CHAPTER III.
The Ordeal
By dawn on Labor Day Link Ferris was astir. A series of discomfitingbaths and repeated currying with the dandy brush had made Chum's grandcoat stand out in shimmering fluffiness. A course ofcarefully-conducted circular promenades on the end of a chain hadtaught the dog to walk gaily and unrestrainedly in leash. And any ofseveral 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 onthat day of days. Ferris was infected with the most virulent form ofthat weird malady known as "dog-showitis." At first he had been temptedsolely by the hope of winning the hundred-dollar prize. But latterlythe urge of victory had gotten into his blood. And he yearned, too, tolet the world see what a marvelous dog was his.
He hurried through the morning chores, then dressed himself in hisshabby best and hitched his horse to the antiquated Concord buggy--avehicle he had been washing for the state occasion almost as vehementlyas he had scrubbed Chum.
After a gobbled breakfast, Ferris mounted to the seat of the agedbuggy, signaled Chum to leap to the battered cushion at his side andset off for Craigswold. Long before ten o'clock his horse was safelystabled at the Craigswold livery, and Ferris was leading Chum proudlythrough the wicket gate leading into the country-club grounds.
All happened as the postmaster had foretold. The clerk at the wicketasked him his name, fumbled through a ledger and a pile of envelopesand presently handed Ferris a numbered tag.
"Sixty-five," read the clerk for Link's benefit. "That's down at theextreme right. Almost the last bench to the right."
Into the hallowed precinct Link piloted the much-interested Chum. Therehe paused for a dazzled instant. The putting green and the fore-lawn infront of the field-stone clubhouse had been covered with a mass ofwooden alleyways, each lined with a double row of stalls about two feetfrom the ground, carpeted with straw and having individual zinc watertroughs in front of them. In nearly every one of these "benches" wastied a dog.
There were more dogs than Link Ferris had seen before in all hisquasi-dogless life. And all of them seemed to be barking or yelping.The din was egregious. Along the alleyways, men and women in sportclothes were drifting, in survey of the chained exhibits. In a centralspace among the lines of benches was a large square enclosure, ropedoff except for one aperture. In the middle of this space, which Linkrightly guessed to be the judging ring, stood a very low woodenplatform. At one side of the ring were a chair and a table, where sat asteward in a Palm Beach suit, fussily turning over the leaves of aledger and assorting a heap of high-packed and vari-colored ribbons.
Link, mindful of instructions, bore to the right in search of a stalllabeled "65." As he went, he noted that the dogs were benched in such away that each breed had a section to itself. Thus, while he was stillsome distance away from his designated bench, he saw that he was cominginto a section of dogs which, in general aspect, resembled Chum. Abovethis aggregation, as over others, hung a lettered sign. And thisespecial sign read "Collie Section."
So Chum was a "collie"--whatever that might be. Link took it to be afancy term for "bird dog." He had seen the word before somewhere. Andhe remembered now that it had been in the advertisement that offeredseventy-five dollars for the return of a lost "sable-and-white collie."Yes, and Dominie Jansen had said, "sable" meant "black." Link felt aglow of relief that the advertisement had not said "a brown-and-whitecollie."
Chum was viewing his new surroundings with much attention, looking upnow and then into his master's face as they moved along the racketyline--as though to gain reassurance that all was well.
To a high-strung and sensitive dog a show is a terrific ordeal. ButChum, like the aristocrat he was, bore its preliminaries with debonaircalm.
Arriving at Bench 65 in the collie section, Link enthroned his dogthere, 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 incase he were thirsty and that the straw made a comfortable couch forhim, Ferris once more patted the worried dog and told him everythingwas all right. After which Link proceeded to take a survey of theneighboring collies, the sixteen dogs which were to be Chum'scompetitors.
His first appraising glance of the double row of collies caused thefurrow between his eyes to vanish and brought a grin of complacentsatisfaction to his thin lips. For he did not see a single entrantthat, in his eyes, seemed to have a ghost of a chance against hisidolized pet--not a dog as handsome or with half the look ofintelligence 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 allthe section's occupants a swarm of owners and handlers were just nowbusy with brush and cloth. For word had come that collies were to bethe second breed judged that day. The first breed was to be the GreatDanes. As there were but three Danes in the show, their judging wouldbe brief. And it behooved the collies' attendants to have their entriesready.
Link, following the example of those around him, took from his pocketthe molting dandy brush and set to work once more on Chum's coat. Heobserved that the rest were brushing their dogs' fur against the grain,to make it fluff up. And he reversed his own former process inimitation of them. He had supposed until now that a collie's hair, likea man's, ought to be slicked down smooth for state occasions. And ittroubled 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 watchinga 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'scollar a huge cerise bow she had just affixed there.
"Sorry, Miss," Ferris heard the groom explain, "but it's agin rules fora dog to go in the ring with a ribbon on. If the judge thinks he's goodenough for a ribbon he'll award him one. But--"
"Oh, he simply can't help awarding one to Morven, here!" broke in thegirl. "CAN he, Stokes?"
"Hard to say, Miss," answered the groom imperturbably, as he wroughtwith brush and cloth. "Judges has their own ideas. We'll have to hopefor 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.' Somejudges thins out a class that way, by sending the poorest dogs out ofthe ring first. Then again, some judges--"
"Oh, I'm glad I wore this dress!" sighed the girl. "It goes so wellwith Morven's color. Perhaps the judge--"
"Excuse me, Miss," put in the groom, trying not to laugh, "but thecollie 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 foranything but the dogs themselves. Begging your pardon, he wouldn'tnotice if you was to wear a horse blanket. At that, Leighton's thesquarest and the best--"
"Look!" whispered the girl, whose attention had wandered and whoseroving 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 tohide his satisfaction, he saw that quite a sizable knot of spectatorshad gathered in front of Chum's bench. They were inspecting the colliewith manifest approval. Chum, embarrassed by the unaccustomed notice,had moved as far as possible from his admirers, and was nuzzling hishead into Ferris's hand for refuge.
"Puppy Class, Male Scotch Collies!" droned a ring attendant, appearingfor a moment at the far end of the section. "Numbers 60, 61, 62."
Three youngsters, ranging in age from seven to eleven months, werecoaxed down from their straw couches by three excited owners and wereconvoyed fussily toward the ring.
"Novice Class next, Miss," Link heard the groom saying to the girl atthe adjoining bench. "Got his ring leash ready?"
"Ring leash!" This was a new one to Ferris. His eyes
followed the trioof puppies shuffling ringward. He saw that all three were on leatherleashes and that their chains had been left in the stalls. Presumablythere 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, hehad no leash. Yet, if chains, like bows of ribbon, were barred from thering, he could maneuver Chum every bit as well with his voice as withany 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