin a gust of fury. "S'pose you two just toddle on, now, and leave me totake him home. I got the right to that, anyhow."
He stooped to pick up the dog; and he winked with much rapidity to holdback an annoying mist which came between him and Chum. His mouthcorners, too, were twitching in a way that shamed him. He had a babyishyearning to bury his face in his dead friend's fur, and cry.
"DON'T!" Dorcas was wailing. "Oh, you can't punish me any worse thanI'm--"
Her sob-broken voice scaled high and swelled out into a cry of starkastonishment. Slowly Chum was lifting his splendid head and blinkingstupidly about him!
The fender had smitten the collie just below the shoulder, in a mass offur-armored muscles. In falling into the wayside ditch his skull hadcome into sharp contact with a rock. Knocked senseless by theconcussion, he had lain as dead, for the best part of five minutes.After which he had come slowly to his senses--bewildered, bruised andsore, but otherwise no worse for the accident.
He came to himself to find a weeping woman clutching him stranglinglyround the neck, while she tried to kiss his dust-smeared head.
Chum did not care at all for this treatment, especially from acomparative stranger. But he saw his adored master looking soidiotically happy--over that or something else--that the dog forbore toprotest.
"If you really wanted him put out of the way so bad--" began Link, whenhe could trust himself to speak.
He got no further. Dorcas Chatham turned on him in genuine savageness.The big eyes were no longer grave and patronizing. The air of aloofnesshad fallen from the girl like a discarded garment.
"Link!" she blazed. "Link Ferris! If you ever dare speak about gettingrid of--of MY dog,--I'll--I'll never speak to you again, as long as--aslong as we're married!"
THE END
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