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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jan, by A. J. Dawson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Jan
+       A Dog and a Romance
+
+Author: A. J. Dawson
+
+Release Date: July 9, 2005 [EBook #16252]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, Ed Casulli and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Frontispiece]
+
+JAN
+
+A DOG AND A ROMANCE
+
+BY
+
+A.J. DAWSON
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+Published by Arrangement with Harper & Brothers
+
+
+JAN: A DOG AND A ROMANCE
+Copyright, 1915, by Harper & Brothers
+Printed in the United States of America
+Published October, 1915
+
+
+
+
+_CONTENTS_
+
+I.       HOW FINN CAME HOME
+
+II.      NUTHILL AND SHAWS
+
+III.     INTRODUCING THE LADY DESDEMONA
+
+IV.      THE OPEN-AIR CALL
+
+V.       DESDEMONA'S WANDERINGS
+
+VI.      HOW DESDEMONA FOUND HER NEST
+
+VII.     DESDEMONA FORGETS HER MANNERS
+
+VIII.    FINN IS ENLIGHTENED
+
+IX.      THE LONE MOTHER
+
+X.       FAMILY LIFE--AND DEATH
+
+XI.      JAN GOES TO NUTHILL
+
+XII.     SOME FIRST STEPS
+
+XIII.    SAPLING DAYS
+
+XIV.     WITH REFERENCE TO DICK VAUGHAN
+
+XV.      JAN'S FIRST FIGHT
+
+XVI.     GOOD-BY TO DICK
+
+XVII.    JAN BEFORE THE JUDGES
+
+XVIII.   FIT AS A TWO-YEAR-OLD
+
+XIX.     DISCIPLINE
+
+XX.      SUSSEX TO SASKATCHEWAN
+
+XXI.     INTRODUCING SOURDOUGH
+
+XXII.    MURDER!
+
+XXIII.   THE FIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE
+
+XXIV.    PROMOTION
+
+XXV.     JAN GOES ON HIS TRAVELS
+
+XXVI.    THE RULE OF TRACE AND THONG
+
+XXVII.   MUTINY IN THE TEAM
+
+XXVIII.  THE FEAST AND THE FASTER
+
+XXIX.    THE FIGHT IN THE WOODS
+
+XXX.     REAL LEADERSHIP
+
+XXXI.    THE COST OF INCOMPETENCE
+
+XXXII.   JAN OBEYS ORDERS AT THE GREAT DIVIDE
+
+XXXIII.  BACK TO THE TRAIL
+
+XXXIV.   THE PEACE RIVER TRAIL
+
+XXXV.    THE END OF JAN'S LONE TRAIL
+
+XXXVI.   "SO LONG, JAN!"
+
+XXXVII.  BACK TO REGINA
+
+XXXVIII. THE FALL OF SOURDOUGH
+
+XXXIX.   HOW JAN CAME HOME
+
+
+
+
+_JAN_
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+HOW FINN CAME HOME
+
+
+Rightly to appreciate Jan's character and parts you must understand
+his origin. For this you must go back to the greatest of modern Irish
+wolfhounds, Finn; and to the Lady Desdemona, of whom it was said, by
+no less an authority than Major Carthwaite, that she was "the most
+perfectly typical bloodhound of her decade." And that was in the
+fifteenth month of her age, just six weeks before Finn's arrival at
+Nuthill.
+
+When the Master was preparing to leave Australia with Finn he said,
+"It's 'Sussex by the sea' for us, Finn, boy, in another month or so;
+and, God willing, that's where you shall end your days."
+
+Just fourteen weeks after making that remark (and, too, after a deal
+more of land and sea travel for Finn than comes into the whole lives
+of most hounds) the Master bought Nuthill, the little estate on the
+lee of the most beautiful of the South Downs from the upper part of
+which one sees quite easily on a clear day the red chimneys and white
+gables of the cottage in which Finn was born. But at the time of that
+important purchase Finn was lying perdu in quarantine, down in
+Devonshire; a melancholy period for the wolfhound, that. The Master
+spent many shipboard hours in discussing this very matter with the
+Mistress of the Kennels on their passage home from Australia, and he
+tried hard to find a way out of the difficulty, for Finn's sake. But
+there it was. You cannot hope to smuggle ashore, even in the most
+fashionably capacious of lady's muffs, a hound standing thirty-six
+inches high at the shoulder and weighing nearer two hundred than one
+hundred pounds. It was a case of quarantine or perpetual exile, and so
+Finn went into quarantine. But, as you may guess, there were pretty
+careful arrangements made for his welfare.
+
+The wolfhound had special quarters of his own in quarantine, and his
+enforced stay there had just this advantage about it, that when the
+great day of his release arrived there was no more travel and hotel life
+to be suffered, for by this time the Master was thoroughly settled down
+at Nuthill, the Mistress of the Kennels had made that snug place a real
+home, and her niece, Betty Murdoch, was already an established member of
+the household. So Finn went straight from quarantine at Plymouth to the
+best home he had ever known, and to one in which his honored place was
+absolutely assured to him.
+
+But it must not be supposed that, because of his much-honored place in
+the Master's world, Finn had entirely put behind him and forgotten his
+strange life among the wild kindred in Australia. That could hardly be.
+The savor of that life would remain for ever in his nostrils, no matter
+how ordered and humanized his days at Nuthill; just as consciousness of
+human cruelty and the torture of imprisonment had been burned into his
+memory and nature, indelibly as though branded there by the hot irons of
+the circus folk in New South Wales. Finn adapted himself perfectly to
+the life of the household at Nuthill, and with ease. Had he not a
+thousand years of royal breeding in his veins? But he never forgot the
+wild. He never forgot his days of circus imprisonment as a wild beast.
+He never for one instant reverted to the gaily credulous attitude toward
+mankind which had helped the dog-stealers to kidnap him after the first
+great triumph of his youth, when he defeated all comers, from puppy and
+novice to full-fledged champion, and carried off the blue riband of his
+year at the Crystal Palace. Well-mannered he would always be; but in
+these later days his attitude toward all humans, and most animal folk
+outside his own household, was characterized by a gravely alert and
+watchful kind of reserve. As the Master once said, in talking on his
+homeward way to England of that dog-stealing episode of the wolfhound's
+salad days:
+
+"It would take a tough and wily old thief to tempt Finn across a
+garden-path nowadays, with the best doctored meat ever prepared. And as
+for really getting away with him--well, they're welcome to try; and I
+fancy they'd get pretty well all they deserve from old Finn, without the
+law's assistance."
+
+Betty Murdoch--round-figured, rosy, high-spirited, a great lover of out
+of doors, and aged now twenty-two--had been much exercised in her mind
+as to what Finn would think of her, when he arrived at Nuthill, after
+the long railway journey from Plymouth. She had seen the wolfhound only
+once before, when she was somewhat less grown-up and he was still in
+puppyhood, before the visit to Australia. The Master, who went specially
+to Plymouth to fetch Finn, said Betty must expect a certain reserve at
+first in the wolfhound's attitude.
+
+"He can't possibly remember you, of course, and, nowadays, he is not
+effusive, not very ready to make new friends."
+
+The Mistress of the Kennels, on the other hand--she still was spoken of
+as "the Mistress," though at Nuthill there never were any
+kennels--insisted that Finn would know perfectly well that Betty was one
+of the family; as, of course, he did. Apart from her physical
+resemblance to her aunt, Betty had very many of the Mistress's little
+ways, and especially of her ways in dealings with and thinking of animal
+folk.
+
+Finn's heart had swelled almost to bursting when the Master came to him
+in the quarantine station at Plymouth, for, to tell the truth, he never
+had been able to make head or tail of being left alone in this place,
+though the Master had tried hard to explain. But he had been well
+treated there, and was certain the Master would eventually return to
+him. Yet, when the moment came, there was a sudden overwhelming swelling
+of his heart which made Finn gasp. He almost staggered as the Master
+greeted him. The emotion of gladness hurt him, and his dark eyes were
+flooded.
+
+After that there were no further surprises for Finn. Once he had felt
+the Master's hand burrowing in the wiry gray hair of his neck, Finn knew
+well that they were homeward bound, that the unaccountable period of
+separation was over, and that he would very presently see the Mistress
+of the Kennels; as in fact he did, that very night, at Nuthill by the
+Downs. And Betty--well, it was perfectly clear to Finn that she was
+somehow part and parcel with the Mistress; and whilst never now effusive
+to any one, he made it clear at once that he accepted Betty as one of
+his own little circle of human folk, to be loved and trusted, and never
+suspected. In the evening the great hound lay extended on the hearthrug
+of the square, oak-paneled hall at Nuthill. (He occupied a good six feet
+of rug.) Betty stepped across his shoulders once, to reach matches from
+the mantel; and Finn never blinked or moved a hair, save that the tip of
+his long tail just languidly rose twice, ever so gently slapping the
+rug. The Master, who was watching, laughed at this.
+
+"You may account yourself an honored friend already, Betty," he said.
+"I'll guarantee no other living soul, except the Mistress or I, could
+step over old Finn like that without his moving. In these days he
+doesn't unguard to that extent with any one else."
+
+"Ah, well," laughed Betty; "even less wise dogs than Finn know who loves
+them--don't they, old man?"
+
+Finn blinked a friendly response as she rubbed his ears. But as yet it
+was not that. Finn had given no thought to Betty's loving him; but he
+had realized that she was kin to the Mistress and the Master, and
+therefore, for him, in a category apart from all other folk, animal or
+human; a person to be trusted absolutely, even by a hound of his unique
+experience.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+NUTHILL AND SHAWS
+
+
+In a recess beside the hearth in the hall at Nuthill Finn found an oaken
+platform, or bench, five feet long by two and a half feet wide. It stood
+perhaps fifteen inches from the floor, on four stout legs, and its two
+ends and back had sides eight inches high. The front was open, and the
+bench itself was covered by a 'possum-skin rug.
+
+"This, my friend, is your own bed," said the Master, when he showed the
+bench to Finn, after all the household had retired that night. "You've
+slept hard, old chap, and you've lived hard, in your time; but when you
+want it, there will always be comfort for you here. But you're free, old
+chap. You can go wherever you like; still, I'd like you to try this.
+See! Up, lad!"
+
+Finn sniffed long and interestedly at the 'possum-rug which had often
+covered the Mistress's feet on board ship and elsewhere. Then he stepped
+on to the bed and lowered his great bulk gracefully upon it.
+
+"How's that?" asked the Master. And Finn thrust his muzzle gratefully
+into the hand he loved. The bed was superlatively good, as a matter of
+fact. But when, in the quite early morning hours, the Master opened his
+bedroom door, bound for the bath, he found Finn dozing restfully on the
+doormat.
+
+So that was the end of the hall bed as a hall bed. That night Finn
+found it beside the Master's bedroom door; and there in future he
+slept of a night, when indoors at all. But he was allowed perfect
+freedom, and there were summer nights he spent in the outer porch and
+farther afield than that, including the queer little Sussex slab-paved
+courtyard outside the kitchen door, where he spent the better part of
+one night on guard over a smelly tramp who, in a moment unlucky for
+himself, had decided to try his soft and clumsy hand at burglary. The
+gardener found the poor wretch in the morning aching with cramp and
+bailed up in a dampish corner by the dust-bin, by a wolfhound who kept
+just half an inch of white fang exposed, and responded with a truly
+awe-inspiring throaty snarl to the slightest hint of movement on the
+tramp's part.
+
+"Six hours 'e's kep' me there, an', bli'me, I'd sooner do six months
+quod," the weary tramp explained, when the Master had been roused and
+Finn called off.
+
+On the morning of his third day at Nuthill it was that Finn first met
+the Lady Desdemona. And it happened in this wise: Colonel Forde, of
+Shaws, which, as you may know, lies just across the green shoulder of
+Down from Nuthill--its fault is that the house is reached only by the
+westering sun, while Nuthill's windows catch the first morning rays on
+one side and hold some of any sunshine there may be the day
+through--wrote, saying that he had heard of Finn's arrival, and would
+the Master come across to luncheon with the Mistress and Miss Murdoch,
+and bring the wolfhound.
+
+"I hope you will have a look through my kennels with me in the
+afternoon," added the Colonel; and that was the kind of invitation
+seldom refused by the Master.
+
+It is, of course, a good many years now since the Shaws kennels first
+earned the respect of discerning breeders and lovers of bloodhounds. But
+to this day there is one kind of doggy man (and woman) who smiles a
+shade disdainfully when Colonel Forde's name is mentioned.
+
+"Very much the amateur," they say. And--"A bit too much of a
+sentimentalist to be taken seriously," some knowing fellow in a kennel
+coat of the latest style will tell you. Perhaps they do not quite know
+what they mean. Or perhaps they are influenced by the known fact that
+the Colonel has more than once closed his kennel doors to a long
+string of safe prizes by refusing to exhibit a second time some hound
+who, on a first showing, has won golden opinions and high awards. But
+these refusals were never whimsical. They were due always to the
+Colonel's decision, based upon close and sympathetic observation,
+that, for the particular hound in question, exhibition represented a
+painful ordeal.
+
+Among the breeders who at one time or another have visited the Shaws
+kennels are a few of the knowing fellows who smile at mention of the
+Colonel's name. Well, let them smile. It is perhaps as well for them
+that the Colonel is pretty tolerably indifferent alike to their smiles
+and to the awards of show judges; for, if Colonel Forde were seriously
+bent upon "pot-hunting," there would not be anything like so many "pots"
+about for other people; and these particular gentry would not at all
+like that.
+
+"Kennels!" said one of them at a dog-show in Brighton, "why, it's more
+like a kindergarten. There's a sitting-room, a kind of drawing-room, if
+you'll believe me, in the middle of the kennels, for tea-parties! And as
+for the dogs, well, they just do whatever they like. As often as not the
+kennels are empty, except for pups, and the hounds all over the garden
+and house--a regular kindergarten."
+
+It will be seen then that the Colonel must clearly have merited the
+disdainful smiles. But I am bound to say I never heard of any one
+being bitten or frightened by a dog at Shaws, and it is notorious
+that, difficult though bloodhound whelps are to rear, the Colonel
+rarely loses one in a litter. Still, "kindergarten" is certainly a
+withering epithet in this connection; and one can perfectly understand
+the professional's attitude. A sitting-room, nay, worse--"A kind of
+drawing-room," in the midst of the kennels! Why, it almost suggests
+that, forgetful of prize-winning, advertising, and selling, the
+Colonel must positively have enjoyed the mere pleasure of spending a
+leisure hour among his dogs; not at a show or in the public eye, but
+in the privacy of his own home! Glaring evidence of amateurishness,
+this. The knowing ones, as usual, were perfectly correct. That is
+precisely what the Colonel was; a genuine amateur of hounds.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+INTRODUCING THE LADY DESDEMONA
+
+
+April was uniformly dull and wet that year, but May seemed to bring full
+summer in her train; and it was on the morning of the third of May that
+Finn went to Shaws with the Nuthill house party.
+
+The turf of the Downs was so springy on this morning that one felt
+uplifted by it in walking. Each separate blade of the clover-scented
+carpet seemed surcharged with young life. The downland air was as a
+tonic wine to every creature that breathed it. The joy of the day was
+voiced in the liquid trilling of two larks that sang far overhead. The
+place and time gave to the Nuthill party England at her best and
+sweetest, than which, as the Master often said, the world has nothing
+more lovely to offer; and he was one who had fared far and wide in other
+lands.
+
+There is the tiny walled inclosure above the stables at Shaws, once used
+as a milking-yard, and just now a veritable posy of daisies, buttercups,
+rich green grass, and apple-blossom. For in it there are six or seven
+gnarled and lichen-grown old apple-trees, whose fruit is of small
+account, but whose bloom is a gift sent straight from heaven to gladden
+the hearts of men and beasts, birds and bees. The big double doors in
+the ivy-grown flint wall of this inclosure stood wide open. Humming bees
+sailed booming to and fro, like ships in a tropical trade-wind. And
+through the lattice-work of the gray old apple-trees' branches (so
+virginally clothed just now) clean English sunshine dappled all the
+earth and grass in moving checkers of light and shade.
+
+When the Nuthill party looked in through the gates of this delectable
+pleasaunce they beheld in its midst the Lady Desdemona, gazing solemnly
+down her long nose at the moving checkers of sunlight on the grass. Her
+head was held low--the true bloodhound poise--and that position
+exaggerated the remarkable wealth of velvety "wrinkle" with which her
+forehead had been endowed by nature, after the selective breeding of
+centuries. Low hung her golden dewlap over the grass at her feet; and
+all across the satin blackness of her saddle intricately woven little
+patterns of sunlight flicked back and forth as the breeze stirred the
+branches overhead.
+
+"There's all the wisdom and philosophy of the ancients in her face,"
+said the Master, as the beautiful young bloodhound bitch winded them and
+raised her head.
+
+As a fact, her thought had been far from abstruse. She was merely
+watching the moving patches of sunlight, and not reflecting upon it as
+humans do, but feeling the joyousness and beauty of that time and place.
+She gave no thought to these matters, but was, as it were, inhaling
+them, and enjoying them profoundly; more profoundly than most men-folk
+would.
+
+Finn eyed her gravely, appraisingly, yet also without thought. He, too,
+had been unreflectingly absorbing the beauty of the morning; and now his
+enjoyment became suddenly narrowed down and concentrated. The rest of
+the world dropped out of the picture, or rather it became merged for
+Finn in the picture he beheld of the Lady Desdemona; a study in tawny
+orange-gold and jetty black, gleaming where the sun touched her and
+embodying the quintessence of canine health, youth, and high-breeding.
+
+So the world stood still for a moment while all concerned felt, without
+thought, how good it was. Then her youth and sex spoke in the
+bloodhound, and Lady Desdemona, head and stern uplifted now, came
+passaging gaily, proudly forward down the grassy slope to the gateway,
+entirely ignoring the human people, as was natural, and making direct
+for Finn, the tallest, most stately representative of her own kind she
+had ever seen. The Master stepped aside, with a smile, the better to
+watch the meeting of the hounds. It was worth watching. Till they met,
+the movement, the provocativeness was all on Lady Desdemona's side, Finn
+standing erect and still as graven bronze. Then they met, and at a given
+signal the tactics of each were sharply reversed. The signal consisted
+of a little flicking contact, light as thistle-down. As Desdemona
+curveted down past Finn the tip of her gaily-waving tail was allowed
+once to glance over the Irish wolfhound's wiry coat; the merest
+suggestion of a touch. But it seemed this was a magic signal, converting
+the dancing Desdemona into a graven image and transforming the
+statuesque Finn into a hound of abounding and commanding activity.
+
+They made quite a notable picture. The Lady Desdemona stood now, tense,
+rigid, immobile as any rock, though instinct with life in every hair.
+Finn became the very personification of action, eager movement, alert
+interest. Inside of one minute he had examined the motionless Desdemona
+(by means of the most searchingly concentrated application of his senses
+of sight and smell) at least as thoroughly as your Harley Street expert
+examines a patient in half an hour. Finn needed no stethoscope to assure
+him of Desdemona's soundness. But, having seen her in the inclosure, and
+been interested so far, he now examined her with his keen eyes and
+nostrils at close quarters, in order that he might know her. And so
+superior to our own faculties are some of a hound's senses, that at the
+end of this examination Finn the wolfhound actually did know Lady
+Desdemona the bloodhound quite as thoroughly as humans know anybody
+after a dozen or so of meetings and much beating of the air in speech.
+
+This process ended, the two hounds turned and, with many friendly nudges
+and shoulder-rubbings, proceeded up the meadow together in the wake of
+the Nuthill party, toward the house of Shaws. One cannot translate
+precisely Finn's remark to Desdemona at the end of the examination, but
+the sense of it was probably something of this sort:
+
+"Yes, you are all right. I like you. Let's be friends."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE OPEN-AIR CALL
+
+
+That meeting with Desdemona in the walled inclosure at Shaws was the
+beginning of many jolly days for Finn. Colonel Forde and his family were
+both interested and amused by the warm friendship struck up between
+their beautiful young bloodhound and the famous Finn, with his long
+record of unique experiences on both sides of the world. Neither hound
+found any meaning whatever, of course, in the laughing remark made to
+the Master by Colonel Forde that afternoon, as they strolled round the
+kennels, followed by the now inseparable Finn and Desdemona. The Colonel
+paused to lay a hand affectionately on Finn's head, and, with a smile in
+the Master's direction, he said:
+
+"I suppose it's the old Shakespearian story over again, eh, Finn?
+Desdemona loves you for the dangers you have passed--is that it? Well,
+your friendship will have to be strictly platonic, my son, for this
+particular Desdemona is pledged to no less puissant a prince than
+Champion Windle Hercules, the greatest bloodhound sire of this age. 'A
+marriage has been arranged,' as the papers say, Finn; and I hope it
+won't put your long muzzle too badly out of joint--what?"
+
+The Master laughed, and both men passed on, Finn following cheerfully
+enough by Desdemona's side, conscious only that the men-folk were
+talking in friendly, kindly fashion, and reeking nothing of the meaning
+of their words. From his point of view, men-folk use such a mort of
+words at all times, most of them quite unnecessary, and only a few of
+them comprehensible. To folk accustomed, like the dog people, to
+intercourse confined chiefly to looks and movements, the continuous
+babble of words which humans indulge in is one of their most puzzling
+attributes. When the Master really wanted Finn to understand anything,
+the wolfhound very rarely failed him. But Colonel Forde's references to
+Othello--well, it was all so much puppy talk, just amiable, meaningless
+nickering to Finn and Desdemona.
+
+That evening, while the Master and his folk were dining at Nuthill, Finn
+arose from a nap in the hall and, strolling out through the garden,
+loped easily away across the shoulder of Down betwixt Shaws and Nuthill
+to visit Desdemona. He found her close to the walled inclosure by the
+stable, and together they whiled away a couple of evening hours on the
+springy thyme-and-clover-scented turf of the Downs. Just as darkness was
+taking the place of twilight the scuttering of an over-venturesome
+rabbit's tail caught Finn's eye, and cost that particular bunny its
+life. Desdemona, to whom this little event opened up a quite new chapter
+in life, was hugely excited over the kill, and could hardly allow Finn,
+with his veteran's skill, to tear the pelt from the creature's warm body
+before she made her first meal of rabbit's hind quarters.
+
+It was a trivial episode enough, and especially so for a hunter of
+Finn's experience, who, in his time, had pulled down dozens of old-men
+kangaroos, not to mention the smaller fry of the Australian bush. And
+yet, though he did not show it as Desdemona did, this trifling incident
+was of quite epoch-marking importance for Finn, and stirred him
+profoundly.
+
+"Hullo, old friend! What of the hunting? I declare, you've quite the old
+bush-ranging air to-night. Where have you been?" asked the Master, when
+Finn rejoined his own family circle in the hall at Nuthill, toward
+bedtime that night. Finn silently nuzzled the under side of the Master's
+right wrist; but, though his dark eyes were eloquent, it was beyond him
+to explain either his doings or his emotions. Yet the Master was not
+altogether without understanding of these.
+
+"Fact is," he said to Betty Murdoch, as he affectionately rubbed one of
+Finn's ears, "I believe this old gallant has quite fallen in love with
+Miss Desdemona, and I could swear he's been hunting in her company
+to-night. He has all the look of it. I suspect it carries him back to
+old days, past the quarantine, past even Australia--eh, old chap?--and
+back to his hunting days about these very Downs, when we were at the
+cottage, you know. I had to be a great deal in town in those days,
+before we went to Australia, and Finn ran pretty much wild through his
+last summer in England."
+
+So the Master did know something of what passed in the wolfhound's mind,
+though they had no common language. As a matter of fact, the evening
+meeting with Desdemona, the frolic on the Downs, and, at the last, the
+running down of that rabbit, had combined to stir Finn more than
+anything else had stirred him since he had fought for the Master's life
+in a drought-smitten corner of the bush in Australia. Much that had lain
+dormant in the great hound since the adventurous days of his leadership
+of a dingo pack had waked into active, insistent life that evening, and,
+brushing aside the habits of a year's soft living, had filled him once
+more with the keenness of the hunter and the fire of the masterful mate
+and leader.
+
+It must not be supposed that nostalgia is a modern weakness, or the
+monopoly of human minds. When Finn looked out across the moonlit Downs
+that night, while strolling round the house with the Master before going
+to bed, nostalgia filled his heart to aching-point and clouded his mind
+with its elusive, tormenting vapors as surely as ever it clouded the
+brain of any human wanderer. It was the nostalgia of the wilderness, of
+the life of the wild; and, as he looked out into the moonlight, Finn saw
+again in fancy, the boundary-rider's lonely humpy, the rugged, rocky
+hills of the Tinnaburra; a fleeing wallaby in the distance, himself in
+hot pursuit. He smelt again the tang of crushed gum-leaves, and heard
+the fascinating rustle which tells of the movements of game, of live
+food, over desiccated twigs and leaves, in bush untrodden by human feet.
+
+Yes, Finn tasted to the full that night the nostalgia of the wilderness.
+But if it stirred him deeply, it by no means made him unhappy. Across
+the Downs' shoulder there was Desdemona; and he was free, save for the
+ties of affection--stronger these than any dog-chain--which bound him to
+the Nuthill folk. And as for Desdemona; owing to what many fanciers
+would have regarded as the reprehensible eccentricity of the owner of
+Shaws, Desdemona was almost as free as Finn.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+DESDEMONA'S WANDERINGS
+
+
+A week later, even easy-going Colonel Forde was a little perturbed by
+the news that Lady Desdemona had been away all night and that nobody
+knew of her whereabouts. However, the bitch strolled into the house
+during the forenoon, looking none the worse for her night out, and, much
+to his kennelman's annoyance, the Colonel refused to have her confined
+to the kennels. He did not know that Finn was schooling this blood-royal
+princess in the ways of the wild; but he could see that she looked fit
+as a fiddle and was obviously very much enjoying her life. And so he
+turned a deaf ear to his kennelman, even when the good fellow said,
+protestingly:
+
+"You don't see such a bitch once in twenty years, sir. She's just on her
+eighteenth month and she's worth taking care of."
+
+"She certainly is, Bates," replied the Colonel, "and you must keep a
+sharp lookout. Look to her each day. But, upon my word, I think she's
+also worth giving a good time to. Give her her head, and I don't think
+she will ever disappoint us. Thank goodness, there are no traps or
+poison about here, or none that I ever heard of."
+
+"No, it's not that, sir," persisted the kennelman; "but Desdemona she's
+good enough to win in the best company, and to mother winners, too. And
+you know, sir, if a dog's to do hisself justice on the bench, you can't
+let him go skirmishing around the country like a gipsy's lurcher. It
+sorter roughs 'em somehow. The judges don't like it, and the Fancy
+don't, neither, sir. Look at the chalk an' that on her coat this
+morning, sir."
+
+"Ah well," said the Colonel, with a little laugh, "we never have bred
+for the judges, Bates; nor yet for the Fancy, either; and if they can't
+recognize the merits of a bitch like that because she's been living a
+natural, happy sort of life, instead of a cage-life--why, then, that's
+their loss, not ours, and we must chance it."
+
+And so the kennelman shrugged his shoulders and the Lady Desdemona
+continued to enjoy life, the new and wider life to which she was being
+introduced by that hardened wanderer and past-master in the lore of the
+wild--Finn.
+
+It may be that Colonel Forde himself was more than a little worried
+about it when, a week later, the young bloodhound disappeared one
+afternoon and did not show up again next day. There had been further
+communications with the house of the redoubtable champion Windle
+Hercules in Hampshire. The Lady Desdemona's line of travel had been
+chosen. Bates was to escort her on the nuptial journey, and all
+arrangements for the wedding of the distinguished pair had been
+completed. And now--"Just as if she mighter bin any tramp's cur," as
+Bates feelingly put it--Desdemona had elected to stay away and to remain
+away. And the news from Nuthill showed that--"That there plaguy great
+wolfhound" was also on the missing list.
+
+On the fourth day of absence, all search having proved unsuccessful, the
+police were notified. Then, bright and early on the morning of the fifth
+day, the Lady Desdemona walked quietly up to the kitchen door at Shaws,
+followed leisurely by Finn, who, after seeing his mate welcomed with
+some enthusiasm by the cook and several members of her excited staff,
+turned about and loped easily away in the direction of Nuthill.
+
+But to the experts concerned it speedily became apparent that the
+alliance with Champion Windle Hercules must be indefinitely postponed.
+Lady Desdemona would have none of him. It seemed she knew her own mind
+very well, was perfectly calm and content, but quite determined in her
+opposition to any hint of matrimonial _pourparlers_ with the admitted
+champion of her race. Bates the kennelman pished and tushed, and thought
+he knew all about it. The Master felt pretty sure he knew all about it.
+The Colonel just smiled and said that Desdemona was young yet, and that,
+for his part, he always had thought two years a better marrying age than
+eighteen months.
+
+Meantime, you could not have found a more placidly happy and contented
+hound in England than the Lady Desdemona; and there were very few days
+on which she did not meet Finn, either at Nuthill or at Shaws.
+
+The beautiful early summer weeks slid by, and the young bloodhound grew
+more sedate and less given to violent exercise. And then Bates succeeded
+in persuading the Colonel into allowing him to kennel the Lady
+Desdemona. It is true the kennel given her was pretty nearly the size of
+a horse's loose box, and had a little covered outside yard of its own.
+But it was a kennel, and securely inclosed. Despite the watchfulness of
+Bates, Finn the wolfhound came nuzzling round its sides fairly often in
+search of the prisoner.
+
+After four days of confinement the bitch was released by Colonel Forde's
+orders. For two days she had taken no food; and as she obviously fretted
+when Finn was kept away from her, the wolfhound was allowed to come and
+go at Shaws as he chose, and as he did at Nuthill.
+
+Thus a week passed, and it was seen that the Lady Desdemona grew
+restless and uneasy.
+
+"Take my advice and leave them severely alone," said the Master. "Finn
+will go his own way whether we like it or not. He's too old a hand to be
+cajoled, and I've sworn I'll never coerce him. The bitch will be better
+left to go her own way. She's got a good mate."
+
+Bates sighed, but the Colonel agreed; and very little was said about it
+when, a few days later, Desdemona passed out beyond the ken of her
+friends at Shaws and Nuthill, and for the time was seen no more.
+
+What did rather surprise the Master, however, was that after an absence
+of a few hours, on the day of Desdemona's disappearance, Finn turned up
+as usual in the evening at Nuthill, and spent the night on his own bed.
+This fact did strike the Master as odd when he heard that nothing had
+been seen at Shaws of the bloodhound.
+
+"Evidently, then, Finn has nothing to do with her disappearance," said
+Colonel Forde next day.
+
+"Ah!" replied the Master, musingly. "I wonder!" And he thoughtfully
+pulled Finn's ears, as though he thought this might extract information
+regarding the whereabouts of Desdemona. But Finn, as his way was, said
+nothing. He maintained in this matter a policy of masterly reserve.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+HOW DESDEMONA FOUND HER NEST
+
+
+It would, of course, be highly interesting if one were able to map out
+precisely the effect produced in Desdemona's mind by the influence of
+Finn the wolfhound. One would very much like to trace the mental
+process; to know exactly how much and in what manner the influence of
+the wolfhound, with his experiences of life among the wild kindred of
+Australia, affected the development of the highly domesticated, the
+thoroughly sophisticated, young bloodhound. This one cannot pretend to
+do. But, as it happens, one is able faithfully to record the Lady
+Desdemona's actions and experiences; and from that record, in the light
+of her previous intercourse with the Irish wolfhound, one is free to
+draw one's own conclusions as to motives and inspirations.
+
+During the course of their various absences from Shaws and Nuthill, Finn
+and the Lady Desdemona very thoroughly scoured the South Downs within a
+radius of a dozen miles from home. In the beginning of their longest
+jaunt, which kept the pair of them five days away, Desdemona made a
+discovery that greatly interested both of them.
+
+It happened that Finn ran down and killed a rabbit, rather, perhaps,
+from lightness of heart, or by way of displaying his powers to
+Desdemona, than from any desire for food. And so it fell out that,
+having slain the bunny, the hunter and his mate proceeded to amuse
+themselves in the vicinity, leaving the rabbit lying where it had
+received its _coup de grace_, at the foot of a stunted, wind-twisted
+thorn-bush.
+
+It might have been an hour later when (with appetites whetted, no doubt,
+by exercise in the finest air to be found in southern England) Finn and
+Desdemona forsook their play and made for the thorn-bush, with a view to
+a cold rabbit supper. But a glance at the spot showed that the very
+thoroughly killed rabbit was no longer there. Finn's eyes blazed for a
+moment with the sort of masterful wrath he had not shown since his
+dingo-leading days in the Tinnaburra. Desdemona noticed this exhibition
+of lordly anger and thought it rather fine. But, being female, she was
+more practical than Finn; and being a bloodhound, she had a sense of
+smell by comparison with which Finn's scenting powers were as naught--a
+mere gap in his equipment; and this despite the fact that the training
+his wild life had given him in this respect placed him far ahead of the
+average wolfhound. But by comparison with bloodhounds, the fleet dogs
+who hunt by sight and speed--deerhounds, greyhounds, Irish wolfhounds
+and the like--have very little sense of smell.
+
+Now the Lady Desdemona, having no experience of wild life, did not know
+in the least what had become of that rabbit. She formed no conclusions
+whatever about it. But obeying one of her strongest instincts, she
+picked up a trail leading in the direction opposite to that from which
+Finn had overtaken the bunny, and, with one glance of encouragement over
+her shoulder at Finn, began to follow this up at a loping trot. As she
+ran, her delicate, golden-colored flews skimmed the ground; her
+sensitive nostrils questioned almost every blade of grass, her brain
+automatically registering every particle of information so obtained, and
+guiding her feet accordingly. Her strong tail waved above and behind her
+in the curve of an Arab scimitar. She ceased to be the Lady Desdemona
+and became simply a bloodhound at work; an epitome of the whole complex
+science of tracking. Finn trotted admiringly beside her, his muzzle
+never passing her shoulder; and now and again when he happened to lower
+his head from its accustomed three-foot level, his nostrils caught a
+whiff or two of something reminiscent of long-past hunting excursions
+when he was barely out of puppyhood.
+
+The dog-folk are not greatly given to discussion. It was obvious that
+Desdemona had some purpose earnestly in view. (As a fact, she herself
+did not as yet know what that purpose was.) And that was enough for
+Finn. The bloodhound's pace was slow, and Finn could have kept up this
+sort of traveling for a dozen hours on end without really exerting
+himself.
+
+But this was not to be a long trail as the event proved, though it was
+mostly up-hill. Before a mile and a half had been covered Desdemona
+began to show excitement and emitted a single deep bay, mellow as the
+note of an organ. Finn remarked her fine voice with sincere approval.
+Like all hounds, he detested a sharp, high, or yapping cry. A few
+seconds later Desdemona came to a standstill beside the stem of a
+starveling yew-tree, and just below the crest of the Down. Her muzzle
+was thrust into an opening in the steep side of the Down, over which
+there hung a thatch of furze. But though her head entered the opening,
+her shoulders could not pass it and there was wrath and excitement in
+the belling note she struck as she drew back.
+
+This was Finn's opportunity and, stepping forward, he attacked the
+overhanging furze and stony chalky earth with both his powerful fore
+feet. He had winded now a scent that roused him; and what is more, he
+remembered precisely what that twangy, acrid scent betokened. The chalky
+earth flew from under his great paws faster than two men could have
+shifted it with mattocks; and, as the shelving crust was thin, it took
+him no more than one or two minutes to make an opening through which
+even his great bulk could pass with a little stooping.
+
+Another moment and Desdemona had forced her way past Finn, baying
+hoarsely, and was inside the cave. There followed a yowling, snarling
+cry, a scuffling sound, and a big red fox emerged, low to the ground
+like a cat, his brush between his legs, fight in his bared jaws, and
+flight in his red rolling eyes. But fate had knocked at Reynard's door,
+and would not be denied. His running did not carry him far. It is
+probably somewhat disturbing to be rooted out of one's own particular
+sanctuary by a baying bloodhound. But it is worse to find at one's front
+door a vision of vengeance and destruction in the shape of a giant Irish
+wolfhound whose kill one has purloined.
+
+In Finn's salad days it might have meant a fight. As things were, it was
+rather an execution; and though the fox died snapping, his neck was
+broken before he had decided upon his line of action. As Finn flung the
+furry corpse aside, Desdemona appeared in the mouth of the cave with
+most of the stolen rabbit between her jaws. It was noteworthy that she
+gave no heed at all to the fox. Her business as a tracker had been with
+her mate's stolen kill. In the absence of Finn, Reynard would have paid
+no other penalty for his theft than the loss of the rabbit. As it was,
+the incident cost him his life; and he was a master fox, too, who had
+ranged that countryside with considerable insolence for some years; a
+terribly familiar foe in a number of neighboring farm-yards.
+
+Neither Finn nor Desdemona ate the remains of that rabbit. For one
+thing, they were not yet really hungry, and for another thing they did
+not relish the musky tang left by Reynard's jaws. Apart from this (and
+despite its strong scent) they were both keenly interested in the cave
+which had been Reynard's home; especially Desdemona.
+
+It seemed the bloodhound would never tire of investigating the cave,
+once she had satisfied herself as to Finn fully understanding that she
+alone, unaided, and with most complete success, had tracked down and
+retrieved the stolen rabbit. This fact had to be clearly appreciated
+before Desdemona could bring herself to lay aside the mangled rabbit.
+Then she invited Finn's attention to the interior of the cave. Together
+they explored its resources till Finn felt almost nauseated by the smell
+of fox which filled the place. But Desdemona, with her far more delicate
+sense of smell, seemed quite unaffected by this. To and fro she padded,
+closely examining every inch of the place, and dragging out into the
+open scores of bones and other oddments which told of its long
+occupancy.
+
+It really was a rather fascinating lair, despite its musky smell; and
+its position was superb. Being on a southern slope, and just below the
+crest of the highest point of Downs thereabouts, one plainly saw the
+sparkle of sunlight on the waters of the Channel from the mouth of this
+cave. On the other hand, an obliging cup-shaped hollow of the Downs,
+some hundred yards away to the west, gave one a vista of Sussex
+farm-lands extending over scores of miles; a view that many a caveless
+millionaire would give a fortune to secure for his home.
+
+Again, the extreme steepness of the particular little spur, or swelling
+of the Downs, in which this cave had been formed, made it highly
+improbable that the feet of man would ever come that way. The
+surrounding turf had doubtless known the sharp little feet of many
+hundreds of generations of sheep; but it had never known the plow. It
+was the same unbroken turf which our early British ancestors knew in
+these parts, and had remained unscathed by any such trifling happenings
+as the Roman invasion, the Fire of London, the Wars of the Roses, or the
+advent of Mr. Lloyd George. The very cave itself may easily have been
+older than Westminster Abbey; and if there is a lord in the land whose
+ancestral hall can boast a longer record of un-"restored" antiquity, he
+may fairly claim that his forebears built most superlatively well.
+
+At all events, the place appealed most strongly to the Lady Desdemona,
+and since her heart seemed set upon it, Finn cheerfully endeavored to
+forget the foxy smell, busied himself in securing a fresh, rabbit for
+supper, and generally behaved as a good mate should in the matter of
+helping to make a new home. And that is the plain truth in the matter of
+how Desdemona found her nest.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+DESDEMONA FORGETS HER MANNERS
+
+
+It has been recorded that, as the weeks slipped by after Desdemona's
+first little term of absence from her home at Shaws, she grew daily more
+sedate in her manner and less given to the irresponsible activities of
+hound youth.
+
+It was also noticed that she developed a habit of carrying off all her
+best bones, or other solid comestibles, instead of despatching them
+beside her dish as her sophisticated habit had always been. What was not
+known, even to the astute Bates, was that the most of such eatables were
+laboriously carried over close upon four miles of downland by the Lady
+Desdemona, for ultimate storage in her cave, where, a little
+reluctantly, she devoured some of them and stowed away others to be more
+or less devoured by insects, and, it may be, by prowling stoats and
+other vermin, during the bloodhound's periods of residence in her own
+proper home.
+
+Finn accompanied his mate, as a matter of course, upon most of her
+pilgrimages to the cave. But, somewhat to his chagrin, he found, as time
+went on, that Desdemona became less and less keen upon his company.
+Latterly, in fact, she came as near as so courtly a creature could to
+sending him about his business flatly, and she formed a habit of lying
+across the mouth of her cave in a manner which certainly suggested that
+she grudged Finn entry to the old place--a thing which ruffled him more
+than he cared to admit.
+
+As a matter of fact, the Lady Desdemona had not the faintest idea why
+she should adopt this tone and manner toward her mate. She admired Finn
+as much as ever; she liked him well, and had no shadow of a reason for
+mistrusting him. But she had her own weird to dree; and inherited
+memories and instincts far stronger than any wish or inclination of her
+daily life, were just now dominating her utterly.
+
+She was full of a vague anxiousness; a sense of impending difficulties;
+a blind but undeniable determination to be forearmed against she knew
+not what dangers and needs. And among other things, other vague
+instincts the which she must obey with or without understanding, there
+was the desire to store up food, and to preserve intact her sole command
+of the privacy of her cave. If Finn had been human, he would have
+shrugged his shoulders, and in private given vent to generalizations
+regarding the inscrutability of females. As it was, he very likely
+shrugged his great gray shoulders, but went his way without remark.
+
+Then came the day upon which Desdemona disappeared from Shaws, and Finn,
+to the Master's surprise, slept in his own proper bed at Nuthill.
+
+The fact was he had parted with Desdemona that evening under rather
+painful circumstances. In the early evening he had journeyed with her to
+the cave--she carrying a large mutton-bone which she made no pretense of
+offering to share with her mate--and her attitude throughout had been
+one of really unaccountable chilliness and reserve. They had drunk
+together--the cold nectar of a prehistoric dew-pond that lay within a
+hundred yards of the cave--and Desdemona had turned away curtly and
+hurried back to the cave, with never a lick or a look in Finn's
+direction, as though she feared he might take the place away in his
+teeth. Finn had noticed that she moved wearily, as though action taxed
+her strength; yet he thought her unaccountably ready to walk away from
+him.
+
+He ran down a rabbit for his mate, and deposited it before her at the
+cave's mouth in the most friendly manner. Then, before he could get time
+to tear the pelt off for her, the Lady Desdemona, with a snappishness
+more suggestive of a hedge-side cur than of a hound of her rank,
+actually snatched away the rabbit, and with never a "Thank you," or a
+"By your leave," carried it right inside the cave, dropping it there and
+returning to bar the entrance, with a look in her red-hawed eyes and a
+lift of her golden flews which, if not actual snarling, was, as folks
+say, near enough to make no difference. At least it very plainly told
+Finn he was not wanted there; and the limits of his punctilious courtesy
+having now been passed, he had turned away without look or sound and
+descended the Down in high dudgeon.
+
+It was clear to Finn that his mate needed a lesson in manners, and so,
+moodily, he stalked away and went hungry to bed like the illogical male
+creature he was, vaguely surmising that in his discomfort there must be
+something of retribution for Desdemona. Had he but known it, he had a
+long line of human precedents in the matter of this particular piece of
+foolishness, even to the detail of the untasted dinner-dish which he
+left in the back porch when he went to bed at Nuthill.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+FINN IS ENLIGHTENED
+
+
+Next morning courtesy demanded that Finn should accept Betty Murdoch's
+invitation to accompany her on a rather long walk. She had bills to pay
+and calls to make in the village. Finn went, of course, stalking
+silently beside pretty, cheery Betty. But he made a poor companion, and
+Betty even told the Master at luncheon that she thought Finn was not
+very well, so dull and uninterested in anything he had appeared all the
+morning.
+
+"H'm! I suspect he misses Lady Desdemona," said the Master. "Puzzling
+thing, that. I can't make out why they're not together."
+
+The fact was, Finn found the nursing of his offended dignity a wearisome
+task. It was all very well to rebuke Desdemona by ignoring her
+existence; but could he be quite sure that she noticed his absence or
+cared about it? And in any case, whether or not it affected her, it
+certainly bored him very much. He missed greatly the companionship of
+his mate, and not a bit the less because she had been so rude to him the
+day before.
+
+The upshot of it was that, after disposing of a good portion of the
+dinner placed in his big dish at six o'clock that evening (in the little
+courtyard in which he had once held a tramp bailed up all night), he
+picked up the large, succulent, and still decently covered knuckle-bone
+designed for his dessert, and, carrying this in his mouth, set out for
+the cave on the Downs. He probably had some small twinges of misgiving,
+but endeavored to dismiss these by assuring himself that poor Desdemona
+was no doubt very sorry for her ill-temper of the previous day; that she
+doubtless was feeling his protracted absence keenly, and that it would
+be only courteous and fair now to let bygones be bygones, and present
+her with a really choice knuckle-bone by way of proving his forgiveness.
+
+This was more or less the way in which the wolfhound's mind worked as he
+ambled over the Downs that evening with his big knuckle-bone. (The cook
+at Nuthill was one of Finn's most devoted admirers. In addition to the
+appetizing golden-brown skin that coated it, this bone carried quite a
+good deal of the short, dark-colored sort of meat which, though devoid
+of juice, makes very agreeable eating, and lends itself well to canine
+mastication.) And in view of this attitude of mind of his, Finn was
+rather grievously disappointed by the result of his visit.
+
+He found the Lady Desdemona uneasily prowling back and forth, and in and
+out of the entrance to her cave. She perfunctorily touched Finn's nose
+with her own (rather rough and hot) muzzle in greeting and, accepting
+the knuckle-bone with somewhat unmannerly eagerness, carried it at once
+to the rear of the cave. But when Finn made to follow her she returned
+nervously to the mouth of the cave and stood there, blocking the
+entrance. Most strangely stiff, preoccupied, and ill-at-ease, Finn
+thought her.
+
+"Glad to see you, and all that," her manner suggested; "but I don't much
+think you'd better stay. I'm--er--busy, and--er--don't let me detain you
+here."
+
+That was the suggestion conveyed; and Finn would have been the more
+angered about it, but for a vague feeling he had which he could in no
+way account for--a sort of yearning desire to help his mate and do
+something for her.
+
+"She certainly doesn't seem to want me," he thought. And he tried to
+brace himself by means of resentful recollection of the eager way she
+had taken the bone he brought her. But much as he would have preferred
+to sniff, look coldly down his muzzle, and walk off, he found himself
+licking one of Desdemona's heavily pendulous ears in quite a humble and
+solicitous manner. It was really rather annoying.
+
+She jerked herself nervously away from him, with no more of deference
+than she might have shown some too effusive and presumptuous puppy. And
+yet, and yet the great wolfhound's bowels yearned in kindliness toward
+this ungracious bloodhound mate of his; and when he did finally accept
+her numerous hints and take his leave, it was with no thought of
+resentment in his mind, but, on the contrary, with many a backward
+glance over his wire-coated shoulder, and several low whines of farewell
+from deep down in his throat. Altogether the evening, like the day
+preceding it, was a depressing one for Finn, and he was not sorry when
+the time came to stretch his great length upon his bed by the door of
+the Master's room and sleep.
+
+But when morning arrived Finn surprised his friend the cook by not
+waiting for his customary dish of milk. Directly the back door was
+opened he slipped out into the sweet, early sunshine of that fragrant
+neighborhood, and was off at a good loping gait for the Downs. (It was a
+thousand pities he could not have carried his milk with him as a morning
+draught for Desdemona.)
+
+There was no sign of the bloodhound near the mouth of the cave when Finn
+breasted the steep rise it faced. But as he drew nearer there came
+sounds from out the cave which, while altogether bewildering in
+themselves, did at least indicate Desdemona's presence there. The first
+sound to reach him was a hoarse and threatening growl, a quite
+unmistakably minatory growl, from the throat of his own mate as she got
+her first wind of his, Finn's, approach to the cave he had helped to
+make a home. Finn paused for a moment, head raised and ears cocked, to
+consider this truly remarkable manifestation. And as he listened, there
+issued from the den other small sounds of a totally different kind:
+mild, twittering little bleatings; several voices, each weak and thin,
+and in some subtle way most curiously appealing to the wolfhound.
+
+Then, in one flash of memory and reason, came vivid understanding of the
+whole business; as usual, in the form of a picture, Finn saw again, from
+that sun-washed English hill-side, the gaunt, bald foothills around
+Mount Desolation. He saw the heat shimmering above the scorched rocks on
+which he slew Lupus in open fight, and witnessed the terrible
+disintegration of that fighter's redoubtable sire, Tasman, under the
+foaming jaws and flashing feet of his own dingo mate, Warrigal. But the
+picture did not show Finn any fighting. It showed himself, at the den's
+mouth, gazing in upon Warrigal, and Warrigal's curved flank supporting a
+little bunch of wolfhound-dingo pups, helpless, blind, new-born, and
+cheeping thinly like caged birds. Again came the sound of the small
+bleatings from the cave on the South Downs. The Australian picture faded
+out from Finn's excited mind, its task accomplished. He knew now; and
+into the gentle whining which escaped his throat as he stepped forward
+to the cave's entrance Finn introduced a note of reassurance and
+soothing understanding which even human ears would have comprehended and
+been satisfied by.
+
+"All right, my mate," said Finn's gentle whining. "I know, I know. I'll
+be very careful."
+
+And then came Desdemona's answer as Finn's great bulk blocked the
+entrance. This time her voice struck a note quite new to her. She
+understood now that Finn understood; she knew she was not to be called
+upon to shield that which she cherished in the cave there from immediate
+peril. There was rest and thankfulness in Desdemona's voice now; but
+withal, as Finn entered, there was more.
+
+"Oh, please be very careful! Be very careful!" said her whine, as her
+swimming eyes, with their deep-pouched crimson haws, looked up at Finn.
+It would have been hard for Desdemona if she had been obliged now to
+take the defensive, for Finn found the beautiful bitch most utterly
+exhausted. But, as he well knew, it had gone hardly too with the man or
+beast who should have forced the Lady Desdemona to her defense. Weak and
+exhausted though she clearly was, the mother-passion looked out from her
+brimming eyes, and the call of need would have found her a living flame
+for valor, a most deadly force in a fight.
+
+"All right! All right! Don't stir, my mate," said Finn's low whine. And
+then he entered the cave and gazed down upon the miracle the night had
+brought. Five sleek-sided puppies nestled in a row within the Lady
+Desdemona's carefully curved flank. They were so new to the world as to
+be no more than a few hours' old; they were blind and helpless as
+stranded jellyfish. But they were vigorously breakfasting, none the
+less; and as Finn gazed down upon them from his three-foot height, their
+mother proceeded to wash and groom their fat bodies for the twentieth
+time that morning, interrupting herself from time to time to glance
+proudly up into her mate's face, as who should say: "See what I have
+given you! Now you understand. These, my lord, are princes of your royal
+blood and mine."
+
+Neither she nor Finn could realize, of course, just why these children
+of their union--their lamentable _mesalliance_, as the fanciers would
+have said--were the first of their kind the world had ever seen: the
+offspring of an Irish wolfhound champion and a daughter of generations
+of bloodhound champions. But to Desdemona it was clear enough that a
+miracle unique in history had occurred; and as for Finn, he looked and
+looked, and his bowels yearned over the group at his feet even more
+mightily than over Desdemona, his mate, on the previous evening.
+
+Here certainly was food for wonder and astonishment. Two dog people had
+met outside this lonely cave the night before; and here there were
+seven. The new-comers were, with one exception, black and golden-brown
+in color, like their mother; yet their short coats were sensibly
+different from hers in texture. The exception was black as to his saddle
+and head, but iron-gray for the rest, a blend one sometimes sees in
+other hounds. And Finn noticed that this exception was somewhat larger
+than either of his four brothers and sisters. (Two of them were
+brothers, and two sisters; the black-and-gray fellow was a brother.)
+
+Finn gently licked the round back of one of the pups. A moment before
+Desdemona's tongue had crossed the same fat back. Yet its blind little
+owner whimpered instant complaint at the very gentle touch of Finn's
+tongue.
+
+"Be very careful!" whined the mother.
+
+So Finn turned to the bigger pup, the black-and-gray, and licked him
+carefully. There was no sign of a whimper from this sturdy chap. On the
+contrary, he wriggled over on his round back and presented his equally
+round, gray belly for the same treatment. So Finn gravely licked his
+largest son all over in the approved maternal fashion, while Desdemona
+looked on with a quaint mixture of expressions in her pain-drawn eyes.
+The mixture was of pride and jealousy, approval and solicitude,
+motherhood and matehood--quite a curious little study in expression.
+
+And then came an odd, rather touching little incident. Using infinite
+care to avoid disturbing or unsettling her full-fed little ones, the
+bloodhound mother slowly, gently, and with much effort, raised her
+aching body from the ground and stood a moment tremulously resting. Then
+she nudged Finn with her nose, and gently, but quickly, nervously, edged
+him out to the mouth of the cave. There the appeal of her liquid eyes,
+no less than the meaning little whine which escaped her, said, plainly:
+
+"Don't go inside! Stay there, on guard!"
+
+And with a rush (despite her pain-racked state) Desdemona ran down the
+slope in obedience to an imperative natural call. A few seconds later
+and she stood drinking eagerly, quickly, beside the dew-pond. But for
+all her haste and her parched throat and aching body, the mother bitch
+was careful not to wet her coat, since that might have made their bed
+chilly for the pups. Returning hotfoot, she found Finn immovable beside
+the mouth of the cave, a formidable sentry.
+
+But while yet distant some ten or twelve yards, Desdemona heard a
+whimper from within-sides (doubtless a pup had turned over on its back
+and forgotten how to roll round again); and accordingly her weary limbs
+must lift her up the steep slope almost at a bound, leaving her no time
+for thanks to Finn, and care for nothing but her little ones.
+
+To see her lower herself again to make of her aching body a nest and
+bulwark for the pups was to see a really beautiful study of animal
+motherhood. The deep wrinkles of her long forehead were all twisted from
+the pains of the night; but not by one hair's-breadth did she
+miscalculate the place for her descent to earth, or the nice disposition
+of her body to secure the maximum of comfort and shelter for her brood.
+
+If her mate looked for any companionable attention now, he looked in
+vain. Each of the five young ones must be scrupulously washed and
+groomed once more to make up for the neglect of the past few minutes.
+And by that time they were greedily pounding at her dugs for another
+meal. However, Finn understood now; and as sentry he spent the rest of
+the forenoon by the cave.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE LONE MOTHER
+
+
+Through many, many generations past the forebears of the Lady Desdemona
+had been wont at all such crises in their lives as she was now
+experiencing to receive the closest and most unremitting human care and
+supervision. In the Shaws breeding-kennels, for example, there would
+always be at such times an abundance of fresh warm milk, clean, warm
+bedding for the new arrivals and their mother, and every other sort of
+comfort and attention which men-folk have devised for the benefit of the
+aristocrats among dog-folk.
+
+Thus, if the alliance between the Lady Desdemona and the great champion
+of her race, Windle Hercules, had been consummated, a foster-mother
+would have been held in readiness to share the task of nursing her
+family when it came. Two or three pups would have been left with
+Desdemona; the others would have been taught to derive their nutriment
+and nursing from some plebeian little shepherd bitch, specially bereaved
+of her own offspring for this purpose. But in the cave on the Downs, and
+in the aftermath of the runaway match of Finn and Desdemona, no human
+eye saw Desdemona's family, and no human care played any part in its
+rearing. Now, since we are all, in greater or less measure, the product
+of our respective environments, and as for centuries before her time
+Desdemona's ancestors had been accustomed to the fostering care of
+humankind, she and her family must have been profoundly affected by the
+peculiar circumstances of her first maternal experiences.
+
+It did not take long for Finn to realize that his mate attached more
+importance than she ever had before to the food-supply question. It was
+easy to bring her a bone from his own daily supply at Nuthill, though
+that did involve carrying the bone over four or five miles of Downs.
+But, as was natural, Desdemona wanted more than bones. It was not for
+nothing that five little mouths (armed with teeth like pin-points)
+tugged and pounded at her dugs by day and by night. Whenever Finn
+thought of it, he would run down and kill a rabbit for his mate, and for
+these the bloodhound was duly grateful. But dogs do not discuss such
+needs. Finn himself was well fed each day at Nuthill, as a matter of
+course. Frequently though he visited the down-ridge cave, he did not
+live there, and being still attached to a regular man-made home, he
+never adopted any set hunting routine, any more than he reverted to any
+other among the habits of wild life. He did not reason with himself
+regarding Desdemona's position or needs. When he thought of it, he gave
+her food; but these thoughts of his were, quite naturally, less frequent
+than the recurrence of Desdemona's conscious needs, underlined and
+emphasized as these were by the tireless assertiveness of her five
+children.
+
+One result was that, within three days of the arrival of the puppies,
+Desdemona was doing a certain amount of hunting on her own account,
+especially in the seasons of twilight, both morning and evening. In her
+movements she was, of course, infinitely slower than her wolfhound mate.
+He could easily have run circles round her when she was traveling at her
+fastest. Her sense of smell and tracking ability were immeasurably ahead
+of Finn's powers in these directions, and in some countries this would
+have stood her in good stead. It was no very great help to her, however,
+in rabbit-hunting; and many a long and patient tracking ended for
+Desdemona in nothing more nutritious than a view of her intended quarry
+disappearing into the security of its earth or burrow while the hungry
+hunter was still twenty paces distant. Then, perforce, poor Desdemona
+would hurry back to her nursing, hungry as when she left it.
+
+If Finn should arrive with food on such an evening or morning, so much
+the better. If not--well, Desdemona gave herself utterly to her puppies.
+There was no thought of grievance or complaint in her mind, but only the
+earnest endeavor to satisfy, so far as she was able, all the calls of
+her little blind tyrants. Her will to succeed as a mother was at least
+equal to that which any creature of the wild could have known. But her
+powers of contrivance, her cunning, endurance, and, in short, her
+command of success, in conditions approximating to those of motherhood
+in lined and emphasized as these were by the tireless assertiveness of
+her five children.
+
+One result was that, within three days of the arrival of the puppies,
+Desdemona was doing a certain amount of hunting on her own account,
+especially in the seasons of twilight, both morning and evening. In her
+movements she was, of course, infinitely slower than her wolfhound mate.
+He could easily have run circles round her when she was traveling at her
+fastest. Her sense of smell and tracking ability were immeasurably ahead
+of Finn's powers in these directions, and in some countries this would
+have stood her in good stead. It was no very great help to her, however,
+in rabbit-hunting; and many a long and patient tracking ended for
+Desdemona in nothing more nutritious than a view of her intended quarry
+disappearing into the security of its earth or burrow while the hungry
+hunter was still twenty paces distant. Then, perforce, poor Desdemona
+would hurry back to her nursing, hungry as when she left it.
+
+If Finn should arrive with food on such an evening or morning, so much
+the better. If not--well, Desdemona gave herself utterly to her puppies.
+There was no thought of grievance or complaint in her mind, but only the
+earnest endeavor to satisfy, so far as she was able, all the calls of
+her little blind tyrants. Her will to succeed as a mother was at least
+equal to that which any creature of the wild could have known. But her
+powers of contrivance, her cunning, endurance, and, in short, her
+command of success, in conditions approximating to those of motherhood
+in the wild, were necessarily not equal to those of wild-born folk.
+
+For the first time in her life the Lady Desdemona was now living hardly,
+but it must not be supposed that this meant unhappiness for her. That
+would be far from the truth. The modern hound's sophisticated ancestry
+is almost as ancient as that of men-folk; but withal he remains very
+much nearer in every way to the life of the wild, and can revert to it
+with far more ease. There are penalties attaching to the process,
+however, and even at the time her puppies were born the Lady Desdemona
+had grown noticeably less sleek than her habit had been at Shaws; just
+as even a few days of unsheltered life in the woods--nay, even
+twenty-four hours without a bedroom--will make a man or woman notably
+less sleek.
+
+The fact was that, upon her present diet, at all events, the young
+bloodhound was not quite equal to the task of nourishing five puppies.
+No doubt Nature--whose wisdom so often is mistaken for ruthlessness by
+pessimistically inclined observers of the surfaces of things--had a
+watchful eye upon Desdemona in her cave.
+
+On the morning of the fifth day of the puppies' lives Desdemona was out
+and about before the sun, and her hunting took her somewhat far afield.
+While she hunted--doubtless introducing fear into several rabbit earths,
+and tragedy into one--Destiny came knocking at the door of her own cave,
+and left his sign manual there in letters of blood. On her homeward way,
+the half of a young rabbit gripped between her jaws, Desdemona suddenly
+picked up a fresh trail close to the cave. In the same instant the
+half-rabbit fell from her parted jaws and her nose went to earth, while
+premonition of disaster smote at her heart and all the channeled lines
+of her forehead deepened.
+
+A few urgent bounds carried her to the mouth of the cave. Two more
+steps, and the events of the last half-hour lay plain before her eyes.
+Two of her puppies lay dead, and in the throat of one of them there
+still were fastened the teeth of their slayer: a full-grown,
+tawny-coated stoat. The blood-drinking stoat was of no greater length
+than one of Desdemona's low-hanging ears, yet without the smallest
+flicker of hesitation the terrible little beast wheeled about to attack
+the bereaved mother of his quarry. With bared fangs--flecked now with
+blood--the stoat crouched, breathing quite fearless defiance.
+
+For the moment Desdemona gave no thought to the stoat, but lowered her
+massive head to the inspection of the dead puppy which lay nearest. In
+that moment the fearless stoat saw his chance. Brave though he was--and
+no creature is more brave--the stoat did not court death; and so, like a
+yellow snake, he slid out of the cave and down the steep slope beyond.
+But, being fearless, he halted when he came to the remains of
+Desdemona's rabbit. Fresh-killed meat was something he could not pass,
+even though the investigation should cost him his life.
+
+In the cave, a very few seconds showed Desdemona that two of her pups
+were dead. A frantically hurried licking sufficed to assure her that the
+remaining three were unhurt. And then, the fire of judgment in her
+red-brown eyes, she swept out from the cave on the trail of her enemy.
+In three bounds she reached the stoat, who was perfectly prepared now to
+fight an elephant for possession of the half-rabbit he had found. The
+tiny creature did, as a fact, draw blood, with one slashing bite, from
+Desdemona's muzzle. And then he died (snarling defiance), his spine
+smashed through in two places between the bloodhound's powerful jaws.
+
+Without a moment's pause, after completing this act of vengeance,
+Desdemona hurried back to her young. With a fine effort of will she
+ignored the two corpses and settled herself down, as though thoroughly
+at ease in mind and body, to the task of suckling her three remaining
+youngsters. It is worth noting that, whereas a tithe of the strain and
+shock she had sustained during the past hour would have made worse than
+useless the ministrations of a human nursing mother, there was no fault
+in the quality of this particular meal taken by the puppies, nor any
+momentary imperfection about the manner in which it was made available
+to them, or the way in which they were washed and groomed after it, and
+disposed for their nap.
+
+That Desdemona was none the less acutely conscious of her bereavement is
+proved by the fact that, so soon as her three full-fed pups were asleep,
+she rose very deftly and carefully, and drew out to the mouth of the
+cave the body of the puppy at whose throat she had found the stoat.
+Depositing the limp little body upon the chalky ledge before the cave,
+Desdemona regarded it mournfully, sitting on her haunches the while, her
+muzzle pointing earthward, her splendid brow deeply wrinkled--a true
+bloodhound.
+
+After a few minutes given to sad contemplation she went inside again,
+and carried out the other little corpse, laying it near by its fellow
+and nosing it sadly, till the two were touching. There was another
+interval of melancholy contemplation. And then, suddenly lifting her
+muzzle heavenward, so that its deep flews swayed in the breeze,
+Desdemona broke into vocal mourning, in a long, deep, baying howl; a
+less eerie sound, perhaps, than the siren-like howl of an Irish
+wolfhound in distress, yet withal, in its different, deeper, more
+resonant way, a cry quite equally impressive.
+
+It was at this employ that Finn found his mate when he arrived at the
+cave that morning from Nuthill. For some moments Finn also gazed down at
+the victims, pondering over their immobility and his mate's mournful
+cries. Then, very tenderly at first, he nuzzled the dead puppies. That
+process flashed a picture into his mind, and he saw again Warrigal's
+dead children in the Mount Desolation cave. So he understood. His head
+moved now far more vigorously, almost roughly, indeed, as he pushed the
+little bodies forward with his nose, thrusting them out upon the turf,
+so that they rolled, one over the other, down the steep part of the
+slope.
+
+Then Finn turned to his mate and affectionately licked her low-hanging
+ears, flews, and dewlap. It was perfectly obvious that he understood her
+grief and sought to assuage it. Finding that she paid no heed to him,
+Finn turned from her gravely and walked within to where the three
+remaining pups lay. Carefully he licked the big black-and-gray dog pup.
+Still Desdemona remained outside. So Finn proceeded to lick one of the
+other pups, the weakling of the group. This produced at once a faint
+whimpering from the puppy, and that brought her mother quickly to her
+side. Standing aside now, Finn watched the bloodhound settle herself
+down to the task of nursing. Contented then, he walked to the mouth of
+the cave and lay down there, gazing out reflectively across the green
+ridge to the far-off Sussex weald.
+
+It is easy for scientists to affirm that dogs cannot think. Call the
+process what one may, Finn saw and understood his mate's grief. He
+recognized that he could not give her comfort. He knew that if Desdemona
+would not answer to a call from him she would respond immediately to the
+claims of her offspring, and to her offspring he led her. This is what
+actually occurred, and no matter what the theorists may say in their
+learned generalizations, the rest of us are free to draw our own
+conclusions.
+
+What happened was that Finn led his mate from the abandonment of her
+lonely mourning to renewed absorption in her motherly duties. It is true
+enough that nature was at work on Finn's side in this matter, and
+without the wolfhound's aid would presently have achieved the same
+result. But Finn assisted and hastened the process; and is that not as
+much as one can often say of the high task of the physician?
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+FAMILY LIFE--AND DEATH
+
+
+In the very early morning of their ninth day in the world, one of
+Desdemona's three pups died--it was the weakling sister--and the eyes of
+the big black-and-gray dog pup began to open. It seemed he had absorbed
+all the strength of his weakling sister to add to his own, and, as is so
+often the case with the largest pup of a litter, he thrived apace;
+growing almost visibly "like a weed" as the breeders say.
+
+Desdemona paid very little heed to the puppy that died. Had it been a
+human child, skilled nurture would likely have sustained its weakling
+life, possibly for many years. But it was not part of Nature's plan that
+any of the bloodhound mother's energies should be wasted over the
+weakling of her little brood. The race is to the swift in Nature's
+scheme. The black-and-gray pup always secured the most warmth because he
+burrowed forcibly under his brothers and sisters. He secured the lion's
+share of nutriment because he was strong enough to force his way from
+teat to teat, ousting all other comers, till his lusty appetite was
+satisfied. He secured the most of his mother's attention, partly because
+of his ability and will to thrust himself to the fore at all times, and
+partly, it may be, by compelling her prideful admiration.
+
+When Finn found the little dead body he silently nosed and drew it out
+from the cave. Out there on the open turf of the Down Nature would see
+speedily to its sepulture, for Nature employs many grave-diggers and
+suffers no unseemly waste. She works on a huge scale, but only the
+superficial see wastefulness in Nature's plans.
+
+So now Desdemona's family was reduced to two--the big black-and-gray dog
+pup and one black-and-tan bitch pup. The reduction was probably a
+beneficent one for Desdemona, for her flanks were very hollow now. Two
+puppies were quite enough for her to nourish, more especially since one
+of the two already demanded as much nourishment as any two ordinary
+youngsters of his age. The sunken hollows of the Lady Desdemona's sides
+gave extraordinary prominence to her low-hanging and not too well-filled
+dugs. Her shape and general appearance were strangely different from
+those of the sleek and shining young bitch whose beauty had aroused so
+much enthusiasm in the minds of all judges who had seen her at Shaws. An
+uninformed outsider would scarcely have recognized her as the
+satin-coated beauty whose supple grace had so impressed Finn a few
+months back, in the walled inclosure above the stables.
+
+Yet in some ways the Lady Desdemona of the cave was a more admirable
+creature than the beautiful young hound who won so much admiration at
+Shaws. Desdemona had learned more during the past few weeks than in all
+the rest of her life. Sustained effort for others and consistent
+self-sacrifice had set their distinctive seal upon a merely beautiful
+young animal; and now she had elements of grandeur and dignity, of
+fineness and nobility, such as no amount of human care and kindness can
+give even to the handsomest of creatures. She had gone out into the open
+to meet life and deal with it in her own way; she had brought new life
+into the world, and nurtured it with loving devotion and
+self-forgetfulness; she had freely courted some of the severest of
+Nature's tests, and withstood them with credit to herself. So that,
+whatever the show judges might have said or thought, she was a finer,
+better creature to-day than she had ever been at Shaws.
+
+As the days slipped past in that early summer-time, the black-and-gray
+dog pup thrived wonderfully in Desdemona's cave. Having keen sight now
+in addition to the wonderful sense of smell which was his at birth, the
+black-and-gray had become a definite person already. Young though he
+was, he already knew the taste of rabbit's flesh, and would growl
+masterfully at his own mother if she claimed his attention--say, for a
+washing--when he had stolen one of her bones, and was busily engaged in
+gnawing and scraping it with his pin-point teeth. When Finn appeared,
+this masterful youngster would waddle purposely forward, growling at
+times so forcibly as to upset his precarious equilibrium.
+
+Twice he had adventured alone to the cave's mouth, and tumbled headlong
+down the steep slope outside, grunting and growling the while (instead
+of whimpering, as his sister would have done), and threatening the whole
+South Downs with his displeasure. With never a hint of anything to fill
+the place of the much-discussed attribute we call filial instinct in the
+young of human kind, the black-and-gray pup conceived the greatest
+admiration for his father. But it was little he recked of fatherhood and
+he always vigorously challenged Finn's entry to the cave, which he
+regarded as his property and his mother's. Her authority he was, of
+course, obliged to recognize, and, too, he liked her well. But though he
+recognized Desdemona's authority, he disputed it a dozen times a day,
+and made a brave show of resistance every time he was washed.
+
+His little sister was his abject slave, and if in her slow
+peregrinations about the cave she should stumble upon a scrap of
+anything edible, he would promptly roll her over with one of his
+exaggeratedly podgy front paws and snatch the morsel from her without
+the slightest compunction. In the same way he would chase her from teat
+to teat when they both were nursing, and when full-fed himself would
+ruthlessly scratch and tug at his mother's aching flanks from sheer
+boisterous wantonness. At such times he would climb about her hollow
+sides, holding on by his sharp claws, and scratch and chew her huge
+pendulous ears, rarely meeting with any more serious check or rebuke
+than a low, rumbling hint of a maternal growl, which, as a matter of
+fact, alarmed his little sister more than it impressed him. In fact,
+Master Black-and-Gray was a healthily thriving and insolent young cub,
+who enjoyed every minute of his life and gave every promise of growing
+into a big hound--providing he should chance to escape the
+thousand-and-one pitfalls that lay before him, regarding the whole of
+which his ignorance was, of course, complete.
+
+The greatest adventure of his infancy came when he was just twenty-eight
+days old. The time was late afternoon on a warm day. Having thrust his
+sister out from the coolest innermost corner of the cave, the
+black-and-gray pup had curled himself up there, and was sleeping
+soundly, while his sister lay somewhat nearer the opening of the cave.
+Had the weather been less warm, the black-and-gray pup would have used
+his sister as a pillow, a blanket, or a mattress, and in that case the
+adventure might have ended differently. As it was, his dream fancies
+were suddenly dispelled by the coming of a musky, acrid odor that swept
+across his small but sensitive nostrils with much the same effect that a
+sound box on the ear would have upon a sleeping child.
+
+He awoke with a jerk, to see silhouetted against the irregular path of
+sky that was framed by the cave's mouth the figure of a full-grown
+mother fox. This vixen was closely related to the red fox to whom this
+cave had formerly belonged. She had long since learned of Reynard's end,
+of course, and, indeed, had seen his corpse within twenty-four hours of
+the execution. Though frequently moved by curiosity, she had never
+before ventured so near to the cave and would hardly have been there now
+but for the fact that she had seen Desdemona hunting a mile away and
+more. Now she peered in at the cave's mouth, informing herself chiefly
+through her sharp nose regarding its condition and inhabitants.
+
+The black-and-gray pup snarled furiously, and the vixen leaped backward
+on the instant. Reflection made her scornfully ashamed of this movement,
+and she stepped delicately forward again. The smaller pup whimpered
+fearfully, and that was the poor thing's death-knell. The vixen promptly
+broke its neck with one snap of her powerful jaws and dragged the little
+creature out into the sunshine. All this time Master Black-and-Gray had
+been growling fiercely--his entire small body quivering under the strain
+of producing this martial sound. His fat back was pressed hard against
+the rear wall of the cave--partly, perhaps, to give him courage, and
+partly, no doubt, by way of getting a better purchase, so to say, for
+the task of growling, which really required all his small stock of
+strength.
+
+Outside the cave, in the sunshine, the vixen was sniffing and nosing at
+the body of the puppy she had killed. She presented her flank to
+Black-and-Gray's view, and, for herself, could see nothing inside the
+cave now. Black-and-Gray had seen his sister slain. The blood of great
+aristocrats and heroes was in his veins. His wrath was tremendous,
+overwhelming, in fact, and, but for the support of the cave's wall,
+would certainly have been too much for his still uncertain sense of
+balance. Suddenly now his ancestry spoke in this undeveloped creature.
+Determination took and shook him, and spurred him forward. With a sort
+of miniature roar--the merest little mixture of breathless growl, snarl,
+and embryonic bark--he blundered forth from his dark corner, hurtling
+over the cave's floor at a gait partaking of roll, crawl, and gallop,
+and flung himself straight at the well-furred throat of the unsuspecting
+vixen.
+
+Even as an accomplished swordsman may be wounded by the unexpectedness
+of the onslaught of some ignorant youngster who hardly knows a sword's
+pommel from its point, so this murderously inclined vixen was bowled
+over by the astounding attack of Master Black-and-Gray. The slope was
+very steep and the pup's spring a bolt from the blue. The vixen slipped,
+lost her footing, and went slithering down the dry grass from the ledge,
+snapping at the air as she slid, with bites, any one of which would
+easily have closed Black-and-Gray's career if they had reached him. But
+the puppy was quite powerless to put on the brake, so to say, and his
+progress down the slope was therefore far more rapid than that of the
+vixen. The breath was entirely knocked out of Black-and-Gray when he
+finally was brought up, all standing, by a sharp little rise of ground
+alongside the gap past which one saw across the Sussex weald from
+Desdemona's cave. Here it seemed he must pay the ultimate penalty of his
+unheard-of temerity, and be despatched by the now thoroughly angered
+vixen at her leisure.
+
+But in that same moment a number of other things happened. In the first
+place, having reached it from the far side of the ridge, Desdemona
+appeared beside the mouth of her cave, dangling a young rabbit from her
+jaws. In the second place, Finn appeared, climbing from the landward
+side, in the gap beside which the puppy came to the end of its long
+tumbling flight. Midway between the gap and the cave, the startled vixen
+crouched on the slope, turning her head from the terrible vision of
+Finn, upward to the scarcely less alarming vision of Desdemona, now
+sniffing in the fact of her little daughter's murder.
+
+The position was a parlous one for the vixen, and as she pulled herself
+together for flight along the side of the slope she doubtless regretted
+bitterly the curiosity which had impelled her to visit the den of her
+departed relative.
+
+The vixen leaped warily and doubled with real agility. But Finn was
+easily her master in the arts of the chase, and his strength was ten
+times greater than that of any fox in Sussex. The vixen was still well
+within sight from Desdemona's cave when her time came. She leaped and
+snapped, and faced overwhelming odds without wavering, but her race was
+run when the wolfhound's great weight bore her to the earth and his
+massive jaw closed about her ruff as a vise grips wood.
+
+And in the moment of the vixen's death, just as Master Black-and-Gray so
+far recovered his breath and his senses as to sit up and take stock of
+himself; a pony's nose appeared in the gap alongside him and introduced
+another new experience into this adventurous puppy's life. The pony must
+have appeared to his gaze very much as an elephant would appear to a
+child upon first view. But Black-and-Gray growled threateningly, though
+he did take two or three backward steps. On the pony's back sat Betty
+Murdoch, who now slid to the ground and knelt down beside the pup.
+
+Then Desdemona came shuffling down the slope with reassuring little
+whines of response to her son's growling. And to these there came Finn,
+a trifle winded, and bearing traces of blood and fur about his bearded
+gray muzzle. So Master Black-and-Gray, whose knowledge of his
+fellow-inhabitants of the earth had hitherto been confined to Finn and
+Desdemona and his own brothers and sisters--now defunct--found himself,
+at the close of this most adventurous afternoon, the center of an
+admiring, wondering circle formed by his mother and her wolfhound mate,
+and the pony and Betty Murdoch. Having regarded each one among his
+audience in turn questioningly, he finally waddled out to his mother and
+thrust his somewhat bruised little nose greedily into her hanging dugs,
+so that Desdemona, forgetful for the moment of other matters, was
+impelled to lower herself to the turf and yield sustenance to her only
+surviving offspring.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+JAN GOES TO NUTHILL
+
+
+The idea came to me quite suddenly when I saw Finn walk off with the
+best of his dinner bones to the Downs. I'd just come in from the
+village, and Punch was hitched to the gate-post, so I got into the
+saddle again and set out on Master Finn's trail.
+
+Thus Betty Murdoch, later on in the evening, explaining the position to
+the Master and to the Mistress of the Kennels.
+
+"I felt sure he must be going to Desdemona," continued Betty. "And--"
+
+"It really is a wonder we none of us thought of that before," said her
+aunt.
+
+They were all assembled now in a roomy loose box in the Nuthill stables.
+Comfortably ensconced in a bed of clean straw, Desdemona was nursing her
+puppy under the approving gaze of Finn, who sat on his haunches beside
+the Master, gravely reviewing his mate's changed situation.
+
+"I think the cave must be quite four miles away; right out past Fritten
+Ring and the long barrow, you know, and I fancy poor Desdemona must have
+had quite a family, because, besides the one dead pup close to the cave,
+I saw several little skeletons; quite a lot of animal remains scattered
+about--pieces of rabbit and the remains of another fox besides the one
+Finn killed. The extraordinary thing is that Jan, here, appeared to me
+to have been fighting the fox that killed his sister. He was growling
+away most ferociously when I found him."
+
+"Yes, he's a real 'well-plucked un,' is Jan, as you call him," said the
+Master. "Your pup, Betty. I'm sure the Colonel will say he must be
+yours, for you found him, and there's fully as much Finn as Desdemona
+about him. He will make a wonderful dog, that, unless I'm greatly
+mistaken. Well, now I must get over to Shaws and let them know about
+Desdemona. I dare say the Colonel will want to come back with me to see
+the bitch; so I'll ask him to have dinner with us."
+
+As the event proved, the Nuthill family and Colonel Forde spent most of
+the evening in that loose box. Stools were brought in from the
+harness-room; and Betty Murdoch had to tell her story all over again,
+while the others made suggestions and filled in gaps with their
+surmises; and everybody's gaze centered upon Desdemona and her son,
+lying among the fresh straw. It is likely that Desdemona might have
+noticed the confinement of that loose box a good deal more than she did,
+but for the fact that she was thoroughly tired out. Her health was not
+good just then, and the events of the day seemed rather to have overcome
+her.
+
+To the eyes of Colonel Forde and the Nuthill folk she appeared most
+cruelly emaciated. She certainly was thinner than hounds who live with
+men-folk grow; for she had gone rather short of food while nursing her
+pups and had had to hunt for most of the food she did get. But in any
+case unless specially nourished for the task, and given the abundant
+rest of kennel or stable life, a bitch will always lose a lot of flesh
+over suckling her young. Desdemona was not really so emaciated as her
+friends thought her; but she was much thinner than she had ever been
+before; and above all, had not a trace left of that sleekness which
+sheltered life gives. The veterinary surgeon who came to see her next
+morning, by Colonel Forde's request, had never before seen a dog fresh
+from wild life; and he, too, thought Desdemona more dangerously
+emaciated than she was.
+
+"We must get that pup away from her just as soon as ever we can," said
+the vet.
+
+"But won't that make her fret?" asked the Mistress of the Kennels.
+
+"Not very much if we let Finn be with her, I think," said the Master.
+
+"And, in any case, she really isn't fit to go on feeding of that great
+pup," repeated the vet. He even spoke of threatening trouble of the
+milk-glands, which might mean losing Desdemona altogether. Her complete
+loss of that smooth sleekness which life with humans gives deceived the
+vet more than a little. And the upshot of it all was that Betty Murdoch
+took over the sole management of the black-and-gray pup--her pup, as
+Colonel Forde called him; and Desdemona and Finn were taken over to
+Shaws in a cart, Finn being kept with the bloodhound to prevent her from
+fretting for her puppy. At Shaws, Desdemona was established in a loose
+box under the vet's supervision, and Finn spent some days there with
+her.
+
+Betty always said she had no earthly reason for christening her
+black-and-gray pup Jan; but that, somehow, the name occurred to her as
+fitting him from the moment at which she first saw him endeavoring to
+stand up and growl at her pony, Punch, at the vixen, and at the world
+generally on the Downs. From that same time Jan seemed to every one else
+to fit his name; and it was clear he had taken a great fancy to Betty
+Murdoch ever since she had wrapped him in her jacket and carried him
+home triumphantly on her saddle-bow from the cave on the Downs.
+
+If the season had been winter instead of midsummer, the orphaned Jan
+would doubtless have missed greatly the warmth of his mother's body. As
+it was, the harness-room stove was kept going at night to insure warmth
+in the stable; and a large box, too deep for Jan to climb out from, and
+snugly lined with carefully dried hay, was provided for his use o'
+nights. Just at first, the deeply interested Betty tried feeding her new
+pet with warm milk food in a baby's bottle. But Jan soon showed her that
+though only a month old he was much too far advanced for such childish
+things as this. He needed little teaching in the matter of lapping up
+milk food from a dish (especially as he was allowed to suck one of
+Betty's rosy finger-tips under the milk for a beginning); and as for
+gravy and meat and bones, it might be said that he tackled these things
+with the enthusiasm of a practised gourmet.
+
+As a matter of fact, Desdemona did sorely miss Jan for a couple of days,
+despite the comforting society of her mate; but Jan did not miss her a
+scrap. At present there was not an ounce of sentiment in his
+composition. He was kept warm, he lay snugly soft, and his stomach was
+generally full. He had great gristly bones to gnaw and play with, and
+Betty Murdoch, with a little solid-rubber ball, played with him also by
+the hour together. Beyond these things Jan had no thought or desire at
+present. He grew fast, and enjoyed every minute of the growing.
+
+The Master's intimate knowledge of puppy needs caused certain mixtures
+to be introduced into Jan's food from time to time, which saved the
+youngster (without his knowing anything about it) from the worst of the
+minor ills to which puppy flesh is heir. The same carefully exercised
+knowledge, born of long practice, introduced other specially blended
+elements into the pup's food which made for rapid bone and muscle
+development. In a variety of ways the resources of man's civilization
+and skill were made to serve Jan's welfare; and it must be admitted that
+in most respects he gained considerably by losing his mother and the
+life of the cave.
+
+With Desdemona matters were somewhat different. For a little while she
+was moodily conscious of the loss of her pups; and, too, missed the wide
+open freedom of her cave life on the Downs. But, physically, she was in
+some disorder, and the treatment now meted out to her was very helpful
+and soothing in that direction. The fomenting of her sore and badly
+scratched dugs was most comforting. The cleansing, healing medicine
+given her was helpful. The gradually increased generosity of her diet
+was gratifying; and at the end of a week her coat began to shine once
+more under the application of Bates's grooming-gloves.
+
+It is to be remembered that Desdemona, so far from being a creature of
+the wild, had centuries of high civilization behind her. Her little
+excursion into wild life was chiefly due to the inspiration of Finn's
+society; and Finn himself, despite occasional attacks of the nostalgia
+of the bush, was none the less a product of civilization; a deal more
+subtle and complex in many ways than the native folk of the wild.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+SOME FIRST STEPS
+
+
+The phase upon which little Jan now entered A was as jolly and enjoyable
+as any form of sheltered dog life could well be. There were no kennels
+at Nuthill, and it must be admitted that kennel life is never the
+happiest sort of existence for a dog, though in some establishments it
+is so organized, as to be a very healthy one.
+
+Jan speedily became an object of affectionate interest for every member
+of the Nuthill household, and was, from the first, the special and
+well-loved protege of Betty Murdoch, a privilege which, of itself, would
+have insured his well-being. For Betty was an eminently sensible girl,
+besides being a kindly, merry lover of animals and outdoor life. And in
+her aunt and the Master she had perhaps the best sources of doggy
+information to be found in Sussex.
+
+Thus Jan was never subjected to the cruel kind of ordeals from which so
+many petted dogs suffer. He was not treated as a delicate infant in arms
+for a day or so, and then ignored for a week. His internal economy was
+never poisoned or upset by means of absurd gifts of sweetmeats. His
+meals reached him with the unfailing regularity of clockwork, and were
+so carefully designed that, whilst his growth never was retarded for
+lack of frequent nutriment, the finish of a meal always left him with
+some little appetite. And he never saw food save at his mealtimes.
+
+But, be it said, Betty did not forget that in Jan's case weaning had
+been a very abrupt process. During his first few days at Nuthill he had
+as many as nine meals in the twenty-four hours, and for a week or more
+after that he had eight. Six daily meals was his allowance for several
+weeks, and in the later stage of four a day he was kept for months.
+After the first two days he never had two consecutive meals of the same
+composition. That fact affected his appetite and, in consequence, his
+bodily development, very materially. In fact, when Jan had been only a
+few days at Nuthill, and but thirty-four days in the world, he turned
+the big kitchen scale at 13 lb. 7-1/2 oz. In point of size and weight
+his thirty-fourth day found him pretty much on a level with a fully
+grown fox-terrier; though he was, of course, still quite unshapen, and
+somewhat insecure upon his thick, gristly legs.
+
+"He's going to be a slashing big hound, Betty," said the Master, after
+weighing Jan. "And I think he's going to do you credit in every way. You
+stick religiously to the feeding chart and the phosphates, and we shall
+presently have Jan lording it over his own father--eh, Finn, boy!"
+
+The wolfhound had been gravely watching the weighing operation, and now
+nuzzled the Master's hand, his invariable method of answering
+unimportant inquiries of this sort. Then he walked forward and
+good-humoredly sniffed round the puppy's head; whereupon Jan impudently
+bit at his wolfhound father's gray beard, and had to be rolled over on
+his back under one of Finn's massive fore feet. There followed upon this
+a few minutes of romping that was most amusing to watch. Little Jan
+would rush forward at Finn, growling ferociously. Finn would spread out
+his fore legs widely, and lower his great frame till his muzzle almost
+reached the ground, while his tail waved high astern. Just as the
+bellicose pup reached his muzzle, Finn would spring forward or sideways,
+often clean over Jan, alighting at some little distance, and wheeling
+round upon the still growling pup with a grin that said, plainly:
+
+"Missed me again! You're not half quick enough, young man!"
+
+And then, by way of encouraging the youngster, Finn would lower himself
+to the ground, head well out, and, covering his eyes and muzzle with his
+two fore legs, would allow Jan to plunge like a little battering-ram
+upon the top of his head, furiously digging into the wolfhound's wiry
+coat in futile pursuit of flesh-hold for his teeth, and still exhausting
+fifty per cent. of his energies in maintaining a warlike growl.
+
+Hardly a day passed now that did not bring the introduction of some new
+interest for the black-and-gray pup. Novel experiences crowded upon him
+at such a rate that he was always in some way absorbed. Meals were
+frequent, and, of course, a matter of unfailing interest. Sleep also was
+frequent, as it is with all healthy young things. Given, as he was,
+plentiful liberty and abundance of fresh air and sunshine, Jan exhausted
+himself about once an hour, and took a nap, from which he would awake
+within five, ten, fifteen, or thirty minutes, as the case might be, once
+more charged to the throat with high spirits, energy, and puppyish
+abandon.
+
+More by luck than good management, it happened in his seventh week that
+he killed a mouse in the stable. For some time he mounted guard over his
+kill, solemnly parading round and about it, emitting from time to time
+blood-curdling growls and snarls intended to warn the dead mouse of the
+frightful penalties it would incur as the result of any attempt to come
+to life again.
+
+Then, the stable door having been left ajar, Jan valorously gripped the
+small corpse between his jaws and went swaggering off toward the house
+with it, questing kudos. In the garden he met Finn, who with careless
+good humor strolled toward him, offering a game. Jan tried his best to
+growl and to turn up his nose at the same time, indicating serious
+preoccupation with matters more weighty than play. But finding that his
+hold upon the mouse was gravely endangered by this process, he gave up
+the attempt, and swaggered on toward the front entrance, followed
+quizzingly by the wolfhound. Finding nobody in the porch, Jan fell over
+the step, dropped his mouse, growled fiercely, and then with a plunge
+regained his prize, and so, past the place where the caps and coats
+hung, over the mats into the hall.
+
+Here he found Betty and the Mistress, and at their feet deposited his
+now rather badly mangled mouse; while Finn, like a big nurse taking
+pride in the escapades of her charge, stood at one side and smiled, with
+lolling tongue.
+
+"Oh, what a fearsome beast it is!" laughed Betty, and ran to call the
+Master. Then Jan was patted and petted, and told what a fine fellow he
+was; what a mighty hunter before the Lord; and Finn smiled more broadly
+than ever. This over, Jan was taken into the kitchen to be weighed (he
+being now seven weeks old), and was told in an impressive manner that he
+was within four ounces of twenty pounds.
+
+"Pretty nearly half-a-pound-a-day increase. You'll have to take a cure
+soon, my friend, if this goes on," said the Master.
+
+From this time onward many of Jan's games were sensibly affected by his
+slaughter of the mouse. He now treated the big shin-bones that were
+provided for his delectation as live game of a peculiarly treacherous
+sort. He stalked, tracked, hunted, and slew those bones with unerring
+skill and remarkable daring. Their tenacity of life was most striking.
+There were times when, having slain a bone after a long chase, poor Jan
+would give way to his natural exhaustion and fall sound asleep with his
+head pillowed on one end of the apparently well-killed and harmless
+bone. Yet as often as not, when he would wake, perhaps a quarter of an
+hour later, this same bone would once more betray its desperate and
+treacherous vitality by means of an attempt at escape. So that even in
+the very moment of waking the dauntless Jan would be obliged to growl
+fiercely and plunge straightway into hard fighting again.
+
+His first real bark was another dazzling experience. It came in his
+eleventh week, when he was as heavy as two terriers, though still
+somewhat shapeless, and gristly, rather than bony, as to his limbs.
+Colonel Forde walked into the garden one afternoon, followed very
+sedately by the Lady Desdemona, now sleek and shining, and more
+aristocratic-looking than ever. Jan was dozing in the front porch, and
+Finn away somewhere in the orchard. Jan sprang rashly to his feet and,
+losing his balance, rolled over. Rising again, with more of caution and
+considerable anger, he took a good look at the visitors, and glared with
+special severity at Desdemona, who serenely ignored his existence.
+
+Then, bracing himself firmly against the door-jamb, Jan opened his jaws
+and--barked. But the novelty of the performance, superimposed upon the
+concussion and the exertion involved, was too much for his stability,
+and with one prolonged but unsuccessful effort to hold on to his dignity
+Jan rolled over on the side farthest from the door-jamb. It was not to
+be denied, however, that he had barked; and the strange sound--it was
+part bark, part growl, and in part a bloodhound's bay--brought Finn from
+the near-by orchard, and Betty Murdoch from the morning-room, and the
+Master from his study, and the Persian cat from her perch on the hall
+mantelshelf; so Master Black-and-Gray had no lack of audience, and,
+indeed, received an almost embarrassing amount of congratulation, in the
+course of which he made shift to get a good sniff at Desdemona's legs
+and satisfy himself that she was art inoffensive person.
+
+That Desdemona was any relation of his own neither he nor she seemed for
+one moment to guess, though less than a couple of months had passed
+since he ceased to derive his sole nutriment and support in life from
+this same stately hound, at whose golden-brown fore legs and low-hanging
+dewlap he now sniffed so curiously.
+
+One result of her return to the sheltered life was that Desdemona looked
+almost twice as big and massive as she had looked in her nursing days.
+The pendulous dugs were no longer in evidence; but the rich, silky rolls
+about her neck lay fold in fold; the immensely long ears were veritable
+buttresses to her massy head. Her black nose gleamed like satin at the
+end of her long muzzle, above which lay an interminable array of deep
+wrinkles, radiating out and downward from her high-peaked crown. Just
+once the noble head was lowered--as that of an ancient Greek philosopher
+to an inquisitive child--and the crimson-hawed eyes directed downward
+as, in a calm, aloof spirit of investigation, the Lady Desdemona took
+note of the fussy movements of her own son.
+
+"I don't think we have been introduced, have we?" she seemed to say. It
+was difficult to realize that, not many weeks before, hollow of flank,
+with the mother anxiety in her eyes, the same noble creature had battled
+and contrived to keep life in herself and in this same lusty pup out
+there on the open Down, four miles and more away, among the small wild
+creatures and the debris of her cave home.
+
+Among the dog-folk Nature has arranged matters in this way, wisely and
+kindly. Separated from her good master, Colonel Forde, for many months,
+or even years, Desdemona would have recognized him again without
+hesitation. But like every other canine mother, and like every creature
+of the wild, her own flesh and blood became utterly strange to her
+within a very few weeks, when separated from her during its first months
+of life. And from Nature's standpoint this is a highly necessary
+ordinance, since, after a few more months, Desdemona, mated elsewhere,
+might easily find herself called upon to rear an entirely new family in
+new surroundings. So it is that whilst among her kind, as among the
+creatures of the wild, there is nothing to prevent mother and son or
+daughter from becoming friends in the youngster's adult life; yet never,
+after the first separation, can they meet consciously as mother and
+offspring.
+
+It was an interesting picture for the Nuthill folk and Colonel Forde to
+see Finn and Desdemona sedately strolling across the lawn together,
+tried friends and mates, divided sometimes by the impudent gambols and
+even by the mock attacks and invitations to play of their own lusty
+son--the only whelp in existence, probably the only one who ever had
+lived, to carry in his veins in equal parts the blood of centuries of
+Irish wolfhound and bloodhound champions.
+
+"Do keep them there!" cried pretty Betty Murdoch. "I simply must have
+that picture; I'll fetch my camera." And after some skilled manoeuvering
+to secure the son's collaboration, the promised picture was secured.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+SAPLING DAYS
+
+
+At the age of six months, Jan, the son of Finn and Desdemona, weighed
+just ninety-eight and one-half pounds, and by reason of his
+well-furnished appearance might easily have been mistaken by many people
+for a grown hound. He was not really anything like fully grown and
+furnished, of course, nor would be until his second year was far
+advanced. But the free and healthy life he led, combined with a generous
+and correctly thought-out diet, had given him remarkably rapid
+development, and the strength to carry it without strain.
+
+At this time Jan had, in outline, assumed his adult appearance. As time
+went on he would increase greatly in weight, and to some extent in
+height and length. His body would thicken, and his frame would harden
+and set; his coat would improve, and his muscles would develop to more
+than double their present growth. But in his seventh month one knew what
+Jan's appearance was to be; his type had declared itself, and so, to a
+considerable extent, had his personality.
+
+There was not a brown hair in Jan's coat; not one hair of any other
+color than black or iron-gray. His saddle and haunches were jetty black,
+so was the crown of his head. But his muzzle was the right wolfhound
+steel-gray. So were his chest, belly, and legs, though the black hairs
+crept fairly low down on the outsides of his thighs and hocks, the inner
+sides being all hard gray. The gray of his chest extended, like a ruff,
+right round the upper part of his neck, forming a break of three or four
+inches between the silky blackness of his head and saddle. And all his
+coat was thicker, more dense, and longer in the hair than his sire's
+coat, which, again, was of course much longer than Desdemona's.
+
+Thus, in color and texture of coat Jan was neither all wolfhound nor all
+bloodhound. For the rest, his bodily appearance and build favored his
+mother's race more than his father's. The depth and solidity of his head
+and muzzle, the length and shape of his ears, the rolling elasticity and
+plenitude of his skin and the deep wrinkles it had already formed about
+his face, were all features true to bloodhound type, as were also the
+thickness and solidity of his frame, the downward poise of his head, and
+his deep-pouched crimson-hawed eyes.
+
+But when one saw Jan extended at the gallop, or in the act of leaping a
+gate or other obstruction, one was apt to forget the bloodhound in him,
+and to remember only his kinship with Finn, the fleetest son of a fleet
+race of hunters. Jan had all the wonderfully springy elasticity of the
+wolfhound. Already he leaped and ran as a greyhound leaps and runs.
+Already, too, his accuracy of balance and his agility were remarkable.
+He could trot quickly across the long drawing-room at Nuthill without
+sound, and without grazing anything. Occasional tables and the like were
+perfectly safe in his path. Despite his ninety-eight and a half pounds
+of weight (still rapidly increasing), he could, on occasion, tread
+lightly as a cat.
+
+But the bloodhound came out in Jan in other ways besides his appearance.
+He was for ever trailing, and used his dark hazel eyes far less than any
+wolfhound uses his. In questing about the place for Betty Murdoch, one
+noticed that Jan often did not raise his eyes or muzzle from the ground
+until he almost touched her skirt. Withal, his vision was keener than
+that of Desdemona's or any other typical bloodhound. His eyes served him
+well for scanning the Downs; and often he would see a rabbit in the far
+distance before picking up its trail. Still, once he did pick up a
+trail, he would follow it as no wolfhound could, with unfailing
+certitude, and without troubling to use his eyes.
+
+The first notable demonstration of his trailing powers was his tracking
+down of a missing ewe, across several miles of open Down, to the edge of
+a remote, disused chalk-pit, into which the foolish creature had fallen
+and broken its neck.
+
+The trifling episode which served to draw more general attention to
+Jan's all-round intelligence--which actually was considerably above the
+average level for a half-grown youngster--concerned Betty Murdoch in
+particular. It chanced that on a certain gray morning toward the close
+of the year Betty had a sudden curiosity to see again the hill-side cave
+beside which she had found Desdemona and Jan six months before. The gray
+weather, so far from depressing Betty, often moved her to take long
+walks; and if no other companion happened to be available, she could
+always be sure of Jan's readiness to bear her company, as he did on this
+occasion.
+
+The fact that Betty did not appear at luncheon-time roused little
+comment. She often was late for luncheon, and the only meal over which
+Nuthill folk made a special point of being punctual was dinner. Still,
+when three o'clock brought no sign of Betty, and the short day's decline
+was at hand, the Master and the Mistress did begin to wonder. Then Jan
+arrived, apparently rather in a hurry, and very talkative. His short
+barks and little whines left no doubt about his determination to attract
+attention; and the manner in which he bustled into the hall, hastily
+nuzzled the Master's hand or coat-sleeve, and bustled, whining, back to
+the porch, told those concerned, as plainly as words could, that he
+wanted them to accompany him.
+
+"Why, what's this?" said the Master. "I wonder if Betty is in sight."
+
+Out in the garden nothing could be seen of Betty; but having led his
+friends so far, Jan became more than ever insistent in demanding their
+attendance on the path leading to the little orchard gate that opened
+upon the Downs.
+
+"H'm! Looks to me as though Betty were in a difficulty. I wish you'd
+send out word to the stable for Curtin to saddle Punch and ride on after
+me. Or, wait a moment. You stay here with Jan. I'll send the message,
+and get my brandy--flask. One never knows. I'll be out again in a
+minute."
+
+But this hardly met with Jan's views. He seemed determined that the
+Master should not go back. Whining and barking very urgently, he
+actually laid hold upon the Master's coat with his teeth, dragging with
+all his strength to prevent a return to the house.
+
+"So, then. All right, good dog. I'll come, Jan."
+
+And after all, the Mistress had to go back for the flask, and to send
+word to the stable, while the Master walked out to the Downs. Jan was
+overjoyed by his victory; but within a few moments he was urging haste,
+and expressing obvious dissatisfaction with the Master's slow pace.
+
+"Now you just simmer down, my son, simmer down," said the Master,
+soothingly. "We haven't all got your turn of speed, so you might as well
+make up your mind to it. I'll have a horse here directly, and then you
+shall have your head I promise you. Meantime, just keep your teeth out
+of this shooting-jacket. It may be old, but I won't have it tattered. So
+you simmer down, my son."
+
+Jan did his best, but it clearly did seem to him that the Master's pace
+was maddeningly slow; and so, to make up for this, Jan tried the
+experiment of covering just six times as much ground himself, apparently
+with the idea that hurrying ought to be done, and that if he could not
+make the Master do it the next best thing was to put in a double share
+himself. So Jan led the way downward in loops. He would gallop on for
+fifty yards, turn sharply, and canter back to the Master, emitting
+little whining noises through his nose. Having described a circle about
+the Master, on he would dash again, with more whines, only to repeat the
+process a few moments later.
+
+Then Curtin, the groom, overtook them, riding Betty's cob, Punch, and
+carrying the flask which had been given him by the Mistress, who herself
+was following on foot. The Master slipped the flask into his coat pocket
+and mounted Punch.
+
+"Now then, Jan, my son," said he, "I'm with you. Off you go!"
+
+They were soon out of Curtin's sight. Jan perfectly understood the
+position; and it seemed, too, that he communicated some idea of it to
+Punch, upon whose velvety nose he administered one hurried lick before
+starting. Then, with frequent backward glances over one shoulder, Jan
+lay down to his task, and, followed by Punch and the Master, began to
+fly over the springy turf with occasional short bays, his powerful tail
+waving flagwise over his haunches.
+
+Within eighteen or twenty minutes they were a good four miles from
+Nuthill and nearing the gap in the high ridge through which one looked
+out over the Sussex weald from Desdemona's cave. In another couple of
+minutes the Master was on the ground beside Betty, and Punch, with the
+nonchalance of his kind, was nosing the turf, as though to distract
+attention from his hard breathing. The gallop had been mostly up-hill.
+
+Betty was genuinely glad to welcome her visitors, for she had already
+spent several hours in the chalky hollow where she now sat; the evening
+air was cold, and Betty was in some pain. Clambering on the steep
+Downside below Desdemona's cave, she had trodden on a loose piece of
+chalk, her ankle had twisted as the chalk rolled, and Betty had fallen,
+with a sharp cry of pain, quite unable to put her injured foot to the
+ground. For a long while neither she nor Jan had thought of any way of
+obtaining assistance.
+
+"Then I thought of sending a message by Jan," said Betty, in explaining
+matters to the Master, after she had been given a sip from his flask,
+which brought some color back to her pale lips. "I told him again and
+again to go home, waving my arm and trying hard to drive him off on the
+way. But he would only go backward a few yards, and then return to me. I
+had almost given it up when the thought came into my head that I ought
+to have had pencil and paper, and been able to tie a note to his collar.
+But I thought my handkerchief would do just as well, without any
+writing. I was on the point of calling Jan to me again, so that I could
+tie my handkerchief to his collar, when, quite suddenly, he also had a
+brilliant idea. You could see it plainly in his face. He had suddenly
+realized what I wanted. He gave one bark, blundered up against my
+shoulder, tore my hair-net by the hurried lick he gave me, and was off
+like the wind for Nuthill. It really was most odd the way the
+inspiration came to him."
+
+The Master nodded agreement. "It was extraordinarily intelligent for an
+untrained pup of six months. I doubt if either his father or his mother
+would have had wit enough for that at the same age. Very few dogs
+would."
+
+After another little sip of brandy Betty was lifted carefully into the
+saddle and, Jan and the Master pacing beside him, Punch began the
+homeward journey. Jan was quite sedate again now, but he had fussed
+about a good deal, upon first arrival at the hollow, in his capacity as
+guide and messenger. An hour later and Betty was comfortably settled on
+the big couch beside the hall fire at Nuthill, and very shortly after
+that Dr. Vaughan was in attendance, so that when tea came to be handed
+round everybody's mind was at ease again. The doctor was for giving Jan
+a share of his plum cake as a reward for meritorious conduct. But Betty
+would have none of this.
+
+"I'm surprised at you, Doctor," said Betty. "Bad habits and an impaired
+digestion as a reward for heroism! Never! Extra meat, and an
+extra-choice bone at supper-time, if you like; but no plum cake for my
+Jan boy, if I know it."
+
+But this sensible decision did not prevent Jan being made much of by the
+whole household that evening; and partly by way of compliment, and in
+part because Betty could not go to the stable, he was promoted to
+grown-up privileges and allowed to take his supper in the porch that
+night beside his father. Upon showing a casual inclination to
+investigate his sire's supper-dish, he was firmly but good-humoredly put
+into his place by the wolfhound. Upon the whole, Jan bore his new honors
+well during this his first evening spent in a house. No doubt he
+received useful hints from Finn. In any case, it was decided next
+morning, by the Master's full consent, that from this time on, subject
+to his proper behavior, Jan need not again be sent to his bench in the
+stable.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+WITH REFERENCE TO DICK VAUGHAN
+
+
+One might search the English villages through without finding another
+such medical practitioner as Dr. Vaughan, the man who dressed Betty
+Murdoch's sprained ankle. For example, he was a Fellow of the Royal
+Society, and the records of his original-research work won respectful
+attention in at least four languages. When he inherited Upcroft (the
+estate which flanks Nuthill to the eastward) and decided to establish
+himself there, it certainly was not with any idea of playing the general
+practitioner. But, as the event proved, he was given small choice. For
+Sussex this district is curiously remote. It contains a few scattered
+large houses, and outside these the population is made up of small
+farmers and shepherds, very good fellows, most of them, but not at all
+typical of home-county residents, and having more than a little in
+common with the dalesmen of the north country. Their nearest resident
+medical practitioner, before Dr. Vaughan came, was eight miles away, in
+Lewes.
+
+Dr. Vaughan used to say that his only son, Dick, should relieve him by
+forming a practice in the district. But that was before Dick was sent
+down from Oxford for ducking his tutor in the basin of a fountain and
+then trying to revive that unfortunate gentleman by plastering his head
+and face in chocolate meringues. It was prior also to Dick's unfortunate
+expulsion from Guy's as the result of a stand-up fight with a
+house-surgeon, and to his final withdrawal from the study of medicine as
+a profession he was adjudged unworthy to adorn. The judgment was
+emphatically indorsed by the young man himself, and so could not be
+called over-severe.
+
+When it became apparent that Dick was never to be a G.P., Dr. Vaughan
+obtained the services of Edward Hatherley, a young doctor in search of a
+practice, and specially altered and enlarged for his occupancy one of
+the Upcroft cottages. This enabled Dr. Vaughan to decline the work of a
+general practitioner without hurt to his naturally sensitive conscience.
+But there still were people in the district whom he visited upon
+occasion as a doctor, and his friends at Nuthill were among the favored
+few. Such visits, however, did not in any way affect his income, which,
+as the result of an unexpected legacy some twelve or fourteen years
+before this time, was a substantial one, even apart from professional
+earnings or the rents of Upcroft.
+
+Riding, shooting, fishing, coursing, breaking in young horses and dogs,
+and playing polo when opportunity offered--these, with occasional rather
+wild doings in London and Brighton, made up the sum of Dick Vaughan's
+contribution to the world's work so far, since the period of what he
+euphemistically called his retirement from the practice of pill-making.
+And it must be confessed that, until some time after the establishment
+of the Nuthill household in that locality, Dick Vaughan had shown no
+symptom of dissatisfaction with his lot, or of desire to tackle any more
+serious sort of occupation.
+
+What was generally regarded as Dick's idleness, and, by the more rigid
+moralists, as his worthlessness, was a source of some anxiety and much
+disappointment to that distinguished man, his father. From the doctor's
+standpoint a life given to sport meant a life wasted; and, gifted man of
+science that he was, it puzzled him completely that a son of his should
+have no ability as a student. Withal, he had never brought himself to
+show any harshness to Dick; for, "wild" as the young man undoubtedly had
+been, he was a lovable fellow, and for the doctor his fair face was a
+reflection of the face of the woman Dick had never really known; of the
+mother he had lost while still a child; the wife whose loss had
+withdrawn Dr. Vaughan from the world of successful men and women and
+prematurely whitened his hair and lined his lofty brow.
+
+Yet in one respect the doctor had shown a certain sternness. He had told
+his son, with some emphasis, that, until he accomplished some creditable
+work in the world, he must never expect one penny more than his present
+allowance of L150 a year. There were good horses and dogs at Upcroft,
+however, and a very comfortable home. The farmers' sons of the district,
+like their social superiors, mostly liked Dick Vaughan well. He need
+never lack a companion in his sporting enterprises, and so far had never
+felt very urgently the need of money. Indeed, the bulk of his allowance
+was wasted during the trips he made to town after quarter-days. Money
+was not very necessary to him at Upcroft, where most people were quite
+content to "put it down to the Doctor," and all were ready to oblige
+"young Mr. Vaughan."
+
+And then had come Betty Murdoch, and a certain all-round modification of
+Dick Vaughan's outlook upon life.
+
+It happened that one reason why Betty had no other companion than Jan on
+the day of her accident was the fact that the Master had an appointment
+at Upcroft that morning with Dick. The Master was very good-natured in
+his talk with Dick, but he was also quite firm and straightforward. Dick
+rather shamefacedly pleaded guilty to having paid pointed attentions to
+Betty, and admitted that he was in love with her.
+
+"Well, there's nothing to be ashamed of in that, old chap. I'm in love
+with her myself, if you come to that," said the Master, with a smile.
+"If you'd said you meant nothing and were not in love with her, I--well,
+I should be taking a rather different tone, perhaps. But you are, and I
+knew it."
+
+Dick's characteristic smile, the sunny, affectionate smile that won him
+friends wherever he went and had given him a champion even in the tutor
+he ducked, broke momentarily through the rueful expression of his face,
+as he said: "Oh, there's no sort of doubt about that, sir."
+
+"Exactly. Well, now, my friend, what I have to point out to you is this:
+Betty is not only very dear to me; she is also my heir and my ward. I'm
+speaking to you about it earlier than some men might have spoken,
+because I don't want to cure heartaches--I want to prevent 'em. I'm
+pretty certain there's no harm done as yet."
+
+The Master managed to keep a straight face when Dick absently intimated
+that he was afraid there was no harm done as yet.
+
+"It would make Betty miserable to go against my wishes, I think,"
+continued the Master, "and I don't want her to be made miserable. That's
+why I'm talking to you now. She could not possibly become engaged,
+except against my very strongest wishes, to a man who had never earned
+his own living or done any work at all in the world. And that--well,
+that--"
+
+"That's me, of course," said the rueful Dick, cutting at his gaiters
+with a crop.
+
+"Well, so far it does rather seem to fit, doesn't it?" continued the
+Master. "But, mind you, Dick, don't you run away with the idea that I
+have any down on you or want to put any obstacles in your way. Not a bit
+of it. God knows I'm no Puritan, neither have I any quarrel with a man's
+love of sport and animals; not much. But there's got to be something
+else in a real man's life, you know, Dick. Beer and skittles are all
+very well--an excellent institution, especially combined with the sort
+of admirable knowledge of horses and dogs, and the sort of seat in the
+saddle that you have, my friend. But over and above all that, you know,
+I want something else from the man who is to marry our Betty. I don't
+ask you to become an F.R.S., but, begad! Dick, I do ask you to prove
+that you can play a man's part in the world, outside sport as well as in
+it; and that, if you're put to it, you can earn your own living and
+enough to give a wife bread and butter. And if you'll just think of it
+for a minute, I believe you'll see that it's not too much to ask,
+either. It's what I'd ask of a man before I'd trust him to carry out a
+piece of business for me; and Betty--well, she's more than any other
+piece of business I can think of to me."
+
+Dick Vaughan saw it all very clearly. He quite frankly admitted the
+justification for the Master's remarks.
+
+"And so," he added, rather despondently--"so this is my notice to quit,
+eh?"
+
+"If you took it as that, and acted on it permanently, I should think I
+had greatly overrated you, my friend," replied the Master, with warmth.
+"No; but, as between men, it's my notice to you that I appeal to your
+sense of honor to say nothing to Betty, to go no farther in the matter,
+until--until you've proved yourself as well in other ways as you've
+already proved yourself over the hurdles."
+
+"Oh, that! But, of course, I love riding, and--"
+
+"You'll find you'll love some other things, too, once you've mastered
+them, as you have horses and dogs. I can tell you there's just as much
+fun in mastering men as there is in handling horses. I used to think the
+only thing I could do, besides breeding wolfhounds, was to write. And I
+suppose I didn't do the writing very well. Anyway, it didn't bring in
+money enough for the wolfhounds and--and some other matters. So I went
+out to Australia and did something else. Now I can do the writing when I
+like, and--well, old Finn there is in no danger of being sold to pay the
+butcher."
+
+"Ah yes, in Australia. I wanted the governor to let me go there when I
+left Rugby, boundary-riding, and that. But of course he was dead set on
+the pill-making for me, then. And now--"
+
+"Now there's been a rather empty interval of seven years. Yes, I know.
+Well, you think it over, old chap. I lay down no embargoes, not I. But I
+do trust to your honor in this matter--for Betty's sake--and I'm sure
+I'm safe. You think it over, and come and talk to me any time you feel
+like it. Be sure I'll be delighted to give any help I can. Look here!
+there's a friend of mine staying at the White Hart in Lewes: Captain
+Arnutt, of the Royal North-west Mounted Police. Go and look him up and
+have a yarn with him about how he made his start. He nearly broke his
+heart trying to pass into Sandhurst without getting the necessary stuff
+into his hard head. But, begad! there isn't a finer man in the
+North-west to-day than Will Arnutt. I'll write him a letter if you'll
+go. Will you?"
+
+Dick agreed readily, and as a matter of fact he lunched in Lewes with
+Captain Arnutt that very day, thereby missing all the excitement over
+Betty Murdoch's sprained ankle and Jan's clever rescue-work, but gaining
+quite a good deal in other ways.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+JAN'S FIRST FIGHT
+
+
+Dick Vaughan was away from home a good deal during the next few weeks,
+and Jan and Finn often missed him, for his frequent visits to Nuthill
+had been full of interest for them. It may be, too, that Jan's mistress
+missed Dick Vaughan; but according to the Master, the young man was well
+employed and by no means wasting his time. And Jan did have at least one
+useful lesson in the week following Betty's accident on the Downs; and
+it was a lesson which he never entirely forgot.
+
+Jan was busily doing nothing in particular--"mucking about" as the
+school-boys elegantly put it--in the little lane which forms a
+right-of-way across the Downs, between the Nuthill orchard and the
+westernmost of the Upcroft fields. Betty Murdoch was still nursing her
+ankle; and, fast asleep in the hall beside her couch, Finn, the
+wolfhound, was dreaming of a great kangaroo-hunt in which he and the
+dingo bitch Warrigal were engaged in replenishing their Mount Desolation
+larder. Suddenly Jan looked up, sniffing, from his idle play, and saw
+against the sky-line, where the narrow lane rises sharply toward the
+Downs, a gray-clad man in gaiters, with a long ash staff in his hand and
+a big sheep-dog of sorts, descending together from the heights.
+
+The man was David Crumplin, the sheep-dealer, and the dog was Grip,
+whose reputation, all unknown though it was to Jan, reached from the
+Romney marshes to the Solent; even as his sire's had carried weight from
+York to the Border. Grip's dam, so the story went, had been a gipsy's
+lurcher with Airedale blood in her. If so, his size and weight were
+rather surprising; but his militant disposition may, to some extent,
+have been explained. At all events, there was no sheep-dog of experience
+between Winchelsea and Lewes who would have dreamed of treating Grip
+with anything save the most careful respect and deference, since, while
+hardly to be called either quarrelsome or aggressive, he was a noted
+killer, a most formidable fighter when roused. He was also a past-master
+in the driving of sheep, his coat was of the density of several
+door-mats, and he had china-blue eyes with plenty of fire in them, but
+no tenderness.
+
+These things would, of course, have been ample in the shape of
+credentials and introduction for any dog of ripe experience. For puppy
+Jan (despite his hundred pounds of weight) they all went for nothing at
+all. His salutation was a joyous, if slightly cracked, bark; a sort of--
+
+"Hullo! a stranger! Come on! What larks!"
+
+And he went prancing like a rocking-horse up the lane to meet Grip,
+prepared to make a new friend, to romp, or do any other kind of thing
+that was not serious. But, as it happened, the dour Grip was far more
+than usually serious that morning. By over-severity in driving he had
+lost a lamb that day in rounding up a flock across the Downs. The little
+beast had slipped, under the pressure of the drive, and broken both fore
+legs at the bottom of a deep pit. Grip had not made three such blunders
+in his life, and the lambasting he had received for this one had bruised
+every bone in his body. But for all this, he might have shown a shade
+more tolerance toward Jan, since ninety-nine dogs in a hundred, even
+among the fighters, will show patience and good humor where puppies are
+concerned.
+
+Jan's actual greeting of the sheep-dog was exceedingly clumsy and
+awkward.
+
+"Hullo, old hayseed!" he seemed to say as he bumped awkwardly into
+Grip's right shoulder. "Come and have a game!"
+
+That shoulder ought to have warned him. Its wiry mat of coat stood out
+like quills upon the fretful porcupine. But the rollicking, galumphing
+Jan was just then impervious to any such comparatively subtle indication
+as this.
+
+Grip spake no single word; but his wall-eyes flashed white firelight and
+his long jaws snapped like a spring trap as Jan rebounded from the bump
+against his buttress of a shoulder. When those same steel jaws parted
+again, as they did a moment later, an appreciable piece of Jan's left
+ear fell from them to the ground. Jan let out a cry, an exclamation of
+mingled anger, pain, bewilderment, and wrath. He turned, leaning
+forward, as though to ask the meaning of this outrage. On the instant,
+and again without a sound, the white-toothed trap opened and closed once
+more; this time leaving a bloody groove all down the black-and-gray side
+of Jan's left shoulder.
+
+At that point the sheep-dealer spoke, just a little too late.
+
+"Get out o' that!" he said, with a thrust of his staff at Jan.
+And--"Come in here, Grip," he added to his own dog. But his orders came
+too late.
+
+For his part, Jan had lost blood and realized that he was attacked in
+fierce earnest. As for Grip, he had tasted blood, and found it as balm
+to his aching ribs. This big blundering black-and-gray thing was no
+sheep, at all events. Then let it keep away from him, or take the
+consequences. Life was no game for Grip; but rather a serious routine of
+work, of fighting to kill, of getting food, of resting when he might,
+and of avoiding his master's ashen staff. Nothing could be more
+different from Jan's gaily irresponsible and joyously immature
+conception of life.
+
+However, Jan was in earnest now; more so than he had ever been since,
+more than five months earlier, he had flung his gristly bulk upon the
+vixen fox who slew his sister in the cave. Some breath he wasted in a
+second cry--all challenge and fury, and no questioning wonder this
+time--and then, like a Clydesdale colt attacking a leopard, he flung
+himself upon the sheep-dog, roaring and grappling for a hold. It seemed
+that Grip was made of steel springs and india-rubber. The shock of Jan's
+assault was doubtless something of a blow; for Jan weighed more than the
+sheep-dog; but he tossed it from him with a twist of his densely clad
+shoulders, and again as the youngster blundered past him he took toll
+(this time of the loose skin on the right side of the hound's neck) in
+his precisely worked jaws.
+
+All unlearned though he was in these wolf-like (or any other) fighting
+tactics, Jan presented an imposing picture of rampant fury as he wheeled
+again to face his calmly resourceful enemy. David Crumplin had now
+recognized the young hound as an animal of value and consequence in the
+world, and in all sincerity was doing his best to separate the pair. But
+the fight had gone too far now for verbal remonstrances to have any
+effect, even with disciplined Grip; and as for Jan, he was merely
+unconscious, alike in the matter of David's adjurations and the thrusts
+and thwacks of his stave.
+
+In the pages of a correctly conceived romance, one man (providing, of
+course, that he is a hero) is always able without much difficulty to
+separate two fighting dogs, even though he be innocent of doggy lore and
+attired blamelessly, as judged by the illustrator's standards for
+walking out with the heroine. But in real life the thing is somehow
+different. Not only are two pairs of strong hands needed, but it is
+necessary that the possessors of those hands should approach the fray
+from opposite sides, and be nimble and strong enough to get clear away,
+one from the other, when each pair has grabbed its dog. No single pair
+of hands can manage it in the case of big dogs, and a man's feet are not
+far enough removed from his hands to make them an adequate substitute
+for a second pair of hands.
+
+David Crumplin, having speedily given up persuasion, yelled for help,
+and cursed and swore vehemently at the dogs, banging and thrusting at
+each in turn, without prejudice and without effect. Much they cared for
+his curses, or his ashen staff. Jan was bleeding now from half a dozen
+gaping wounds; and Grip, the famous killer, was in an icy fury of wrath,
+for the reason that this blundering young elephant of a puppy was
+actually pressing and hurting him--the best feared dog in that
+countryside. For, be it said, Jan learned with surprising quickness. He
+could not acquire in a minute or in a month the sort of fighting craft
+that made Grip terrible; but he did learn in one minute that he could
+not afford to repeat the blundering rushes which had lost him his first
+blood.
+
+At first he strove hard to bowl the sheep-dog over by sheer weight and
+strength. Then he struggled bravely to get his teeth through Grip's coat
+of mail at the neck. And if all the time he was getting punishment, he
+also was getting learning; as was proved by the fact that immediately
+after his own third wound he tore one of Grip's ears in sunder, and, a
+minute later, got home on the sheep-dog's right fore leg (where the coat
+of mail was thin) with a bite which would surely mean a week of limping
+for Grip. It was this last thrust that placed Grip definitely outside
+his master's reach, by fanning into white flame the smoldering fire of
+his nature. Indeed, for a minute or two it even made the sheep-dog
+forgetful of his cunning, so angry was he; with the result that he lost
+a section from his sound ear and came near to being overturned by the
+impetuosity of Jan's onslaught.
+
+And then suddenly the sheep-dog completely changed, as though by magic.
+His flame died down to still, white fire; his jaws ceased to clash; his
+ferocious snarl died away into deadly silence; he crouched like a lynx
+at bay. At that moment Jan's number was very nearly up, for Grip had
+coldly determined to kill. He had practically ceased fighting. He was
+merely sparring defensively now, with bloody murder in his blue eyes,
+watching grimly for his opening--the opening through which he was wont
+to end his serious fights, the opening which would yield him the
+death-hold.
+
+Jan, who knew naught of death-holds, and was at this moment blind to
+every consideration in life save that of combat, would assuredly yield
+the fatal opening within a very few seconds; and that being so, it was a
+small matter to Grip that in the mean time the youngster should rob him
+of a little fur and blood and skin. No orders, no suasion, could touch
+Grip now; neither could any form of attack move his anger. He was about
+to kill; and, for him, that fact filled the universe.
+
+At last the moment arrived. When the breath was out of Jan's body after
+a missed rush, he stumbled badly in wheeling, and almost choked as the
+spume of blood and froth and fur flew from his aching jaws. At that
+psychological moment Grip, balanced to the perfection of a hair-spring,
+and calmly calculating, leaped upon him from the side, and brought the
+youngster's four feet into the air at one time. That was the opening,
+and, in the same second, Grip's jaws sprang apart to profit by it and to
+inclose Jan's throat in a final and sufficing hold.
+
+And then, as a medieval observer might have said, the heavens opened and
+a whirling vision of gray-clad muscle and gleaming fangs descended from
+the high hedge-top, landing fairly and squarely athwart Grip's back. For
+a moment the sheep-dog sprawled, paralyzed by this inexplicable event.
+In that moment his last chance was lost. The new arrival had whirled his
+huge body clear and gripped the sheep-dog's neck in jaws longer and more
+powerful than those of any other dog in Sussex. Grip weighed close upon
+ninety pounds; but he was shaken and battered now from side to side,
+very much as a rat is shaken by a terrier. And, finally, with one
+tremendous lift of the greatest neck the hound world has known, Grip was
+flung clear to the far side of the lane, at the very feet of his master,
+who promptly grabbed him by the collar and, as though to complete Finn's
+prescription, hammered him repeatedly upon the nose with his clenched
+fist.
+
+"I'll larn'ee to answer me--by cripes, I will!" quoth David.
+
+By this time the sorely trounced Jan was on his feet and Finn had begun
+to lick his son's streaming ears. From the inside of the high hedge came
+hurrying footsteps; and in another moment the Master appeared at the
+white gate, twenty paces lower down the lane. David Crumplin was offered
+the hospitality of the scullery for the examination of his dog, but
+preferred to get Grip away with him after an admission that--
+
+"Your puppy there will do some killin' in his day, sir, if he lives to
+see it. But as for this other fellow"--pointing to Finn--"he could down
+any dog this side o' Gretna Green, an' you can say as I said so. I know
+most of 'em."
+
+That was how Jan learned his first big lesson, and the good of it never
+left him, and often saved his life; just as surely as his father's great
+speed and strength saved it on this morning, in the very breathless nick
+of time when his throat had been bared to the knife that was between
+Grip's killing jaws.
+
+In the beginning of Jan's first fight Finn had been dreaming of a hunt
+in the Australian bush. Once or twice, as David Crumplin cursed and
+ranted in the lane, Finn's dark ears had twitched as though in
+semi-consciousness of the trouble. Later, as Jan had snarlingly roared
+in his fourth or fifth attack, his sire's brown eyes had opened wide and
+he had lain a moment with ears pricked and head well up, at Betty's
+feet. And then with a long, formidable growl he had leaped for the
+porch. Half a dozen great bounds took him through the garden. A leap
+which hardly broke his stride carried him across the iron fence into the
+orchard, and a score of strides from there brought him to the
+hedge-side. The hedge was six feet high here. In the lane, which lay
+low, it was ten feet high. There was a gate twenty yards away. Finn
+scorned this and went soaring through the bramble-ends at the top of the
+hedge, and thence, a bolt of fire from the blue, to Grip's shoulders.
+
+There was that in Finn's preliminary growl which told Betty serious
+things were toward. She dared not try to walk; but she shouted to the
+Master, and he very speedily was in the orchard upon Finn's trail.
+
+A Fellow of the Royal Society, with a score of letters after his name
+and a reputation in two hemispheres, stitched the worst of Jan's wounds
+that morning, on the couch in the Master's study. Even Dr. Vaughan could
+not replace the missing section of Jan's right ear; but, short of that,
+he made a most masterly job of the repairs. And all the while wise, gray
+old Finn sat erect on his haunches beside the writing-table, looking on
+approvingly, and reflecting, no doubt, upon the prowess of the youngster
+who had caused all this pother.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+GOOD-BY TO DICK
+
+
+On a day in February, Dr. Vaughan and his son Dick ate their dinner at
+Nuthill, and spent most of the evening there, around the hall fire. On
+the flanks of the big recessed fireplace, one on either side, Finn and
+Jan lay stretched, dozing happily. Jan's wounds were long since healed
+now, and the rapid growth of his thick coat had already gone far toward
+hiding the scars, though it could not quite mask the fact that a piece
+of his right ear was missing. Jan was more than eight months old now,
+and scaled just over a hundred and twenty pounds.
+
+Late in the evening Dick Vaughan (who had honorably held to his pact
+with the Master where Betty Murdoch was concerned) had a little chat
+with Jan, whose ears he pulled affectionately, while the youngster sat
+with muzzle resting on Dick's knee.
+
+"Don't much like saying good-by to you, Jan, boy," said Dick Vaughan.
+
+"Ah, well, there need not be any good-bys to-night, Dick," said the
+Master. "We'll all be at the station in the morning, Finn and Jan as
+well."
+
+"Ha! that's good of you," said Dick. "But you'll never let that
+youngster run five miles behind a carriage, will you? Isn't he too
+gristly in the legs yet, for the weight he carries?"
+
+The Master smiled. "Trust me for that, Dick. I've reared too many big
+wolfhound pups to make that mistake. A few such road trips as that, and
+Master Jan would never again show a real gun-barrel fore leg. Why, he
+weighs a hundred and twenty pounds! No; old Finn will lope alongside of
+us, but Master Jan can have a seat inside. I have seen some of the best
+and biggest hounds ever bred spoiled for life by being allowed to follow
+horses on the road in their first year. There was Donovan, by Champion
+Kerry, you know. He might have beaten Finn, I believe, if they hadn't
+ruined him in his sixth month, trying to harden his feet behind a
+dog-cart on the great north road. The result was, when he was shown at
+the Palace in his eleventh month, his fore legs had gone for ever--like
+a dachshund's."
+
+"Ah! When I get back," said Dick, musingly, you'll be pretty nearly a
+two-year-old, Jan, boy."
+
+"And if all goes well, he will be as strong a hound as any in England;
+won't he, Betty? You'll see to that."
+
+"I will if you'll help to keep us going the right way," said Betty,
+smiling at the Master.
+
+And so, directly after an early breakfast, the Nuthill party drove to
+the station, with Jan on the floor of the wagonette and Finn pacing
+easily beside it. There was quite an assembly on the platform of the
+little station to see "young Mr. Vaughan" off. For he was bound for
+Liverpool that day, where he was to meet Captain Will Arnutt, of the
+Royal North-west Mounted Police of Canada, with whom he was to embark
+for Halifax, _en route_ for Regina, in Saskatchewan, the headquarters of
+the R.N.W.M.P., for which fine service Dick Vaughan had enlisted, after
+a stiff course of training under Captain Arnutt's personal supervision.
+
+"Between ourselves," the captain had told the Master, in Lewes, a week
+or two earlier, "neither I nor the Royal North-west have much to teach
+young Vaughan in the matter of horsemanship, and I look to see him make
+as fine a trooper as any we've got. But there's one thing we can give
+him, and that's discipline. We can teach him to face the devil himself
+at two o'clock in the morning without blinking--and I think he'll take
+it well. I don't mind a scrap about his having been a bit wild. He's got
+the right stuff in him; and, man, he's got as pretty a punch, with the
+gloves on, as ever I saw in my life. An archangel couldn't make better
+use of his left than young Vaughan."
+
+This rather tickled the Master, who up till then had never considered
+archangelic possibilities in boxing.
+
+"I was certain the boy was all right," he said.
+
+There was a rousing cheer from the group on the platform as the up-train
+moved off, with Dick Vaughan leaning far out from one of its windows.
+
+"I'll be home in eighteen months," Dick had said when he bade Betty
+Murdoch good-by. And the Master, who was beside her, nodded his sympathy
+and approval.
+
+"You'll lose nothing by the five-thousand-mile gap, old chap, and you'll
+gain a whole lot," he said.
+
+"You'll larn 'em about 'osses, Master Dick," shouted old Knight, the
+head groom, to the M.F.H. And the farmers' sons roared lustily at that.
+Jan barked once as the train began to move, and the Master's hand fell
+sharply over Betty's upon his collar; for Jan, though not yet half so
+strong as his sire, was a deal harder to hold when anything excited him.
+Like his friend Dick Vaughan, he was of good stuff, but had not as yet
+learned much of discipline.
+
+As the Nuthill party walked down the station approach to their
+wagonette, among quite a crowd of other people, Betty felt Jan's collar
+suddenly tighten--his height, even now, allowed her to hold the young
+hound's collar easily without using a lead, for he stood over thirty-one
+inches at the shoulder--and, glancing down, saw the hair all about his
+neck and shoulder-bones rise, stiffly bristling. In the same moment came
+a low growl from Finn, who walked at large on the far side of Jan and a
+little behind the Master. There was no anger in this growl of Finn's;
+but it was eloquent of warning, and magisterial in its hint of penalties
+to follow neglect of warning.
+
+"Why, what's wrong now, old--Ah! I see!" exclaimed the Master.
+
+On the opposite side of the approach was David Crumplin, walking toward
+the goods-shed of the little station, and followed closely by the
+redoubtable Grip. Grip's hackles were well up, too, for the three dogs
+had seen one another before their human friends had noticed anything out
+of the ordinary. But though Grip's bristles had risen just as stiffly as
+Jan's, and though the sensitive skin over his nostrils had wrinkled
+harshly and his upper lip lifted slightly, the gaze of his wall-eyes was
+fixed straight before him upon his master's gaiters. He saw Finn and Jan
+just as plainly as they saw him, but he never turned a hair's-breadth in
+their direction, or betrayed his recognition by a single glance.
+
+Grip was no swashbuckler, and he never played. Life, as he saw it, was
+too serious a business for that. But and if fighting was toward, well,
+Grip was ready; not eager, but deadly ready, and nothing backward. Grip
+had his black cap either in place on his head or very close at hand all
+the time. It was doubtless with a sufficiently sardonic sneer that he
+presently saw Jan jump obediently into the wagonette. Grip had seen to
+the carting of thousands of lambs and sick ewes; but for himself to
+climb into a horse-drawn vehicle at the bidding of a lady!--one can
+imagine how scornfully Grip breathed through his nostrils as he saw Jan
+driven off, with Finn, as escort, trotting alongside.
+
+He bore no particular malice against Jan, and in his hard old heart
+probably thought rather well of the bellicose youngster. But, given
+reasonable excuse for the fray, he had been blithe to tear out the same
+youngster's jugular; and, be the odds what they might, he would quite
+cheerfully have stood up to mortal combat with Finn himself. But as
+things were, the first meeting of these three since the fight in the
+lane passed off quite peacefully.
+
+All the same, there was a ragged fringe to one of Grip's ears, and for
+weeks he had limped sorely on his near fore leg. It was written in his
+mind that Jan must pay, and pay dearly, for those things, when a
+suitable occasion offered. He was no swashbuckler, and did not know what
+it meant to ruffle it among the peaceably inclined for the fun of the
+thing; but, or it may be because of that, Grip never forgot an injury,
+and, if he had known what forgiveness meant, would have regarded it as
+an evidence of silly weakness unworthy any grown dog.
+
+It is certain that Finn bore Grip no malice. That was not his way. Grip
+had offended by his ruthless onslaught upon a half-grown pup, and Finn
+had trounced him soundly for that. Now that they met, some months
+afterward, Finn thought it wise to give warning, by way of showing that
+he, in his high place, was watchful. Hence his long, low growl. In his
+adventurous life Finn had many times killed to eat, as he had frequently
+killed in fighting and as an administrator of justice. But he never had
+borne malice and never would, for that would have been clean contrary to
+the instincts of his nature and breeding.
+
+As for Jan, it would not be easy nor yet quite fair to analyze his
+feelings toward the wall-eyed sheep-dog. Jan's mind, like his big frame,
+was not yet half developed. It may be that he could never be quite so
+fine a gentleman as his sire; and in any case it were foolish to look
+for old heads on puppy shoulders. He did not think at all when he saw
+Grip. But in that instant he tugged at his collar, without conscious
+volition, just as his hackles rose, just as sharp consciousness
+penetrated every part of him, of the wounds he had sustained under
+Grip's punishing jaws. It was not malice, but a sudden heady rush in his
+veins of the lust of combat, that kept his thick coat so erectly
+bristling, the soft skin about his nostrils wrinkling so actively, for
+several minutes after his recognition of the sheep-dog. Unlike Grip, it
+might be that Jan would, as he developed, learn easily to forgive; but
+it was already tolerably obvious that he was not of the stuff of which
+those dogs who forget are made.
+
+"They don't forget the affair in the lane, either of them," said the
+Master, with a smile, after the wagonette had started. It may be Jan
+understood the words had reference to his first fight. In any case, he
+looked eagerly up into the Master's face, and from that to Betty's; and
+in that moment he was living over again through the strenuous rounds of
+his struggle with Grip.
+
+"Silly old Jan," said Betty, as her hand smoothed his head
+affectionately.
+
+"Truculent infant," laughed the Master. "Take note of the easy
+sedateness of your father in the road there." (The round trot of the
+Nuthill horses--and they frequently did the trip to the station in
+twenty-five minutes--was no more than a comfortable amble for Finn.)
+
+"Jan," said Betty Murdoch to her favorite, as they walked together on
+the Downs some three or four hours later; "he's gone away to
+Sas-sas-katchewan; and--he never said a word, Jan! I wonder if he
+thought--what he thought."
+
+If Jan had been human, he might so far have failed, as a companion, as
+to have reminded Betty that, in fact, Dick had said a good many words
+before starting for "Sas-sas-katchewan." Being only a dog, Jan failed
+not at all in the sympathy he exchanged for Betty's confidence. He just
+gently nuzzled her hand, thrusting his nose well up to her coat-cuff,
+and showed her the loving devotion in his dark hazel eyes.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+JAN BEFORE THE JUDGES
+
+
+Eighteen months went by before Dick Vaughan returned to England; and
+this period was one of happy and largely uneventful development for Jan,
+the son of Finn and Desdemona. (It brought high honors to the Lady
+Desdemona, by the way, both as a champion bloodhound and as the dam of
+some fame-winning youngsters.) It brought no very marked signs of
+advancing age to Finn, for the life the wolfhound led, while admittedly
+devoid of any kind of hardship, was sufficiently active in a moderate
+way, and very healthy. Jan made no history during this time, beyond the
+smooth record of happy days and healthy growth.
+
+"Just for the fun of the thing," he was entered in the "variety" class
+at the Brighton dog-show, when twenty months old, and that was certainly
+a memorable experience for him. There were bloodhound men at the show
+who vowed he would have won a card in their section; and there were
+wolfhound breeders who said the same thing of Jan with reference to
+their particular division. Be that as it may, Finn's son won general
+admiration when led out into the judging ring with the other entrants of
+the "variety" class.
+
+The judge was a specially great authority on bulldogs and terriers; but
+it was admitted that there was no better or fairer all-round dog judge
+in the show, and his experience in the past at hound field trials and
+such like events proved him qualified to judge of such an animal as Jan.
+Still, his special association with bulldogs and terriers was regarded
+as something of a handicap by the exhibitors of other kinds of dogs in
+this class, which, as it happened, was an unusually full one.
+
+As Jan had never before been shown and was quite unaccustomed to being
+at close quarters with numbers of strange dogs, Betty asked the Master
+to take him into the ring for her. (Jan weighed one hundred and
+forty-eight pounds now, and a pretty strong arm was required for his
+restraint among strangers, the more so as he was quite unaccustomed to
+being led.) So Betty and the Mistress secured stools for themselves
+outside the ring and the Master led in Jan to a place among no fewer
+than twenty-seven other competitors, ranging all the way from a queer
+little hairless terrier from Brazil, to a huge, badly cow-hocked animal,
+of perhaps two hundred pounds in weight, said to combine St. Bernard and
+mastiff blood in his veins.
+
+There was also an Arab hunting-dog, a slogi from Morocco, two boarhounds
+of sorts, some Polar dogs, several bulldogs and collies, and a
+considerable group of terrier varieties in one way or another
+exceptional. One of the bulldogs was a really magnificent creature of
+the famous Stone strain, whose only fault seemed to be a club-foot.
+There was also a satanic-looking creature of enormous stature; a great
+Dane, with very closely cropped prick ears, and a tail no more than five
+inches long. This gentleman was further distinguished by wearing a
+muzzle, and by the fact that his leader carried a venomous-looking whip.
+The lady with the hairless terrier was particularly careful to avoid the
+proximity of this rather ill-conditioned brute, and of the weedy-looking
+little man in a frock-coat who led him.
+
+In the course of ten or fifteen minutes, during which the ring was
+uncomfortably crowded, the judge managed to reduce his field of
+selection down to a group of six, which did not include the crop-eared
+Dane or exclude Jan.
+
+"Well, come," said the Mistress to Betty, "this does not look like
+prejudice against the larger breeds: Jan, and two other big dogs, with
+one bulldog and two terriers." Betty only nodded. She was too much
+excited on Jan's behalf for conversation; and her bright eyes missed no
+single movement in the ring. It was all very well to say that Jan was
+only shown "for the fun of the thing," and because "a one-day show is
+rather a joke, and not long enough to bore him." But from the moment her
+Jan had entered that ring with the Master, Betty knew that in all
+seriousness she badly wanted him to--well, if not to win outright, at
+all events to "get a card"; to come honorably through the ordeal.
+
+The dogs now left in the ring were the Moorish hound--a creature full of
+feline grace and suppleness, with silky drop-over ears and a tufted
+tail--an exceptionally fine cross-bred collie, the Stone bulldog, a
+Dandie Dinmont, and a Welsh terrier, the last extraordinarily small,
+bright, shapely, and game. The slogi had apparently been most carefully
+trained for the ring. He entirely ignored the other dogs, stood erect on
+his hind feet at his master's word of command, jumped a chair with
+exquisite grace and agility, and in a variety of other ways exhibited
+both wonderful suppleness and remarkable docility. The collie was
+handsome, beautifully groomed, and rather snappish. The Stone bulldog
+made a picture of good-humored British stolidity, and if his hind
+quarters had been equal to his superbly massive front and marvelously
+"smashed-up" face he would have been tolerably sure of a win in any
+class. The Dandie Dinmont had the most delightful eyes imaginable, and
+was a good-bodied dog, faulty only in tail and in a tendency to be
+leggy. The Welshman was a little miracle of Celtic grace--the very
+incarnation of doggy sharpness.
+
+The only member of this select company whose presence was really
+distasteful to Jan was the collie. This lady's temper was clearly very
+uncertain; she had a cold blue eye, and in some way she reminded Jan
+strongly of Grip, a fact which served to lift his hackles markedly every
+time he passed the bitch. The Master quickly noticed this, and did his
+best to keep a good wide patch of ring between them.
+
+The six were each favored with a long and careful separate examination
+by the judge, upon a patch of floor space which, fortunately, was right
+opposite to Betty Murdoch's seat. Betty rustled her show catalogue to
+call Jan's attention when his turn came, and kept up direct telepathic
+communication with him during the whole operation. This, combined with
+the Master's studious care in handling--a business of which he had had
+considerable experience--served to keep Jan keyed up to concert-pitch
+while in the judge's hands.
+
+When these individual examinations were ended, the collie and the Dandie
+were allowed to leave the ring. Their leaders creditably maintained the
+traditional air of being glad _that_ was over, as they escorted their
+entries back to their respective benches; and then the judge settled
+down to further study of the bulldog, the Welshman, the Moor, and Jan.
+
+Long time the judge pondered over the honest, beautifully ugly head of
+the bulldog, while that animal's leader did his well-meaning but quite
+futile best to distract attention from his charge's hind quarters. He
+would jam the dog well between his own legs, and with a brisk lift under
+the chest, endeavor to widen the dog's already splendid frontage. But,
+gaze as he might into Bully's wrinkled mask, the judge never for an
+instant lost consciousness of the weak hind quarters, the sidelong drag
+of the club-foot.
+
+Very nippily the clever little Welshman went through his nimble paces,
+dancing to the wave of his master's handkerchief on toes as springily
+supple as those of any ballerina. For the admiration of the judge and
+his attendants, the Moorish hound performed miracles of sinuous agility.
+With the size of a deerhound the Moor combined the delicate graces of an
+Italian greyhound.
+
+Jan offered no parlor tricks. Indeed, in these last minutes his young
+limbs wearied somewhat--the morning had been one of most exceptional
+stress and excitement for him--and while the other three were being
+passed in a final review, Jan lay down at full length on his belly in
+the ring, his muzzle outstretched upon his paws, neck slightly arched,
+crown high and nose very low--a pose he inherited from his distinguished
+mother, and in part, it may be, from his paternal grandam, old Tara, who
+loved to lie that way. The position was so beautiful, so characteristic,
+and so full of breeding that, rather to Betty's consternation, the
+Master refrained from disturbing it, unorthodox though such behavior
+might be in a judging ring. The Master nodded reassuringly to anxious
+Betty, and, after all, he knew even when the judge paced slowly forward,
+pencil in mouth, Jan was not disturbed.
+
+"I suppose he's hardly done furnishing yet?" asked the judge.
+
+"No, he still has, perhaps, half a year for that; four months, anyhow,"
+replied the Master. "He is only twenty months, and weighs just on a
+hundred and fifty pounds."
+
+"Does he indeed? A hundred and fifty. Now, I put him down as twenty
+pounds less than that."
+
+"A tribute to his symmetry, sir," said the Master, with a smile.
+
+"Ye--es, to be sure. May I see him on the scale?"
+
+So Jan was carefully weighed by the judge himself, and scaled one
+hundred and forty-eight and one-half pounds. And then he was carefully
+measured for height--at the shoulder-bone--and touched the standard at a
+fraction over thirty-two and one-half inches.
+
+"Re--markable," said the judge; "especially in the weight. He certainly
+is finely proportioned. Would you mind just running him across the ring
+as quickly as you can?"
+
+The owners of the other three dogs wore during this time an expression
+of inhuman selflessness of superhumanly kind interest in Jan and his
+doings.
+
+"It's a thousand pities he's so very coarse," murmured one disinterested
+admirer, the owner of the Welsh terrier. A moment later the Master had
+to hide a smile as he heard the owner of the bulldog whisper: "Nice
+beast. Pity he's so weedy. A little less on the fine side and one could
+back him as a winner."
+
+To run well while on the lead is an accomplishment rare among large
+dogs, and one which demands careful training. So the Master took
+chances. He signaled Betty to call Jan to her, and then loosed Jan's
+lead. This was a signal of delight for Jan. He was tired of the judging
+now and thought this ended it. Not only did he canter very springily
+across the ring, but he cleared the four-foot barricade as though it had
+not been there and greeted Betty with effusion. A moment later, at her
+urgent behest, and in response to the Master's call, he returned as
+easily to the ring. Then the judge, thoughtfully tapping his note-book
+with his pencil, bowed to the exhibitors, and said:
+
+"Thank you, gentlemen; I think that will do."
+
+The order of the awards was:
+
+No. 214      1
+No. 23       2
+No. 97       3
+No. 116      H.C.
+
+which meant that the Welshman was highly commended--and deserved it--the
+Moor took third prize, the bulldog second prize, and Jan, the son of
+Finn and Desdemona, first prize. And so, in the only show-ring test to
+which he had been submitted, Jan did every credit to both the noble
+strains represented in his ancestry. Finn was never beaten. The Lady
+Desdemona had never lowered her flag to any bloodhound. Jan had passed
+his first test at the head of the list, among twenty-seven competitors,
+and despite his judge's special predilection for terriers and bulldogs.
+
+"Wouldn't Dick Vaughan have been proud of him!" said the Master. And
+when Betty nodded her excited assent, he added: "I'll tell you what,
+we'll send him a cable."
+
+And so it was that, a few hours later, a trooper in the Regina Barracks
+of the R.N.W.M. Police, five thousand miles away, read, with keen
+delight, this message:
+
+     Greeting from Nuthill. Jan won first prize any variety class
+     Brighton.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+FIT AS A TWO-YEAR-OLD
+
+
+Outside the highly beneficial advantages of very healthy surroundings
+and a generous, well-chosen dietary, Jan's development during all this
+time was largely influenced by two factors--the constant companionship
+of Finn, and the fact that all the human folk with whom he came into
+contact, barring a largely negligible under-gardener, loved him.
+
+His mistress, fortunately for Jan, was not alone a cheery, wise little
+woman, but also a confirmed lover of out of doors. But all the same, if
+it had not been for Finn's influence, Jan would probably have been
+somewhat lacking in hardihood, and too great a lover of comfort. The
+circumstances of his birth had all favored the development of alert
+hardiness; but his translation to the well-ordered Nuthill home had come
+at a very early stage. The influence of Finn, with his mastery of
+hunting and knowledge of wild life, formed a constant and most wholesome
+tonic in Jan's upbringing; a splendid corrective to the smooth comforts
+of Nuthill life.
+
+From his memorable struggle in the lane with Grip, Jan had learned much
+regarding general deportment toward other dogs. Under Finn's influence,
+and his own inherited tracking powers, Jan became proficient as a hunter
+and confirmed as a sportsman. But experience had brought him none of
+those lessons which had given Finn his prudent reserve, his carefully
+non-committal attitude where human strangers were concerned.
+
+For example, supposing Finn and Jan to be lying somewhere in the
+neighborhood of the porch at Nuthill when a strange man whom neither had
+ever seen before appeared in the garden, both dogs would immediately
+rise to their feet. Jan would probably give a jolly, welcoming sort of
+bark. Finn would make no sound. Jan would amble amiably forward, right
+up to the stranger's feet, with head upheld for a caress. Finn would
+sooner die than do anything of the sort. He would keep his ground,
+motionless, showing neither friendliness nor hostility; nothing but
+grave unwinking watchfulness. If that stranger should pass the threshold
+without knocking and without invitation from any member of the
+household, Finn might safely be relied upon to bark and to follow
+closely the man's every step. Jan would probably gambol about him with
+never a thought of suspicion.
+
+If a tramp on the road carried a big stick, that fact would not deter
+Jan from trotting up to make the man's acquaintance, whereas Finn,
+without introduction, never went within reach of any stranger with any
+amiable intent. Again, if any person at all, with the exception of
+Betty, the Master, or the Mistress, approached Finn when he was in a
+recumbent position, he would invariably rise to his feet. Jan would loll
+at full length right across a footpath when he felt like taking his
+ease, even to the point of allowing people to step across his body. On
+the strength of a ten minutes' acquaintance he would go to sleep with
+his head under your foot, if it chanced that he was sleepy at the time.
+
+Yet, for all his trustfulness, Jan probably growled a score of times or
+more for every one that Finn growled, and no doubt barked more often in
+a day than Finn barked in a month. Jan hunted with joyous bays; Finn in
+perfect silence. Jan trusted everybody and observed folk--when they
+interested him and he felt like observing. Finn, without necessarily
+mistrusting anybody, observed everybody watchfully and trusted only his
+proven friends. Jan, in his eagerness for praise and commendation,
+sought these from any one. Finn would not seek praise even from the
+Master, and was gratified by it only when it came from a real friend.
+
+By the same token Finn was far more sensitive to spoken words than Jan.
+It was not once in three months that the Master so much as raised or
+sharpened his voice in speaking to Finn. If Finn were verbally
+reproached by a member of the household, one saw his head droop and his
+eyes cloud. Jan would wag his tail while being scolded, even vehemently,
+and five minutes later would require a second call, and in a sharp tone,
+before turning aside from an interesting scent or a twig in the path.
+
+Withal, Jan's faults, such as they were, were no more seriously
+objectionable than the faults of a well-bred, high-spirited,
+good-hearted English school-boy. Finn's disposition was knightly; but it
+was the disposition of a tried and veteran knight and not of a dashing
+young gallant. Under his thick black-and-gray coat Jan did carry a few
+scars, so shrewdly had Grip's fangs done their work; but life had hardly
+marked him as yet; certainly he carried none of life's scars. Also, good
+and sound as his heart was, clean and straight though he was by nature,
+he never had that rare and delicate courtliness which so distinguished
+his sire among hounds. Even Desdemona, great lady that she undoubtedly
+was, had not the wolfhound's grave courtesy. Neither had Jan. He was
+more bluff. The bloodhound in him made him look solemn at times; but he
+was not naturally a grave person at all.
+
+On the other hand, Jan was no longer a puppy. The hardening and
+furnishing process would continue to improve his physique till after the
+end of his second year; but he had definitely laid aside puppyhood in
+his eighteenth month and had a truly commanding presence. He was three
+inches lower at the shoulder than his sire--the tallest hound in
+England--yet looked as big a dog because built on slightly heavier
+lines. He had the wolfhound's fleetness, but with it much of the massy
+solidity of the bloodhound. His chest was immensely deep, his fore legs,
+haunches, and thighs enormously powerful. And the wrinkled massiveness
+of his head, like the breadth of his black saddle, gave him the
+appearance of great size, strength, and weight.
+
+As a fact he scaled one hundred and sixty-four pounds on his second
+birthday, and that was eight pounds heavier than his sire; a notable
+thing in view of the fact that he was in no way gross and carried no
+soft fat, thanks to the many miles of downland he covered every day of
+his life in hunting with Finn and walking with Betty Murdoch.
+
+Taking him for all in all, Jan was probably as finely conditioned and
+developed a hound as any in England when he reached his second birthday,
+and it is hardly likely that a stronger hound could have been found in
+all the world. It may be that for hardness and toughness and endurance
+he might have found his master without much difficulty; for hardship
+begets hardihood, and Jan had known no hardship as yet. But at the end
+of his second year he was a very splendid specimen of complete canine
+development, and, by reason of his breeding, easily to be distinguished
+from all other hounds.
+
+And then, two months after that second birthday, Dick Vaughan came home
+on short furlough, a privilege which, as Captain Will Arnutt wrote to
+Dr. Vaughan, he had very thoroughly earned.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+DISCIPLINE
+
+Dick Vaughan's home-coming was something of an event for the district,
+as well as for Dr. Vaughan and the Upcroft household, and for Betty
+Murdoch and the Nuthill folk. He was a totally different person from the
+careless, casual, rather reckless Dick Vaughan who had left for Canada
+eighteen months before. Every one had liked the old Dick Vaughan who had
+disappeared; yet nobody now regretted the apparently final loss of him,
+and all were agreed in admiring the new Dick with more or less
+enthusiasm.
+
+Already he had won promotion in the fine corps to which he belonged, and
+his scarlet uniform coat had a stripe on one sleeve. But this was a
+small matter--though Dr. Vaughan was prouder of it than of any of his
+own long list of learned degrees and other honors--by comparison with
+the other and unofficial promotion Dick had won in the scale of manhood.
+No uniform was needed to indicate this. One became aware of it the
+moment one set eyes upon him. It showed itself in the firm lines of his
+thin, tanned face, in the carriage of his shoulders, the swing of his
+walk, the direct, steady gaze of his eyes, and the firm, assured tone of
+his voice.
+
+Always a sportsman and a good fellow, Dick Vaughan was now a full man, a
+man handled and made; a strong, disciplined man, decently modest, but
+perfectly conscious of his strength, and easily able to control other
+men. This was what Canada and membership of the Royal North-west Mounted
+Police had done for Dick Vaughan in a short eighteen months.
+
+For young and healthy men there is perhaps no other country which has
+more to give than Canada in the shape of discipline; of that kind of
+mental, moral, and physical tonic which makes for swift, sure
+character-development, and the stiffening and bracing of the human
+fibers. In English life there has been of late years a rather serious
+scarcity of this tonic influence. Canada is very rich in her supply of
+it; but the tonic is too potent for the use of weaklings.
+
+Then, too, there were the R.N.W.M.P. influences, representing a
+concentrated distillation of the same tonic. The traditions of this fine
+force form a great power for the shaping and making of men. First, they
+have a strongly testing and selective influence. They winnow out the
+weeds among those who come under their influence with quite
+extraordinary celerity and thoroughness. Those who come through the
+selective process satisfactorily may be relied upon as surely as the
+grain-buyer may rely on the grade of wheat which comes through its tests
+as "No. 1, hard." The trooper who comes honorably out of his first year
+in the R.N.W.M.P. is quite certainly "No. 1, hard," as much to be relied
+upon as any other single product of the prairies.
+
+"It is not only that the man in any way weak is quite unable to stand
+the steady test of R.N.W.M.P. life. Apart from that, no blatherskite can
+endure it; no vain boaster, no aggressive bully, no slacker, and no
+humbug of any kind can possibly keep his end up in the force." So wrote
+a widely experienced and keen-witted "old-timer," in 1908, and he was
+perfectly right.
+
+For example, the R.N.W.M.P. man who made an unnecessary use or display
+of weapons, by way of enforcing his authority, would be laughed and
+ridiculed out of the force. The thing has been done, and will be done
+again, if necessary. Aided only by the weight of the fine traditions
+belonging to his uniform, the R.N.W.M.P. man is expected to be capable,
+without any fuss at all, of arresting a couple of notorious toughs, and,
+with his naked hands, of taking them away with him from among the
+roughest sort of crowd of their associates.
+
+And in the R.N.W.M.P., if a man does not show himself consistently
+capable of doing that which the traditions of the force say is to be
+expected of him, his place in the force will know him no more. There are
+no failures in the R.N.W.M.P.--they are not allowed. The force could not
+afford to allow them, because their existence--the existence of any of
+them--would weaken R.N.W.M.P. prestige; and that prestige is the armor
+without which the work of the force would be utterly impossible; not
+merely for the average trooper, but even for an individual possessed of
+the combined genius of a Napoleon, a Sherlock Holmes, and an Admirable
+Crichton.
+
+As things stand, the maintenance of law and order in the western and
+north-western prairies, with their vast, trackless stretches of as yet
+almost uninhabited territory, is fully equal to the level attained in
+London or New York. The law is quite as much respected there;
+infractions of it are quite as surely punished; peace and security are
+to the full as well preserved. This truth is speedily understood even by
+the least desirable brand of foreign immigrant. The fugitive from
+justice reckons his chances considerably better in any other place than
+the territory of the Riders of the Plains. And all this because of a
+handful of mounted men in red coats.
+
+"The fact is," said a Minnesota farmer to the present writer, "it don't
+matter a cent what sort of a pull a man has, how many guns he carries,
+or how many dollars are behind him; if he breaks the law up there in the
+North-west, he knows he's just got to be jailed for it, sure as he's
+alive. It may take a day, or it may take a year. It may cost the
+authorities a dollar, or it may cost 'em a million, and a life or two
+thrown in. But that tough is just going to be jailed, and he durned well
+knows it. That's what the R.N.W.M.P. means to the North-west; and you
+take it from me, it's a pretty big thing to mean."
+
+It is a big thing. And what makes it possible for that handful of
+redcoats is not money, or guns, or numbers, but a solid, four-square
+foundation of irreproachable prestige; an unspotted tradition of
+incorruptible honesty, tirelessness, braveness, fairness, and real
+_decency_. This is the reason why no failures are allowed in the
+R.N.W.M.P.; this is the reason why eighteen months of service in that
+corps, of a sort that earns promotion, means so much for the man who
+accomplishes it. It demands a great deal of him. It gives him an
+indisputable title to complete manhood.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Though the point was often discussed, it never was made quite clear who
+first suggested that Jan should accompany Dick Vaughan when, after three
+short weeks at home, he set out again for the West. The Master privately
+believed the first suggestion came from him. Dick was sure he had begun
+by begging for the privilege. Betty cherished the idea that her gift was
+unsought and quite spontaneous. At all events, once the thing was
+decided, nobody concerned doubted for a moment the fitness of it.
+Betty's own arrangements may have had something to do with it. For the
+Master and the Mistress had set their hearts upon Betty having a season
+in London and a month or two on the Continent, in part with her Nuthill
+friends, and, for a portion of the time, with another relative. This
+made the prospect of parting for a time with Jan a good deal easier.
+
+Then, again, Dick Vaughan had certainly "said a word" to Betty now. He
+had, indeed, said a good deal to her. And there was one little
+affirmative word she had given him which he held more preciously
+significant than all the rest of the world's oratory put together. It
+was Dick Vaughan's own suggestion that he should serve a further
+probationary term. It was his own idea that he should earn the Master's
+blessing by winning sergeant's rank in the R.N.W.M.P.; and that not till
+then should he allow his father to set him up in England. His decision
+in this delighted Dr. Vaughan and confirmed the Master in his faith. It
+meant a further term of absence, but Betty Murdoch was sensible enough
+to be proud of the pride behind Dick's plan; and thus all were agreed.
+
+Jan's opinion in the matter could hardly be ascertained; but no one who
+had ever seen Dick and Betty on the Downs with Jan and Finn, and noted
+the wonderful responsiveness of the young hound to Dick's control, would
+have entertained any doubt about this. Dick's mastery of animals had
+always been remarkable; his hold upon their affections had been one of
+the most striking characteristics of his life. And in this, as in other
+matters, his experiences in the West had taught him a good deal.
+
+At home in Sussex, and even as a youngster, it had been recognized that
+Dick Vaughan could get rather more out of an average horse than any one
+else in the district. On the prairies he had so far developed this gift
+of his that his charger would lie down on the ground at a word from him,
+and remain lying, as though dead, without ever injuring or displacing
+his saddle, until given the word to rise; and this even though his neck
+were used as a gun-rest, and Dick's rifle fired from it.
+
+Dick's horses in Canada--and he trained many--required no tethering.
+They would remain, all day if need be, upon the exact spot at which he
+bade them stand. They would push and nuzzle a man along a road, and
+never upset him. They would gallop, unridden, in any given direction, at
+the word of command, and halt as if shot at the sound of Dick's voice.
+He actually taught a mare to leave her foal and come to him at the word
+of command. Not the wildest and most vicious of broncos could resist him
+when he set his mind to their subjugation, yet he wore drilled sixpences
+in place of rowels in his spurs, and rarely carried a whip; though on
+certain occasions he might borrow one for a specific use.
+
+During his walks on the Downs with Betty and the two hounds he taught
+Jan to lie down, stand to attention, gallop in any direction, wheel and
+return without hesitation; and all this upon the instant of the word of
+command, or in obedience to a wave of the hand. He arranged for Betty to
+take Jan away with her for, say, a quarter of a mile, and then, short of
+holding him, to use every persuasion she could to keep him beside her.
+Then Dick would give a long call, and then another. It was almost
+uncanny to see, from the expression on his face, the struggle going on
+in Jan's mind. But the end was always the same. The second call took him
+away at the gallop, even from Betty. Then Jan was taught to remain on
+guard over any object, such as a stick, a glove, or a cap, while Dick
+and Betty, and Finn, too, went right away out of sight for, it might be,
+half an hour.
+
+Jan learned these things readily, and with apparent ease. Yet his only
+rewards were an occasional caress and words of praise. And, apparently,
+there were no punishments in Dick's educational system. At least he
+never struck Jan. He really seemed so to influence the young hound that
+the withholding of praise became a sharp rebuke. Jan himself had no
+notion why he allowed Dick to school him, or why he yielded this man a
+measure of obedience and instant devotion that he had given to no one
+else. The basis of Dick's power was the exceptional gift of magnetism he
+had--the special kind of magnetism which makes for the subjugation of
+their wills and personalities, be they human or animal.
+
+But, over and above this gift, Dick had faultless patience with animals.
+He never gave an order without making perfectly certain that it was
+understood. And he never betrayed the smallest hint of indecision or
+lack of assured confidence.
+
+"Stay--right--there--Jan," he would say. "Guard--that." His voice was
+low, his speech slow, emphatic, distinct. It was a compelling form of
+speech, and yet, withal, hardly ever harsh or even peremptory. And when,
+in the earlier stages, he had occasion to say: "No, no; that's no good.
+That won't do at all, Jan"; or, "You've got to do a heap better than
+that, Jan," the words or their tone seemed to cut the dog as it might
+have been with a whip-lash. You could see Jan flinch; not cowed or
+disheartened, as the dogs trained by public performers often are, but
+touched to the very quick of his pride, and hungrily eager to do better
+next time and win the low-voiced: "Good dog! That's fine! Good dog,
+Jan!" with, it may be, a caressing pat on the head or a gentle rubbing
+of both ears.
+
+Jan did not know why he learned, why he loved the lessons and the
+teacher, why he obeyed so swiftly, or why praise filled him to the
+throat with glad, swelling pride, while the withholding of it, or an
+expression of disapproval, sent his flag down between his hocks, and his
+spirits with it, to zero. Jan did not know, but he was merely
+exemplifying a law as old as the hills. The Israelites found out that
+righteousness was happiness, and that no joy existed outside of it.
+Righteousness--do ye right--is another word for discipline. The proudest
+and the happiest people in the world are the best disciplined people.
+Perfect discipline is righteousness for righteousness' sake. According
+to his lights, obedience to Dick was righteousness for Jan. Hence his
+joyous pride in the progress of his education. No form of
+self-indulgence could yield Jan (or any one else) a tithe of the
+satisfaction he derived from this subordination of himself.
+
+His greatest trial, and, by that token, once he really understood it,
+his greatest source of pride, came in the severe lesson of being sent
+home in the early stages of a morning's walk. First it was from the
+garden gate; then from the orchard gate in the lane; and later from the
+open Down, perhaps half a mile or more away. He would be gamboling to
+and fro with Finn, exulting in the joy of out of doors, and swift and
+unanswerable would come the order to return home and wait. Finn was to
+go on and enjoy the ramble. Jan, for no fault, was to go home alone to
+wait. And in the end he did it with no pause for protest or hesitation,
+and at length with no regret, all that being swallowed up by his immense
+pride in his own understanding and perfect subordination.
+
+He might have to wait ten minutes or an hour or more on the door-step at
+Nuthill; but it was notable that he never went unrewarded for this
+particular performance of duty. He was always specially commended and
+caressed for this; and he never altogether lost a ramble by it, for Dick
+would make a point of taking him out again, either at once or at some
+time during the same day. It was a stiff lesson to learn, this; and that
+was why, once learned, the practice of it was highly stimulating to
+Jan's self-respect and dignity of bearing.
+
+Upon the whole, in the course of those three crowded weeks of holiday
+happiness and courting Dick Vaughan managed to pass on to Jan a quite
+appreciable simulacrum of all the benefits which had made so markedly
+for his own development during the preceding eighteen months. And most
+notably was Jan developed in the process.
+
+"We gave Jan a good physique, didn't we, Betty?" said the Master,
+admiringly; "but in three weeks this wizard has made a North-west
+Mounted Policeman of him, absolutely fully equipped, bar speech and a
+uniform!"
+
+"Oh, well," replied Dick, with a laugh, "we don't reckon to be very much
+as speakers out West, you know; and for uniform, Jan's black and
+iron-gray coat is good tough wear, and will outlast the best of tunics,
+and turn snow or hail or rain a deal better. Won't it, Jan?"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+SUSSEX TO SASKATCHEWAN
+
+
+In the absence of that three weeks' schooling, there is no doubt the
+journey to Regina would have been a pretty dismal business for Jan. It
+occupied close upon a fortnight, and there was very little liberty for
+Jan during that time.
+
+Unlike his great sire, Jan had never been stolen, and had learned
+nothing of the dire possibilities connected with confinement behind iron
+bars. He tasted some tolerably close confinement during this journey;
+but he thought each day would bring an end to it; and, meantime, nobody
+ill-treated him, and, what was more to the point, he had some converse
+with Dick each day.
+
+As the habit of his kind is, he had, of course, parted with Finn and the
+Nuthill folk without the slightest premonition regarding the duration of
+their separation. In the confinement of the cupboard beside the
+butcher's shop which he occupied while crossing the Atlantic, Jan
+thought a good deal of Finn, of Betty, and of Nuthill; yet not with
+melancholy. While at sea he had several visits each day from Dick
+Vaughan, and during the preceding few weeks Dick had become very
+securely established as Jan's hero and sovereign lord.
+
+Jan would never cease to love Betty Murdoch; but in the nature of things
+it was impossible for gentle, merry Betty to give this big hound quite
+all that masterful Dick Vaughan could give him. His heart had often
+swelled in answer to a caress from Betty; but his whole being thrilled
+again to the touch of Dick's strong hand or to a word of command or
+praise or deprecation from him. Jan was a grown hound now, and newly
+initiated to the joys of disciplined service.
+
+The train was worse, far worse, than the ship; but it came after the
+major part of a day at large with Dick in the picturesque streets of
+Quebec. And even on the train, with its demoniacal noises, and groaning,
+jarring, jolting lack of ease, each day brought its glimpses of Dick,
+and its blessed respites of ten minutes or so at a time on station
+platforms. Jan had traveled before in an English train; but that had
+been as a passenger, and with passengers, in an ordinary compartment. In
+the dark, cramped, and incredibly noisy hole of a dog-box on "No. 93"
+(as this particular west-bound train was called) Jan realized that
+railway traveling could be a very unpleasant business for a hound. A
+month earlier the experience would have exhausted him, because he would
+have frittered away his energies in futile fretting and fuming, and in
+equally futile efforts to force his way out through steel walls. Now his
+cramped quarters were made tolerable by the fact that quiet submission
+to them represented obedience to a personal order from his sovereign.
+What had otherwise been wretchedness and misery was now willingly
+accepted discipline, the earning of a substantial reward: his
+sovereign's approval and his own pride of subordination--a totally
+different matter from mere painful imprisonment.
+
+Captain Will Arnutt had heard all about Jan by letter from Nuthill. One
+would not altogether say that so important a person as the captain went
+to Regina station expressly to meet Dick and Jan; but it certainly did
+happen that he was admiring the flower-beds in the station's garden when
+No. 93 hove in sight from the eastward; and being there, he decided to
+stroll on to the platform and watch the train's arrival, along with
+every one else who happened to be in sight at the time.
+
+It might, perhaps, lead to awkward consequences if every
+non-commissioned man of the R.N.W.M.P. took to keeping animals in
+barracks. Both Dick and Captain Arnutt had thought of this, and,
+accordingly, Jan, the son of Finn and Desdemona, was welcomed upon his
+first appearance in the capital of Saskatchewan as Captain Arnutt's
+hound, brought from England by Dick Vaughan, and to be looked after for
+Captain Arnutt by the same man. Jan would have been tickled could he
+have perceived this harmless piece of human deception; but it was just
+as well he did not understand, since he would never have lent himself to
+it very convincingly.
+
+By reason of his breeding Jan was, as a matter of fact, unique among
+hounds. Apart from this, no hound of his size or splendid development
+had ever before been seen upon Regina station platform. The people of
+the West are a forthright, plain-spoken, and enterprising folk, and
+before he left the station Captain Arnutt was offered fifty dollars for
+Jan. Nothing damped by the captain's smiling refusal of his offer, the
+sporting stranger said:
+
+"Well, an' I don't blame ye, Colonel, neither. But, say, it's a pity to
+miss a good deal. I like the looks o' that dog, and"--drawing out a fat
+wallet from his hip-pocket--"we'll make it a hundred dollars, an' the
+deal's done."
+
+As Dick subsequently explained to Captain Arnutt, two thousand dollars
+had been offered, and refused, for Jan's mother. "And I'm dead sure
+twenty thousand wouldn't buy his sire."
+
+But these figures were for private consumption, of course. Dick had no
+wish to invite the attention of the predatory; and, in any case, buyers
+and sellers of dogs do not talk in thousands of dollars on the prairie.
+
+At the entrance to the R.N.W.M.P. barracks the unsuspecting Jan was
+violently attacked by a fox-terrier, the pet of one of the senior
+officers of the corps. This pugnacious little chap wasted no time over
+preliminaries, and apparently had no desire whatever to examine the
+new-comer. He just flew straight at Jan's throat, snarling furiously.
+Captain Arnutt was distressed, for he made sure the terrier would be
+killed, and that Jan would thereby make an enemy of one of the senior
+officers. But his fears were groundless, thanks to Jan's few weeks of
+discipline and training before leaving Nuthill.
+
+"Come in here--in--here--Jan, boy. Don't touch him. Come--in--here!"
+
+Jan stood for one moment, listening, his hackles bristling resentment of
+the terrier's insolence. And then he walked obediently to Dick's side,
+the snarling, yapping terrier literally pendent from his neck.
+
+"That was stupid of you, little chap," said Dick, when he had detached
+the terrier and was holding him firmly in both his hands, still snarling
+angrily. "If you were mine, you'd probably get a hiding, my son. As it
+is, you'll stop that snarling. You--hear--me? Stop it!"
+
+And reluctantly the terrier did cease his snarling. One could see the
+little beast slowly calming down in Dick's strong hands, like an excited
+patient under the spell of some mild anesthetic. And then, having calmed
+him, Dick very carefully showed the terrier to Jan.
+
+"Look at him, Jan, boy. He's privileged--not to be hurt. Never touch
+him, lad. He belongs to us, you see. Never hurt him."
+
+Then, rather ostentatiously stroking the terrier in full view of Jan,
+Dick put the little beast down and bade it run away.
+
+"No more snarling at Jan, mind. He belongs to us, you see."
+
+And whether or not the terrier understood, he did, at all events, walk
+off toward the veranda of his master's quarters without further
+demonstrations of belligerency. Captain Arnutt joined enthusiastically
+with Dick in bestowing praises upon Jan for his forbearance and
+docility.
+
+"I made sure the little fellow's number was up," said the captain. "One
+good bite from this chap would have about settled his business. And,
+mind you, he bit hard, too. There's blood on Jan's coat--look. A fine
+welcome we've given you, old chap."
+
+Dick had noticed the fleck of blood on the gray of Jan's dewlap, which
+showed that the terrier had been very much in earnest. Jan's dense coat
+was thinner just there than in most spots; but even there a good deal of
+energy was required to yield flesh-hold to a terrier's jaws. But the
+wound was trifling, and Dick, knowing his hound, wasted no sentiment
+over a scratch of this sort.
+
+"It's just as well, sir," said he to Captain Arnutt. "There are some
+pretty tough huskies hanging about our quarters, and this little start
+will warn Jan to keep a sharp lookout. He has to get used to more
+warlike conditions than he knew in Sussex, and the sooner he
+understands, the better for him--and for the others. I fancy he can take
+care of himself."
+
+"He's certainly got the first essential--discipline. I never saw a more
+obedient dog."
+
+Dick looked his pleasure at this, and ventured upon the hope that
+Captain Arnutt would pass on this testimonial among his brother
+officers; for well Dick knew the value to a dog like Jan of a good
+reputation, more particularly in so well-ordered a little world as that
+of the R.N.W.M.P. barracks.
+
+This opening incident ended, Dick was free to take Jan down to the
+stables and introduce him to his own horse and the other chargers in
+that division, as well as to their riders. Dick devoted considerable
+time and care to this introductory process, because he realized its
+importance. He had obtained permission to quarter Jan with his horse;
+and an hour's work provided a rough bench for Jan at one end of Paddy's
+manger--Paddy being Dick's charger. Dick had another day and a half
+before having to report himself for duty, and had made up his mind so to
+instruct Jan during that period as to make it unnecessary that the hound
+should ever be called upon to suffer the indignity of being tethered,
+even during his, Dick's, absence.
+
+The task proved an easy one, and Dick was given every kind of assistance
+by his comrades, most of whom were at once attracted by Jan, and
+inclined to regard him as an acquisition to be proud of. Before the day
+was out Jan had successfully passed through a number of tolerably severe
+tests of trustworthiness, and Dick was satisfied that he might safely be
+spared the indignity of the chain.
+
+For example, being left on his rough bench with an old dandy-brush to
+guard, Jan was approached in turn by half a dozen of Dick's comrades,
+who exhausted their ingenuity in trying to entice, frighten, or persuade
+him from his post. Jan eyed them all quite good-humoredly, wagging his
+tail in response to enticements, and growling a little, very quietly,
+when they tried harsher tactics, but remaining throughout immovably in
+charge of his post.
+
+Then Dick went well out into the barrack-yard, and called quietly to
+Jan. Instantly the long, silky ears lifted. Snatching up his dandy-brush
+and gripping it firmly between his jaws, Jan rushed out into the yard,
+there to be rewarded with the assurance of Dick's affectionate approval
+and the enthusiastic plaudits of the other troopers.
+
+"You've put the Indian sign on him, all right," said French, the
+Devonshire man. "It must have taken some doing to lick him into that
+shape."
+
+"There's no Indian sign about it, old man," said Dick. "It isn't any
+lambasting Jan's afraid of. You watch his face now, when I lift this
+stick."
+
+The men all watched, and noted that Jan did not move so much as an
+eyelid in response to the lifting of a stick.
+
+"Well, that's queer," said old Cartier, the French-Canadian dealer, who
+was visiting a friend in the barracks. "Don't seem as though that dog
+ever was licked."
+
+"And so far as I know," said Dick, "he never has been. But, mind you,
+that's not to say he never will be. I'd never hesitate to thrash a dog
+if he deserved it, and thrash him good and hard, too. But so far Master
+Jan has never asked for lickings. Have you Jan? That's why he's not
+afraid of a stick; for I'd never hit a dog or a horse unless really to
+punish him, so that he'd know it was a thrashing--not just a bit of bad
+luck for him, or temper in me."
+
+"H'm! I believe you could get two hundred an' feefty dollar for that
+dog, up north," said Cartier, musingly; "maybe three hundred, if you
+broke him to harness."
+
+Dick smiled quietly, and nodded.
+
+"No, no," said O'Malley, the man of Cork; "he's going to stay right here
+an' be our mascot. Aren't ye, Jan?" And Jan affably signified his
+agreement.
+
+"That's all right," said French, knocking his pipe out against the heel
+of his boot. "But what's going to happen to-morrow when Sergeant Moore
+gets back with his Sourdough? You'll see some fun then, I fancy. Old
+Sourdough's been boss dog around here a goodish while now, you know. He
+won't stand for having this chap put his nose out of joint. And, mind
+you, there's no dog in Regina can cock his tail at Sourdough. I saw him
+knock the stuffing out of that big sheep-dog of MacDougall's last year,
+and I tell you he'd have buried the sheep-dog before he left him, if
+Sergeant Moore hadn't managed to get a halter through his collar and
+pretty near choked him. It was a close thing; an' they reckoned the
+sheep-dog had never met his master till then."
+
+"Yep, that's a fact," said another man. "There'll be trouble with
+Sourdough if you're not careful, Vaughan. He's a demon of a dog, an', by
+gee! he's sourer than his boss, an' that's saying something."
+
+"Well, yes, I'd thought about Sourdough," said Dick; "and I'm glad his
+quarters are the other side of the yard."
+
+"The other side!" said French. "Why, man, he owns the whole place. You
+see how the other dogs kow-tow to him. He's sour, all right, and a
+fighter from way back; but the way he's built he somehow doesn't seem to
+make trouble with any dog that kow-tows to him. But God help the husky
+that don't kow-tow. Sourdough will have his salute as boss, or he'll
+have blood. That's the sort of a duck Sourdough is."
+
+"Ah! Well, he'll get civility from us, won't he, Jan? and if that's all
+he wants, there'll be no trouble. But I'll tell you what, you fellows:
+if Jan's in the stable there with Paddy any time when I'm not about,
+don't you let Sourdough come into our quarters at all."
+
+"It'd take a hefty chap to keep Sourdough out, if he meant coming in,"
+said O'Malley. "But I guess we'll do our best--eh, boys? I reckon our
+Jan's a better mascot than the sergeant's tyke."
+
+"But there mustn't be any fighting," added Dick; "and there won't be if
+we're careful; for there's nothing sour about Jan here, and you've seen
+he's obedient."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+INTRODUCING SOURDOUGH
+
+
+In some respect Jan's life at the R.N.W.M.P. headquarters might have
+been simpler if he had been less lovable and less popular. As a matter
+of fact, while pretty nearly every one in the barracks took a fancy to
+the big hound and felt a certain pride in his unique appearance as a
+R.N.W.M.P. dog, the members of Dick's own division adored Jan to a man.
+His docility, his affectionate nature, and his uniform courtesy bound
+them to him, even apart from their pride in him and the influence of
+Dick Vaughan as champion heavy-weight boxer and crack horseman of the
+force.
+
+There were eight or ten other dogs in the barracks, all of whom
+(including the bellicose fox-terrier who first welcomed Jan at the
+gates) took kindly to the big hound from Sussex as soon as they knew him
+and had tested his frank and kindly nature. They were none of them
+really big dogs, and that fact alone, apart from Dick's teaching, made
+Jan specially indulgent in his attitude toward them. After certain curt
+warnings, the two or three dogs among them whose natures inclined them
+to fighting seemed to realize contentedly enough that Jan was somewhat
+outside their class, and in any case not a good person to quarrel with.
+
+But there were two people who hated Jan from the moment they first set
+eyes upon his fine form, and these were Sergeant Moore and his dog
+Sourdough. The sergeant and his dog had a good deal in common with each
+other and not very much in common with any one else. Sergeant Moore was
+one of the few really unpopular men in the force. But, if nobody in the
+district liked him, it is but fair to say that many feared him, and none
+could be found who spoke ill of him in the sense of calling his honesty
+or his competence into question.
+
+The sergeant was a terror to evil-doers, a hard man to cross, and too
+grim and sour to be any one's companion. But no man doubted his honesty,
+and those who had no call to fear him entertained a certain respect for
+him, even though they could not like the man. In addition to his
+grimness he had a stingingly bitter tongue. He was not a fluent speaker;
+but most of his words had an edge to them, and he dealt not at all in
+compliments, never going beyond a curt nod by way of response to another
+man's "Good day!" When, with the punctiliousness of the perfectly
+disciplined man, he saluted an officer, there was that in his expression
+and in the almost fierce quality of his movement which made the salute
+something of a menace.
+
+His forbidding disposition had probably stood between Sergeant Moore and
+further promotion. His contemporaries, the older men of the corps, knew
+he had once been married. His juniors had never seen the sergeant in
+converse with a woman. Withal it was believed that Sergeant Moore had
+one weakness, one soft spot in his armor. It was said that when he
+believed himself to be quite alone with his dog Sourdough he indulged
+himself in some of the tendernesses of a widowed father who lavishes all
+his heart upon a single child.
+
+There was little enough about Sourdough to remind one of a human child,
+lovable or otherwise. If the master was grim and forbidding in manner
+and appearance, the dog exhibited a broadly magnified reflection of the
+same attributes. His color was a sandy grayish yellow without markings.
+His coat was coarse, rather ragged, and extraordinarily dense. His
+pricked ears were chipped and jagged from a hundred fights, and in a
+diagonal line across his muzzle was a broad white scar, gotten, men
+said, in combat with a timber-wolf in the Athabasca country.
+
+It was a part of Sourdough's pose or policy in life to profess
+short-sightedness. He would walk past a group of dogs as though unaware
+of their existence. Yet let one of those dogs but cock an eye of
+impudence in his direction, or glance with lifting eyebrow at one of his
+fellows, with a sneer or jeer in his heart for Sourdough, and in that
+instant Sourdough would be upon him like an angry lynx, with a bitter
+snarl and a snap that was pretty certain to leave its scar. This done,
+Sourdough would pass on, with hackles erect and a hunch of his shoulders
+which seemed to say:
+
+"When next you are inclined to rudeness, remember that Sourdough knows
+all things, forgets nothing, and bites deep."
+
+The story went that in his youth Sourdough had led a team of sled-dogs,
+and that he had saved Moore's life on one occasion when every one of his
+team-mates had either died or deserted his post. He was of the mixed
+northern breed whose members are called huskies, but he was bigger and
+heavier than most huskies and weighed just upon a hundred pounds. A
+wagon-wheel had once gone over his tail (when nine dogs out of ten would
+have lost their lives by receiving the wheel on their hind quarters),
+and this appendage now had a curious bend in the middle of it, making it
+rather like a bulldog's "crank" tail, but long and bushy. He was far
+from being a handsome dog; but he looked every inch a fighter, and there
+was a certain invincibility about his appearance which, combined with
+his swiftness in action and the devastating severity of all his attacks,
+served to win for him the submissive respect of almost every dog he met.
+Occasionally, and upon a first meeting, some careless, undiscerning dog
+would overlook these qualities. The same dog never made the same mistake
+a second time.
+
+Dick Vaughan made it his business to be on hand when Sourdough first met
+Jan. When ordered to do so, Jan had learned to keep his muzzle within a
+yard of Dick's heels, and that was his position when Sergeant Moore came
+striding across the yard with Sourdough. Jan's hackles rose the moment
+he set eyes on the big husky. Sourdough, as his way was, glared in
+another direction. But his hackles rose also, and his upper lip lifted
+slightly as the skin of his nose wrinkled. Clearly there was to be no
+sympathy between these two.
+
+Suddenly, and without apparently having looked in Jan's direction,
+Sourdough leaped sideways at him, with an angry snarl.
+
+"Keep in--Jan; keep in--boy!" said Dick, firmly, as he jumped between
+the two dogs.
+
+"Who gave you permission to bring that dog here?" snapped the sergeant
+at Dick.
+
+"Taking care of him for Captain Arnutt, sir," was the reply.
+
+"H'm! Well, see you take care of him, then, and keep him out of the way.
+Sourdough's boss here, and if this one is to stay around, the sooner he
+learns it the better."
+
+"Yes, sir. He's thoroughly good-tempered and obedient, though he is such
+a big fellow," said Dick, still manoeuvering his legs as a barrier
+betwixt the two dogs.
+
+"It's little odds how big he is," growled the sergeant. "He'll have to
+learn his lesson, an' I guess Sourdough will teach him."
+
+Just then Sourdough succeeded in evading Dick and got well home on Jan's
+right shoulder with a punishing slash of his razor fangs. Jan gave a
+snarl that was half a roar. His antipathy had been aroused at the
+outset. Now his blood was drawn. He had been ordered to keep to heel,
+but--
+
+"Keep in, there--Jan; keep in--keep in!"
+
+The warning came not a second too soon. Almost the hound had sprung.
+
+"Would you call your dog off, sir?" said Dick.
+
+"I guess Sourdough'll call himself off when he's good an' ready,"
+replied the sergeant; and himself strode on across the yard.
+
+Once more Jan had to submit to the bitter ordeal of being slashed at by
+Sourdough's teeth, as the big husky snarlingly passed him in the
+sergeant's wake. It was little Jan cared for the bite, shrewd as that
+was. His coat was dense. But again, and with a visible gulp of pain, he
+was compelled to swallow the humiliation of lowering his muzzle in
+answer to his lord's--
+
+"Keep in, there! Steady! Keep in, Jan!"
+
+It was a tough morsel to swallow. But the disciplined Jan swallowed it,
+in full view of several lesser dogs and of half a dozen of Dick's
+comrades. With it, however, came a natural swelling of the antipathy
+which his first glimpse of Sourdough had implanted in the big hound, and
+it may be, all things considered, that it would have been better for
+both of them if Dick Vaughan had allowed the dogs to settle matters in
+their own fashion. But he had Jan's future position in the barracks to
+think of, and wished to consult Captain Arnutt before permitting any
+open breach of the peace. Meantime, Jan's prestige had been lowered in
+the eyes of half a dozen other dogs, each one of whom would certainly
+presume upon the unresented affront they had seen put upon him by their
+common enemy.
+
+Captain Arnutt's advice was to let the dogs take their chances.
+
+"Every one knows Sourdough is a morose old devil," he said, "and every
+one has seen now that Jan is not a quarrelsome dog. If there's trouble,
+they won't blame Jan, and Master Sourdough will have to take his gruel.
+You don't think he'd seriously damage Jan, do you?"
+
+"Well, he's got a deal more of ring-craft, sir, of course," said Dick,
+with a smile. "Jan has had very little fighting experience, but he's
+immensely strong and fit, and--No, I don't much think Sourdough could do
+him any permanent harm; but one can't be certain. Sourdough is
+practically a wolf, so far as fighting goes. He and his forebears have
+fought ever since their eyes were opened. Whereas, I suppose there's
+hardly been a fighter in a hundred generations of Jan's ancestors."
+
+Dick Vaughan was probably thinking of the Lady Desdemona when he said
+this. And, of course, it was true that, even on Finn's side, Jan had had
+no fighting ancestors for very many generations. But Finn had been a
+mighty fighter, and in the wild at that. And Jan had been born in a cave
+and in his first weeks had tasted the wild life. Also he had fought
+Grip, who fought like a wolf. Also he had learned many things from Finn
+on the Sussex Downs; he did not know the meaning of fear, and his
+hundred and sixty-four pounds of perfect development consisted almost
+entirely of fighting material. There was no waste matter in Jan. Still,
+Sourdough was a veritable wolf in combat, and for so long as he could
+prevent a breach of the peace Dick decided he would do so. Accordingly,
+while in barracks, Jan was kept pretty closely to sentinel duty in
+Paddy's stall.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+MURDER!
+
+
+A day or so after Jan's first meeting with Sourdough a thing occurred in
+Regina which, for a little while, occupied the minds of most people, to
+the exclusion of such matters as the relations between any two dogs.
+
+A woman and her husband were found murdered in a little fruiterer's and
+greengrocer's shop. Evidence showed that the murder must have occurred
+late at night. It was discovered quite early in the morning, and before
+the first passenger-trains of the day stopped at Regina the line was
+closely watched for a good many miles. It was believed that the murderer
+could not be very far away. Suspicion attached to a compatriot of the
+murdered pair, a Greek, who was found to be missing from his lodging.
+Within three hours Sergeant Moore had rounded this man up a few miles
+from the city, and placed him under arrest. But the man had been found
+in the act of fishing, and there was not a tittle of evidence of any
+kind against him.
+
+Then a neighbor called at the R.N.W.M.P. barracks with word of an
+Italian, now nowhere to be found, who had done some casual work for the
+murdered couple, and had more than once been seen talking with the woman
+in the little yard behind their shop. As it happened, the bearer of this
+information imparted it to Dick Vaughan, who promptly went with it to
+Captain Arnutt.
+
+"Look here, sir," said Dick, with suppressed excitement, "my Jan is half
+a bloodhound, and a splendid tracker. Will you let me take him down to
+the shop and--"
+
+"Why the deuce didn't you think of that earlier, before all the world
+and his wife began investigating the place? Come on! Bring my horse and
+your own."
+
+Within half an hour, Captain Arnutt, Dick Vaughan, Jan, and one town
+constable were alone in the little littered room of the tragedy, where
+the dead lay practically as they had been discovered. Two incriminating
+articles only had been found: a sheath-knife with a carved haft, and a
+black soft felt hat. There was no name or initials on either, and both
+might conceivably have belonged to the murdered man. As yet no one had
+identified either article with any owner. The hat had been trodden down
+by a boot-heel in a slither of blood on the floor-cloth of the squalid
+little room.
+
+Some chances had to be taken. Dick believed the hat and knife belonged
+to the murderer, who had apparently ransacked the till of the little
+shop and broken open a small carved and painted box which may have
+contained money. It was perhaps impossible that Jan could understand
+that murder had been done. But there was no shadow of doubt he knew
+grave matters were toward. The concentrated earnestness of Dick Vaughan
+had somehow communicated itself to the hound's mind. It was the hat and
+not the knife to which Dick pinned his faith--the cheap, soiled,
+crimson-lined felt hat, with its horrid stains and its imprint of a
+boot-heel.
+
+"It may have belonged to this poor chap," said Captain Arnutt, pointing
+to the body of the shopkeeper. "It's just the kind nine Dagoes out of
+ten do wear."
+
+"That's true, sir, but the missing man's a Dago, too, you know; an
+Italian. Italians are fond of knives like this and hats like that. Let's
+try it, sir. Jan knows. Look at him."
+
+Jan had sniffed long and meaningly at the bedraggled hat, and now was
+unmistakably following a trail to the closed back door. The trouble was
+that many feet had trodden that floor during the past few hours. Still,
+there was a chance. Dick carefully wrapped the hat in paper, for
+safe-keeping in his saddle-bag. Then the door was opened, and with eager
+care the two men followed Jan out into the yard. Here it was obvious
+that the confusion of fresh trails puzzled Jan for some minutes. Again
+Dick showed him the hat, and again Jan sniffed. Then back to earth went
+his muzzle, and all unseeing he brought up against the yard gate with a
+sudden deep bay.
+
+"That's the tracking note," said Dick, with suppressed eagerness. "We'd
+better get our horses, sir."
+
+Through the town streets Jan faltered only twice or thrice, and then not
+for long. Within ten minutes he was on the open prairie, heading
+northwestward, as for Long Lake, his pace steady and increasing now, his
+deep-flewed muzzle low to the ground.
+
+For more than two-and-twenty miles Jan loped along over the cocolike
+dust of the trail, and never faltered once save at the side of a little
+slough, where the two horsemen in his rear spent a few anxious minutes
+while Jan paced this way and that, with indecision showing in each
+movement of his massive head. And then, again with a rich deep bay--a
+note of reassurance for the horseman, and of doom for a fugitive, if
+such an one could have heard it--Jan was off again on the trail,
+closely, but by no means hurryingly, followed by the captain and Dick.
+
+In the twenty-second mile Jan brought his followers to the door of a
+settler's little two-roomed shack, and then, within the minute, was off
+again along the side of a half-mile stretch of wheat. Captain Arnutt
+dismounted for a moment to speak to a woman who came to the door. Not
+half an hour earlier she said, she had given a drink of tea and some
+bread and meat to a dark, thin man with a red handkerchief tied over his
+head. "A Dago he was," she said. And Captain Arnutt bit hard on one end
+of his mustache as he thanked the woman, mounted again, and galloped off
+after Dick and Jan.
+
+As he rode, the captain turned back the flap of his magazine-pistol
+holster; but the precaution was not needed. Jan was traveling at the
+gallop now, and the height of his muzzle from the ground showed clearly
+that he was on a warm trail, which, for such nostrils as his, required
+no holding at all.
+
+It was under the lee of a heap of last year's wheat-straw that Jan came
+to the end of his trail; his fore feet planted hard in the dust before
+him, his head well lifted, his jaws parted to give free passage to the
+deep, bell-like call of his baying. The man with the red 'kerchief tied
+over his head was evidently roused from sleep by Jan, and though the
+hound showed no sign of molesting him, yet must he have formed a
+terrifying picture for the newly opened eyes of the Italian. Almost
+before the man had raised himself into a sitting posture Dick Vaughan
+had jumped from the saddle and was beside him.
+
+"Don't move," said Dick, "and the dog won't hurt you. If you move your
+hands he'll be at your throat. See! Better let me slip these on--so! All
+right, Jan, boy. Stay there."
+
+When Captain Arnutt dismounted he found his subordinate standing beside
+a handcuffed man, who sat on the ground, glaring hopelessly at the hound
+responsible for his capture. Jan's tongue hung out from one side of his
+parted jaws, and his face expressed satisfaction and good humor. He had
+done his job and done it well. The thought of injuring his quarry had
+never occurred to him, as Dick Vaughan very well knew, despite his
+warning remark to the Italian. But although Jan had had no thought of
+attacking the recumbent man he had trailed, he was very fully conscious
+that this man was his quarry. The handcuffing episode had not been lost
+upon him.
+
+From the outset he had known that he and Dick were hunting that day. Why
+they hunted man he had no idea. Personally, he had not so much pursued
+an individual as he had hunted a certain smell. In coming upon the
+sleeping Italian he had tracked down this particular smell. His
+conception of his duty was, having tracked the smell to the man, to hand
+the man over to Dick. That marked for him the end of his work; but not
+by any means the end of his interest in the upshot of it.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE FIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE
+
+
+Even without the confession he ultimately made, Jan's tracking, the
+man's own empty leather sheath fitting the dagger he had left behind
+him, and the watch, money, and rings found in his pockets, and proved to
+be the property of the murdered couple, would have been sufficient to
+condemn the Italian.
+
+It appeared that the primary motive of the crime had not been theft, but
+jealousy. At all events, the man's own story was that he had been the
+lover of the woman he had killed. He paid the law's last penalty within
+the confines of the R.N.W.M.P. barracks, and his capture and trial made
+Jan for the time the most famous dog in Saskatchewan. Pictures of him
+appeared in newspapers circulating all the way from Mexico to the Yukon;
+and in his walks abroad with Dick Vaughan he was pointed out as "the
+North-west Mounted Police bloodhound," and credited with all manner of
+wonderful powers.
+
+It was natural, of course, that he should be called a bloodhound; and it
+did not occur to any one in Regina that his height, his fleetness, and
+his shaggy black and iron-gray coat were anything but typical of the
+bloodhound.
+
+With one exception every man in the R.N.W.M.P. headquarters was proud
+of Jan. Even the different barracks dogs were conscious of some great
+addition to the big hound's prestige. The senior officers of the corps
+went out of their way to praise and pet Jan, and Captain Arnutt had a
+light steel collar made for him, with a shining plated surface, a lock
+and key, and an inscription reading thus:
+
+     Jan, of the Royal North-west Mounted Police, Regina.
+
+But Jan's triumph earned him the mortal hatred of one man, and the
+deference shown to him in barracks added bitterness to the jealous
+antipathy already inspired by him in the hard old heart of Sourdough.
+Sergeant Moore said nothing, but hate glowed in his somber eyes whenever
+they lighted upon Jan's massive form.
+
+"I believe he'd stick a knife in Jan, if he dared," said French, the man
+of Devon. "You take my tip, Dick, and keep Jan well out of the
+sergeant's way. The man's half crazed. His old Sourdough is all he's got
+in the world for chick or child, and he'll never forgive your dog for
+doing what Sourdough couldn't do."
+
+"Oh, well," said Dick, with a tolerant smile, "I think he's too much of
+a man to try and injure a good dog."
+
+"An' that's precisely where you get left right away back," said
+O'Malley. "I tell ye that blessed sergeant wouldn't think twice about
+giving Jan a dose of poison if he thought he could get away with the
+goods. And if he can teach Sourdough to kill Jan, I reckon he'd sooner
+have that than a commission any day in the week. Man, you should watch
+his face when he sees the dog. There's murder in it."
+
+It was a fact that the praises showered upon Jan, the publicity given to
+his doings, and, above all, the respect shown for the big hound within
+R.N.W.M.P. circles, were the cause of real wretchedness to Sergeant
+Moore. When a man who is well on in middle life becomes so thoroughly
+isolated from friendly human influences as Sergeant Moore was, his mind
+and his emotions are apt to take queer twists and turns, his judgment to
+become strangely warped, his vision and sense of proportion to assume
+the highly misleading characteristics of convex and concave mirrors,
+which distort outrageously everything they reflect.
+
+Sourdough, like his master, was dour, morose, forbidding, and a
+confirmed solitary. He was also a singularly ugly and unattractive
+creature, whom no man had ever seen at play. But prior to Jan's arrival
+he had been the unquestioned chief and master among R.N.W.M.P. dogs.
+
+"Surly old devil, Sourdough," men had been wont to say of him; "but, by
+gee! there's no getting around him; you can't fool Sourdough. He'd go
+for a grizzly, if the grizzly wouldn't give him the trail. Aye, he's a
+hard case, all right, is Sourdough. You can't faze him."
+
+And Sergeant Moore, without ever moving a muscle in his mahogany face
+(all the skin of which was indurated from chin to scalp with the finest
+of fine-drawn lines) had yet been moved to rare delight by such remarks.
+He hugged them to him. He gloried in all such tributes to Sourdough's
+dourness.
+
+"Aye, you're tough, Old-Timer," he had been heard to growl to his dog;
+"you're a hard case, all right. There isn't a soft hair on you, is
+there, Sourdough? And they all know it. They may squeal, but they've got
+to give trail when Sourdough comes along."
+
+There were times when he would cuff the dog, or snatch his food from
+him, for the sheer delight of hearing the beast snarl--as he always
+would--at his own master.
+
+"What a husky!" he would say in an ecstasy of admiration. "You'd go for
+me if I gave you half a chance, wouldn't you, Sourdough? And I don't
+blame you, you old tough."
+
+And now it seemed the barracks had no time to note Sourdough's
+implacable sourness; everybody was too busy praising that sleek,
+well-groomed brute from England, of whom the sergeant thought very much
+as some savage old-timers think of tenderfeet and remittance men, but
+with a deal more of bitterness in his contempt.
+
+"But Sourdough will spoil your fine coat for you, my gentleman, the
+first time you come in our way," the sergeant would mutter to himself
+when he chanced to see Dick giving Jan his morning brush-down after
+Paddy was groomed.
+
+He had been foiled half a dozen times in his attempts to get Sourdough
+into Paddy's stall when Jan was there and Dick Vaughan engaged in any
+way elsewhere. It seemed that some of Dick's comrades were always on
+hand to bar the way; and, for appearance's sake, the sergeant could not
+have it said that he had deliberately brought about a fight between his
+dog and the valued hound of an officer, who was everybody's favorite.
+
+"They're afraid, Sourdough, that's what it is; they're afraid you might
+chew up the overgrown brute and spit him out in scraps about the yard.
+Let 'em wait. We'll give 'em something to be afraid of presently."
+
+He meant it, and he kept his word.
+
+Since the Italian murder case, a regular craze had developed among the
+men for trailing and the education of dogs. The barracks dogs were
+constantly being added to, and every man who owned or could obtain a dog
+gave his leisure to attempts--largely unsuccessful--at training the
+animal to track.
+
+O'Malley was one of the first to succumb to the new diversion, and was
+lavishing immense care and patience upon the education of a cross-bred
+Irish terrier, who would soon be able to wipe the eye of any Sassenach
+dog in Canada, so he would! Meanwhile O'Malley, conveniently forgetful
+of Jan's English nationality, was fond of borrowing the big hound for an
+hour or so together to help him in his educational efforts on behalf of
+Micky Doolan, the terrier. In such a matter Dick Vaughan and Jan were
+equally approachable and good-natured. Indeed, the pair of them had
+already done more than any of the different pupils' masters in the
+matter of this revival of schooling among the barracks dogs.
+
+It happened toward four o'clock of a late autumn day that Dick Vaughan
+was engaged in Regina in attendance upon a great personage from Ottawa.
+O'Malley, having borrowed Jan's services as helper, was busy giving
+tracking lessons to Micky Doolan on the prairie, half a mile from
+barracks. Chancing to look up from his work, O'Malley saw Sergeant Moore
+approaching on foot, with Sourdough (as ever) at his heels. He did not
+know that the sergeant had been watching him through binoculars from the
+barracks, and that he had spent a quarter of an hour in carefully
+devised efforts to exacerbate the never very amiable temper of
+Sourdough.
+
+O'Malley swore afterward that as the sergeant drew level with little
+Micky Doolan (a dozen paces or so from the Irishman), he whispered to
+Sourdough, and "sooled him on."
+
+"Tsss--sss! To him, then, lad," is what O'Malley vowed the sergeant
+said.
+
+Be that as it may, Sourdough did wheel aside, as his way was, and
+administer a savage slash of his fangs upon poor little Micky's neck. As
+O'Malley rushed forward to protect his pet the game little beast,
+instead of slinking back from tyrant Sourdough, a tribute that hard case
+demanded from every dog he met, sprang forward with a snarl and a plucky
+attempt to return the unsolicited bite he had received.
+
+"Come in, come in, ye little fool!" yelled O'Malley.
+
+But he was too late. A light of malevolent joy gleamed in the big
+husky's red eyes as he plunged upon the terrier. One thrust of his
+mighty shoulder sent the little chap spinning on his back, and there was
+the throat-hold exposed to Sourdough's practised fangs. His bitter
+temper had been carefully inflamed in advance, and demanded now the
+sacrifice of blood, warm life-blood. His wide jaws flashed in upon the
+terrier's throat just as O'Malley's boot took him in the rear.
+
+"If ye touch that dog again, my man, I'll break your jaw for you," came
+from the sergeant in a hoarse growl.
+
+Now O'Malley was a disciplined man, and the sergeant was his official
+superior. But, as it happened, the matter was now taken out of his
+hands. Jan, who, before the sergeant's arrival, had been lying stretched
+in the dust thirty paces distant, had risen then and stood stiffly,
+watching Sourdough with raised hackles. At the moment that the husky's
+fangs touched the skin of Micky's throat, Jan was upon him like a
+battering-ram, shoulder to shoulder, with an impact that sent the husky
+rolling, all four feet in the air, a position in which no barracks dog
+had ever before seen Sourdough, and one in which any of them would have
+given a day's food to find him. For that is the one position in which
+even a Sourdough may with safety be attacked.
+
+But Jan apparently (and very recklessly) scorned to avail himself of
+this splendid opportunity. His own great weight and swiftly silent
+movement had been responsible for Sourdough's complete downfall. And
+now, while O'Malley grabbed his terrier in both arms, thankful the
+little beast's throat was whole, Jan stood stiff-legged, with stiffly
+arched neck and bristling hackles, glaring down at Sourdough, with the
+expression which, among pugilistic school-boys, goes with the question,
+"Have you had enough?"
+
+"Enough!" Any such question could but prove abysmal ignorance of
+Sourdough's quality. The big husky was not scratched, and of fighting he
+could hardly be given enough while his heart continued to beat. Before,
+he had been angered. Before, he had loathed and hated Jan. And now Jan
+had rolled him over on his back as though he were a helpless whelp. Jan
+had glared menacingly at him, at Sourdough, while he, the acknowledged
+canine master and terror of that countryside, had all four feet in the
+air. A flame of hatred surged about the husky's heart. His snarl as he
+bounded to his feet was truly awe-inspiring. His writhen lips drew up
+and back crescent-wise over red gums, showing huge yellow fangs and an
+expression of most daunting ferocity.
+
+In the next moment he tore a groove six inches long down Jan's left
+shoulder, scooping out skin and fur as a machine saw might have done it;
+and in the same second he was away again, wolf-like, his steel muscles
+already contracting for the next attack.
+
+Now Jan had no thought of fighting when he bowled Sourdough over. His
+sole preoccupation had been the rescue of his little friend, Micky
+Doolan, from what looked like certain death. Contact with Sourdough had
+greatly stirred the combatant blood in him, as had also the hated smell
+of the husky. Even then a call from Dick Vaughan would have met with
+instant response from Jan. But there was no Dick Vaughan in sight.
+Sergeant Moore stood gazing eagerly, a little anxiously even, but with
+no hint of any thought of interfering with the meeting he had schemed to
+bring about. O'Malley, clutching his terrier in his arms, was rather
+distractedly calling:
+
+"Come away in, Jan! Drop it now, Jan! Come in here, come in here, Jan!"
+
+But O'Malley, after all, though an amiable person enough, and, as a
+friend of Dick's, a man to be obeyed cheerfully enough in the ordinary
+way, yet was not Dick. He was hardly a shadow of the sovereign. And then
+came that fiery stroke that had opened a groove down Jan's left
+shoulder.
+
+After that, it is a moot point whether even Dick Vaughan's voice would
+have served to penetrate the cloud of fury in which Jan moved. He became
+very terrible in his wrath. One saw less of the bloodhound and more, far
+more, of his sire, of royal Finn, the fighting wolfhound of the
+Tinnaburra ranges, in his splendid pose, in the upward, scimitar curve
+of his great tail, the rage in his red-hawed eyes, the vibrant defiance
+of his baying roar.
+
+But he lacked as yet his sire's inimitable fighting craft, just as he
+lacked entirely the lightning cunning of the half-wolf Sourdough. And
+before he had touched the husky his sound shoulder had been grooved, and
+one of his ears badly torn.
+
+It might have been better tactics on Sourdough's part to have made
+direct for some killing hold, instead of administering these instructive
+preliminary chastenings. Seeing clearly Jan's inferiority in wolf
+tactics, Sourdough underrated the forces of his size, weight, endurance,
+power, and quite indomitable bravery. In fact, the cunning Sourdough was
+very thoroughly deceived by Jan. Never having in his varied experiences
+encountered chivalry, nobility, nor yet much gallantry in a dog, he made
+no allowance for these qualities in Jan. He could not conceive that the
+attack which had bowled him over was no more than a generous attempt to
+save Micky Doolan. And so he thought it was a challenge to combat; and
+combat, as the husky saw it, meant an effort to kill by any and every
+means available. In the same way, the reckless scorn of himself and of a
+palpable advantage, which Jan had shown after knocking him over, was a
+thing not to be comprehended for what it really was by Sourdough. He
+thought it evidence of weakening, of sudden fear, of terror inspired in
+Jan by the sight of the thing he had impulsively done.
+
+Yes, Sourdough entirely misread Jan; and he believed now that he had
+ample time in which to bleed and cripple the big hound by means of his
+natural wolf tactics, and then to finish off a helpless enemy at
+leisure. Cunning often does mislead those who possess it. In this case
+it was responsible for tactics by which, had he but known it, Sourdough
+presented his enemy with triple-thick armor, and schooled him finely for
+the task that lay before him.
+
+Sourdough's second slash cost Jan a split ear, but gave him flashlight
+vision of his fight with Grip in Sussex, with Grip of the wolf-like
+fighting methods. Sourdough's third attack cost Jan a burning groove
+down his hitherto untouched shoulder; but, by that token, it effectually
+completed the lesson of attack number two, and brought a final end to
+the period of Sourdough's really enjoyable fighting. So poorly, then,
+did Sourdough's cunning serve him, that his fourth attack came near to
+costing him his life.
+
+With bloody glee in his eyes, and wide-parted drooling jaws, he darted
+in to take his fourth cut at Jan, eager for the joyous moment in which
+the repetition of these slashes should have reduced Jan to ripeness for
+the killing thrust--the throat-hold. But Jan had learned his lesson. At
+the psychological fraction of a moment he changed his position, and,
+instead of passing on comfortably through space after his attack,
+Sourdough's shoulder met another bigger shoulder, braced like a granite
+buttress to receive the impact, and the husky reached earth on his side.
+That rather shook the wind out of him; but that was nothing by
+comparison with the fact that, in the same moment, Jan's viselike jaws
+closed about one side of his neck, close in to the skull where the hair
+shortened. That was a serious moment, if you like, for Sourdough; for in
+addition to the huge power of those jaws there was weight--a hundred and
+sixty-four pounds of sinew, bone, and rubber-like muscle behind and
+above the jaws.
+
+A very desperate vigor stirred in Sourdough's limbs as he took the
+course which is only taken at critical moments. He deliberately turned
+farther on his back--the position of all others most dreaded--in order
+to bring his feet into play, his jaws being momentarily helpless. His
+abdominal muscles were in splendid order. Like a lynx, Sourdough drew in
+and up his powerful hind quarters, and, as if they had been a missile
+launched from a catapult, slashed his two hind feet along Jan's belly,
+as a carpenter might rip a board down with a chisel.
+
+In that same moment Sergeant Moore stepped forward, with a hoarse cry:
+
+"Here, damme!" he shouted at O'Malley, "you'd better haul off your
+captain's dog, or--or mine'll kill him!"
+
+And with a resounding thwack he brought his riding-cane down across
+Jan's forehead. It was this, rather than his own very serviceable two
+chisels, that brought the husky sudden release from the grip upon his
+neck, which, already deep-sunk, had been like to finish his career. The
+high-crowned shape of Jan's skull, and the soft fineness of the skin and
+hair that covered it, made him very sensitive to a blow on the head.
+Also he knew it was a man's attack, and not a dog's. When he saw who the
+man was, he roared at him very ferociously. And that was the first
+occasion upon which Jan had ever shown his teeth in real anger to a
+human.
+
+Had not Sourdough been there, it is hard to say what might have
+happened. As it was, the sergeant's intervention and Jan's angry
+response thereto gave Sourdough the opportunity he had longed for. It
+gave him, in safety, the rush at Jan from the side. It would have
+availed him little if Jan had seen him coming. But Jan, engaged in
+threatening his human enemy, saw nothing till the tremendous impact of
+Sourdough's rush took him off his feet, and the husky got, not precisely
+the true throat-hold he wanted, but a deadly hold, none the less, in the
+flesh of Jan's dewlap.
+
+The position of a few seconds earlier had been practically reversed.
+Jan's blood was running between Sourdough's fangs now--a fiery tonic,
+and veritable _eau-de-vie_ to the husky. Sourdough's catlike
+tactics--perhaps the best and safest in such a case--were not adopted by
+Jan, who never yet had used such a method. With a huge effort the hound
+managed to twist his body in such a way as to gain foothold for his hind
+feet; and then, by the exercise of sheer muscular strength, he curved
+his neck and shoulder inch by inch (while still his blood slaked
+Sourdough's thirst) until with sudden swiftness he was able to grip the
+husky's near fore leg between his jaws, just on and below the knee.
+
+Then Jan concentrated his whole being into the service of his jaws.
+Sourdough gave a cry that was almost a scream, and his jaws flew apart,
+dripping Jan's blood. Jan's teeth sank a shade deeper. Sourdough pivoted
+round in agony, snapping at the air, and emitting an unearthly yowling,
+snarling, grunting cry the while. Jan's teeth locked together, and then
+were sharply withdrawn, leaving a very thoroughly smashed and punctured
+fore leg to dangle by its skin and sinew.
+
+During the past few seconds the sergeant had been raining down blows of
+his cane on Jan's head. Now O'Malley grabbed Jan by his steel collar.
+
+"By hivens, sergeant!" he spluttered, "if ye'll meet me afterwards,
+without your stripes on, I'll--I'll give ye what Jan here'd give your
+bloody wolf, if ye had the honesty to l'ave 'em to ut."
+
+Jan dragged back momentarily, and--in justice to Sourdough's gameness,
+be it said--the husky struggled hard from his master's entwining arms to
+be at the enemy again on three legs. But O'Malley's pleadings were
+urgent and his right arm strong (the left was curled round Micky
+Doolan); and so it befell that, while Sergeant Moore remained tending
+his wounded favorite, O'Malley, leading Jan, whose front was bleeding
+badly, as were his shoulders and one ear, arrived at the barracks gates
+just as Dick Vaughan trotted up to them, on his return from duty in
+Regina.
+
+"My hat!" cried Dick, as he dismounted. "Has he killed the sergeant's
+dog?"
+
+"He would ha' done, the darlin', if the sergeant had bin a man, in place
+o' the mad divil he is," replied O'Malley.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+PROMOTION
+
+
+For a week and more after the fight the barracks saw nothing of
+Sourdough, whose leg was being mended for him in the stable of a
+veterinary surgeon in Regina. Sergeant Moore would have made no
+difficulty over spending half his pay upon the care of his beloved
+husky.
+
+Jan's ills were confined to flesh-wounds, and in any case Dick preferred
+to doctor the big hound himself. The story of the fight, and of Sergeant
+Moore's not very sporting part therein, was now known to every one in
+the barracks, with the result that Jan became more than ever the
+favorite of the force, and the sergeant more than ever its Ishmaelite,
+against whom every man's hand was turned in thought, if not in deed. It
+was little Sergeant Moore cared for that. It almost seemed as though he
+welcomed and thrived upon the antipathy of his kind, even as a normal
+person prospers upon the love of his fellows. The scowls of his comrades
+were accepted by the sergeant as a form of tribute, so curiously may a
+certain type of mind be warped by the influence of isolation.
+
+It was at this stage, when Jan's flesh-wounds were no more than half
+healed, that Captain Arnutt brought Dick Vaughan the intelligence that,
+as the result of the Italian murder case and other matters, he was to be
+promoted to acting-sergeant's rank, and given charge, on probation, of
+the small post at Buck's Crossing, some sixty-odd miles north-west of
+Regina.
+
+The news brought something of a thrill to Dick, because it had been
+arranged, by his own suggestion in Sussex, that his promotion to full
+sergeant's rank should mark the period of quite another probationary
+term; and here, undoubtedly, was a step toward it. On the other hand, he
+had formed friendships in Regina; and while most of the people in the
+barracks would be genuinely sorry to lose him, he, for his part, could
+not contemplate without twinges of regret the prospect of exchanging
+their society for the isolation of the two-roomed post-house at Buck's
+Crossing.
+
+"And in some ways it will be just as well for you and Jan to be out of
+here for a time," said Captain Arnutt. "Sergeant Moore has quite a
+number of fleas in his bonnet, and you can't afford to come to blows
+with him--here, anyhow."
+
+"No fear of that, sir," said Dick. "Why, he's nearly twice my age,
+and--"
+
+"Don't you make any mistake of that sort, my friend. There are limits to
+any man's self-control. The sergeant may be twice your age, but he's
+made of steel wire and moose-hide, and let me tell you he could give a
+pretty good account of himself in a ring against any man in
+Saskatchewan. Then, again, your intentions might be ever so good, but I
+wouldn't like to answer for you, or for any other white man, if it comes
+to being actually tackled by as heavy-handed a hard case as Sergeant
+Moore. And then there's Sourdough. When that husky's leg is sound again
+he'll be about as safe a domestic pet as a full-grown grizzly. No, it's
+better you should be away for a bit. Also, my friend, it's a chance for
+you. There are some pretty queer customers pass along that Buck's
+Crossing trail these days, making north. Your beat's a long one. You'll
+have a good deal of responsibility; and, who knows? You might win a
+commission out of it. You won't be forgotten here, you know."
+
+Then the order came that Dick was to take over the Buck's Crossing post
+that same week. It was necessary for Dick to ride the whole sixty-odd
+miles, but his kit was to be sent thirty-two miles by rail, and there
+picked up by wagon for the remainder of the journey. Meantime there were
+a number of stitches in Jan's dewlap and shoulders not yet ripe for
+removal, and Dick decided that he would not ask the hound to cover over
+sixty miles of trail in a day, as he meant to do. Therefore it was
+arranged that O'Malley should see to putting Jan on the train when
+Dick's kit was sent off, and that Jan should have a place in the wagon
+for the thirty-odd miles lying between Buck's Crossing and its nearest
+point of rail.
+
+And then, having seen to these arrangements, Dick bade good-by to his
+comrades, rubbed Jan's ears and told him to be a good lad till they met
+again, in forty-eight hours' time, and rode away, carrying with him the
+good wishes of every one in the barracks, with the exception of one who
+looked out at him from the windows of the sergeants' quarters, with
+grimly nodding head and a singularly baleful light in his eyes.
+
+Sergeant Moore, who had just returned from three days' leave, had
+learned from the veterinary surgeon that morning that Sourdough must
+always limp a little on his near fore leg, which would be permanently a
+little shorter than its fellow, by reason of the slight twist which
+surgical care had been unable to prevent. Yet Sergeant Moore, for all
+the glow of hatred in his eyes as he watched Dick Vaughan's departure,
+nodded his grizzled head with the air of a man quite satisfied.
+
+"So long, Tenderfoot," he growled. "You'll maybe find Sourdough's reach
+a longer one than you reckon for, I'm thinking."
+
+It was evident that day, to O'Malley and to all his friends, that Jan
+felt the temporary parting with his lord and master a deal more than
+Dick had seemed to feel it. And yet Jan could not possibly have known,
+any more than Dick knew, as to what the promised forty-eight hours of
+separation were to bring forth.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+JAN GOES ON HIS TRAVELS
+
+
+Jan spent that night beside O'Malley's bunk, in the face of regulations
+to the contrary.
+
+In the absence of Paddy from his stall, the good-hearted O'Malley had
+not liked to leave Jan to the solitude of his bench. And shortly after
+daylight next morning, with a new steel chain, purchased for this
+journey, attached to his collar, Jan was put on board the west-bound
+train consigned to Lambert's Siding, for wagon carriage, with Dick's
+kit, to Buck's Crossing. Jan did not like this business at all. The
+chain humiliated him, and the train was an abomination in his eyes. But
+at the back of his mind was a dim consciousness that he was going to his
+sovereign, and by his sovereign's will, and that was sufficient to
+prevent any sort of protest on his part.
+
+Arrived at Lambert's Siding, Jan's chain was fastened to a post by a
+humorous person in greasy overalls, who said, as he noted the fine
+dignity of Jan's appearance:
+
+"Guess your kerridge will be along shortly, me lord."
+
+The man in the overalls was a new hand transferred from the East, and
+but lately settled in Canada, or he might probably have recognized Jan
+as "the R.N.W.M.P. bloodhound," of newspaper celebrity.
+
+A few minutes later a man in a fur cap drove up to the siding in a light
+buckboard wagon, with a lot of sacking in its tray.
+
+"Has Sergeant Vaughan's dog come from Regina?" asked the new-comer.
+
+"Yep, I guess that's him," said Overalls.
+
+"Well, I'm to pay his freight an' take him, and a wagon will call for
+the other truck."
+
+"That so?" rejoined Overalls, with indifference. "Well, I told me lord
+his kerridge would be along shortly. Jest give us yer auto here, will
+yer? Third line down. Hold on. Ye'd better have a receipt for the money.
+Where's that blame pen?"
+
+The first light snow of the season began to flutter down from out a
+surprisingly clear sky, as Jan settled down in the buckboard, his chain
+passed down through a hole and secured to the step outside, an
+arrangement which struck Jan as highly unnecessary, since it kept his
+head so low that he could not stand up in the wagon. However, Overalls
+and the man in the fur cap (who had signed his name as Tom Smith) seemed
+to think it all right, and so friendly Jan, his mind full of thoughts of
+Dick Vaughan, accommodated himself docilely to the position, and was
+soon quite a number of miles away from Lambert's Siding.
+
+When the Buck's Crossing wagon arrived there an hour or so later, its
+driver seemed surprised that there was no dog for him to carry with
+Sergeant Vaughan's kit. But he was not a man given to speculation. He
+just grunted, expectorated, and said, shortly:
+
+"Well, I guess that's right, then. Muster made some other arrangement;
+an' it's just as well, for I'm late an' I've got to have my near front
+wheel off an' doctor it a bit, so I won't make the Crossin' till midday
+to-morrow, I reckon. I'll be campin' at Lloyd's to-night."
+
+Overalls just nodded as he took the wagoner's signature for Sergeant
+Vaughan's kit; and without another thought both men dismissed from their
+rather vacant minds (as was perfectly natural, no doubt) all further
+thought of a matter which did not concern them, despite its
+life-and-death importance to the son of Finn and Desdemona.
+
+After perhaps an hour and a half, the buckboard was pulled up in a
+fenced yard beside a small homestead. Here Jan parted with the man in
+the fur cap and never set eyes upon him again. His chain was now taken
+by a different sort of man; a very lean, spare, hard-bitten little man,
+with bright dark eyes and a leather-colored face. He thanked the
+fur-capped man for having kindly brought Jan along. Fur-cap deprecated
+thanks, but accepted a dollar. And then the leather-faced man led Jan
+away. They walked for perhaps a couple of miles, and then they were
+joined by another man, who called the first man Jean, so that Jan looked
+up quickly, thinking he had been addressed.
+
+"Hees name Jan," explained the first man, casually, pointing to Jan's
+collar.
+
+"H'm! That so? Better get rid o' that collar, Jean, eh?"
+
+From a bag in the buggy in which they had found the second man,
+wire-cutters were produced, and Jan's collar cut in sunder and removed,
+after a leather collar had been buckled on in its place and the chain
+attached to that. Jan had a vague feeling of uneasiness about this
+operation; but only a vague feeling. Like all other animal-folk, he had
+long ago arrived at the conclusion that men-folk frequently did quite
+unaccountable things; that a dog would have no rest in life if he set
+himself to puzzle out a reason for everything he saw the sovereign
+people do. Captain Arnutt had locked that collar about his neck, and a
+very silly, stiff, and awkward contraption he had thought it. Now
+another man, equally without apparent rhyme or reason, took it off and
+substituted a leathern collar with a queer, fishy, gamy sort of smell.
+Well, it would make little odds to Jan; if only these people would hurry
+up about taking him to his own man.
+
+Thinking of that, Jan quite gladly made the best of the very cramped
+quarters given him in the buggy, though he grew desperately tired of
+those same quarters before night fell and he was transferred to the more
+roomy dog-box of a Canadian Northern train. Without doubt the train
+would take him direct to Dick. (Until the previous day, his sole
+experience of trains in Canada had been closely connected with Dick.) So
+confident was Jan of this, that he bent himself quite cheerfully to the
+task of tearing and eating the lump of meat given him by Jean before the
+train started. Evidently this Jean was a friendly, well-disposed sort of
+a person, and in any case any man at all engaged in taking Jan to Dick
+Vaughan deserved ready obedience and respect.
+
+In some such way Jan reflected what time the C.N.R. train by which he
+traveled rumbled swiftly along its course for Edmonton; and Dick
+Vaughan, away back in Buck's Crossing, wondered what might be delaying
+the wagoner from Lambert's Siding; the wagoner he was not to see before
+the middle of the next day, and then only to learn that the man knew
+nothing of Jan's whereabouts.
+
+When Jan left that train in the big crowded depot at Edmonton next day,
+winter had descended upon the greater part of North America. The change
+was the more marked for Jan by reason that snow had come to Edmonton a
+full day earlier than it came to Lambert's Siding. Jan had seen snow
+before on the Sussex Downs; but that had been a kind of snow quite
+different from this. That snow had been soft and clammy. This was crisp
+and dry as salt. Also the air was colder than any air Jan had ever
+known, though mild enough for northern winter air, seeing that the
+thermometer registered only some five and twenty degrees of frost. And
+the sun shone brightly. There was no wind. It was an air rich in
+kindling, stimulating properties; an air that made life, movement, and
+activity desirable for all, and optimistic determination easy and
+natural for most folk.
+
+"By gar!" said Jean to his friend Jake, as together they led Jan from
+the train. "You mark me now what I say, thees Jan he's got all them
+huskies beat beefore he start. Eh? Hee's great dog, thees Jan."
+
+Jake nodded, and the three of them strode on through the dry powdery
+snow. One knew by their walk that these men had covered great distances
+on their feet. Their knees swung easily to every stride, with a hint of
+the dip that comes from long use of snow-shoes. For a little while Jan
+hardly thought of Dick Vaughan, so busy was he in absorbing new
+impressions. But when the walk had lasted almost an hour, he began again
+to wonder about Dick, and his deep-pouched eyes took on once more the
+set look of waiting watchfulness which meant that he was hoping at any
+moment to sight his man.
+
+And then they came to a small wooden house with a large barn and a
+sod-walled stable beside it. Jan's chain was hitched round a stout
+center post in the barn, and there he was left. Later Jean brought him a
+tin dish of water and a big lump of dried fish which had had some warm
+fat smeared over it, Jean having rightly guessed that it was Jan's first
+experience of this form of dog-food. The fat was well enough, and Jan
+licked it rather languidly. But the fish did not appeal to him, and so
+he left it and went off to sleep, little thinking that he would get no
+other kind of food than this for many days to come.
+
+Toward the middle of the next day, Jan, feeling cramped and rather
+miserable as the result of his unaccustomed confinement, changed his
+mind about that fish and ate it; slowly, and without enjoyment, but yet
+with some benefit to himself. Less than an hour later Jean entered to
+him, carrying in his hands a contrivance of leather, with long trailing
+ends.
+
+For a minute or so Jean stood looking down upon Jan appraisingly. There
+was no better judge of a dog--from one standpoint--in that part of
+Canada.
+
+"By gar!" he muttered between his teeth. "That Sergeant Moore hee's a
+queer cuss, sure 'nuff, to give away a dog like thees for nothing; and
+then, by gar, to pay me ten dollar for takin' heem."
+
+Then he stooped down and rubbed Jan's ears, with a friendly,
+knowledgeable way he had.
+
+"Ah, you, Jan," he said, cheerily. "Here's your harness. Here, good dog,
+I show you."
+
+And he proceeded to buckle a set of dog-harness about Jan's massive
+chest and shoulders. In doing so he noticed for the first time Dick's
+stitches in the hound's dewlap and shoulders.
+
+"By gar!" he said, with a grin. "You bin fightin', Jan, eh? Ah, well,
+take care, Jan. We get no nursin' after fightin' here. Bes' leave that
+job to the huskies, Jan. Come on--good dog."
+
+A hundred yards away, on the far side of the shack, Jan came upon the
+first dog-sled he had ever seen, with a team of seven dogs attached, now
+lying resting on the dry snow. They were a mixed team, four of them
+unmistakable huskies, one with collie characteristics, one having
+Newfoundland blood (through many crosses), and one, the leader, having
+the look of something midway between a big powerful Airedale and an old
+English sheep-dog, including the bobtail. This leader, Bill, as he was
+called, had the air of a master-worker, and was the only member of the
+pack (except the wheeler) who did not snarl as Jan was led toward them.
+
+With the dogs was Jake, wearing a deep fur cap that came well down over
+the tops of his ears. In one hand Jake held a short-hafted whip with a
+rawhide thong, the point of which he could put through a dog's coat from
+ten paces distant.
+
+"Take Mixer out an' put heem in behind Bill," said Jean. "We'll try Jan
+in front of old Blackfoot."
+
+It was not without thought, and kindly thought, that Jean ordered this
+arrangement, for Blackfoot, though old and scarred, a trail-worn
+veteran, had not a spark of unkindness in his composition. He was the
+dog with Newfoundland blood in him, who, like Bill the leader, and
+unlike the rest of the pack, had not snarled at sight of Jan. He even
+held out a friendly muzzle in welcome as, rather reluctantly, Jan
+allowed himself to be led to his place in front of Blackfoot. The husky
+who filled the next forward place wheeled about as far as he could in
+the traces and snapped viciously at Jan.
+
+"Ah, Snip!" said Jean, quite pleasantly. But even as he spoke so
+pleasantly, the whip he had picked up sang, and its thong, doubled,
+landed fair and square in Snip's face, causing that worthy to whirl back
+to his place with a yowl of consternation.
+
+Jan was just beginning to think that he had put up with enough of this
+sort of thing, and that he would leave these men and their dogs
+altogether, when he heard a peremptory order given by Jean and felt
+himself jerked forward by means of the harness he wore. In the same
+moment Blackfoot's teeth nipped one of his hocks from behind, not
+savagely, but yet sharply, and he bounded forward till checked by the
+proximity of Snip's stern. He had no wish to touch Snip. But Snip also
+was bounding forward it seemed. So Jan thrust out his fore feet and
+checked. Instantly two things happened. A whip-lash curled painfully
+round his left shoulder, crossing one of his newly healed wounds. And
+again came a nip at one of his hocks, a sharper nip this time, and one
+that drew two spots of blood.
+
+"Mush, Jan! Mush on there!" said Jean, firmly, but not harshly; and
+again the whip curled about Jan's shoulders as, puzzled, humiliated,
+hurt, and above all bewildered, he plunged forward again in the traces,
+and heard Jean mutter behind him:
+
+"Good dog, thees Jan. By gar! hee's good dog."
+
+And that was how the new life, the working life, began for Jan, the son
+of Finn and Desdemona.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE RULE OF TRACE AND THONG
+
+
+From this point there began for Jan a life so strangely, wildly
+different from anything he had ever known or suspected to exist, that
+only a dog of exceptionable fiber and stamina--in character as well as
+physique--could possibly have survived transition to it from the smooth
+routines which Jan had so far known.
+
+To begin with, it was a life in which all days alike were full of toil,
+of ordered, unremitting work. And until it began Jan had never done an
+hour's work in his life. (In England, outside the sheep-dog fraternity
+and a few of the sporting breeds, all dogs spend their lives in
+unordered play, uncontrolled loafing, and largely superfluous sleeping.)
+
+The Lady Desdemona, his mother, for example, would certainly not have
+lived through a month of Jan's present life; very possibly not a week.
+Finn would have endured it much longer, because of his experiences in
+Australia, his knowledge of the wild kindred and their ways. But even
+Finn, despite his huge strength and exceptional knowledge, would not
+have come through this ordeal so well as Jan did, unless it had come to
+him as early in life as it came to Jan. And even then his survival would
+have been doubtful. The difference between the climates of Australia and
+the North-west Territory is hardly greater than the difference in stress
+and hardness between Finn's life in the Tinnaburra ranges, as leader of
+a dingo pack, and Jan's life in North-west Canada as learner in a
+sled-team.
+
+The physical strength of Finn the wolfhound, in whose veins ran the
+unmixed blood of many generations of wolfhound champions, might have
+been equal to the strain of Jan's new life. But his pride, his
+courtliness, his fine gentlemanliness, would likely have been the death
+of him in such a case. He would have died nobly, be sure of that. But it
+is likely he would have died. Now in the case of Jan, while he had
+inherited much of his sire's fine courtesy, much of his dam's noble
+dignity, yet these things were not so vitally of the essence of him as
+they were of his parents. They were a part of his character, and they
+had formed his manners. But they were not Jan.
+
+The essential Jan was an immensely powerful hound of mixed blood reared
+carefully, trained intelligently and well, and endowed from birth with a
+tremendously keen appetite for life--a keener appetite for life than
+falls to the lot of any champion-bred wolfhound or bloodhound. Jan was a
+gentleman rather than a fine gentleman; before either he was a hound, a
+dog; and before all else he was a master and lover of his life. And
+since, by the arrangements of Sergeant Moore, "Tom Smith," Jean, and
+Jake, he had to take his place between Snip and Blackfoot in a
+sled-team, it was well, exceedingly well, for Jan that these things were
+thus and not otherwise.
+
+Jan's supper on the evening of his first day in the traces was a meal he
+never forgot. The slab of dried fish Jean tossed to him was half as big
+again as the pieces given to the other dogs. For Jean--a just and not
+unkindly man in all such matters--well recognized that Jan was very much
+bigger and heavier than the average husky. (Jan was three and a half
+inches higher at the shoulder, and forty to fifty pounds heavier and
+more massive than any of his team-mates.) His previous night's supper
+Jan had eaten that morning. Still, the afternoon's work, in some thirty
+or forty degrees of frost, had put an edge on his appetite, and he
+tackled the fish--which two days before he would have scorned--with
+avidity.
+
+He had swallowed one mouthful and was about to tear off another, when
+Snip intervened with a terrifying snarl between Jan and his food. Jan,
+who was learning fast, turned also with a snarling growl to ward off
+Snip's fangs. And in that moment--it was no more than a moment--Bill,
+the leader, stole and swallowed the whole remainder of Jan's supper.
+
+Jean was watching this, and did not try to prevent it. But leaving Jan
+to settle with Snip, he descended upon Bill with his whip,
+double-thonged, and administered as sound a trouncing to that hardy
+warrior as any member of the team had ever received. That ended, Jean
+swung on his heel and gave Snip the butt of the whip-handle across the
+top of his nose, and this so shrewdly that Snip's muzzle ached for
+twenty-four hours, reminding him, every minute of the time, that he must
+not harry Jan--while his master was in sight.
+
+It would have been easy for Jean to have spared another ration of fish
+for Jan, since in a few more days they would reach a Hudson Bay post at
+which fresh supplies were to be taken in. But Jean was too wise for
+this. He preferred that Jan should go hungry because he wanted Jan to
+learn quickly. Jan educated meant dollars to Jean, and a good many of
+them. Jan uneducated, or learning but slowly, would, as Jean well knew,
+very soon mean Jan dead--a mere section of dog-food worth no dollars at
+all. So Jean laughed at the big hound.
+
+"You see, Jan," he said. "You watch um, Jan, an' learn queek--eh? Yes, I
+think you learn queek."
+
+Thus in that little matter of the daily meal, if Jan had gone on making
+the mistake he made on his first night in the wilderness, not all Jean's
+authority could have saved him. The rest of the team, by hook or crook,
+would have kept him food-less and killed him outright long before the
+slower process of starvation could have released him. But, his first
+lesson sufficed for Jan. When his next supper came he had done a day and
+a half's work; he had lived and exerted himself more in that day and a
+half than during any average month of his previous life. As a
+consequence, when Bill and Snip looked round for Jan's supper, after
+bolting their own, they saw a great hound with stiff legs and erect
+hackles, alert in every hair of his body--but no supper. The supper,
+very slightly masticated and swallowed with furious haste, was already
+beginning its task of helping to stiffen Jan's fibers and give
+fierceness to the lift of his upper lip.
+
+But that was far from being the end of the lesson. In point of size, and
+in other ways, Jan was exceptional. He needed more than the other dogs;
+and because he needed more, and had the sort of personality which makes
+for survival, he got more. Jean gave him more than was given to the
+others. But that was not enough. Jan was so hungry, what with his
+strivings in the traces and the novelty for him of this life of tense
+unceasing effort and alertness, that his appetite was as a thorn in his
+belly and as a spur to his ingenuity and enterprise.
+
+It is the law of the sled-dog that you shall not steal your trace-mates'
+grub. Jan broke this law wherever he saw the glint of a chance to do so;
+that is, wherever he could manage it by force of fang and shoulder, or
+by cunning--beyond the range of the whip. He did more. He stole his
+master's food; not every day, of course, but just as often as extreme
+cunning and tireless watchfulness enabled him to manage it. He was
+caught once, and only once, and beaten off with a gee-pole and a club;
+pretty sorely beaten, too. But--
+
+"Don' mark heem, Jake! Don' touch hees head."
+
+Jean might be ever so angry, but he never lost his temper. He might
+punish ever so sorely, but he never lost sight of his main objective and
+could not be induced to knock dollars off his own property. Incidentally
+he knew precisely what his aching hunger meant to Jan, and why the big
+dog stole. But that knowledge did not weigh one atom with Jean in
+apportioning Jan's food, or his punishment for stealing; both being
+meted out, not with any view to Jan's comfort, but solely with the aim
+of protecting the food-supply and keeping up Jan's value in dollars. For
+Jean, before and above all else, was able; a finished product of the
+quite pitiless wilderness in which he made out, not only to survive
+where many went under, but in surviving to prosper.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+MUTINY IN THE TEAM
+
+
+Jean made sure he would sell Jan at Fort Frontenac. And that he did not
+was due to accidental causes over which he had no control.
+
+Jean asked three hundred dollars. The would-be buyer--a man pretty
+nearly as able as Jean himself in northland craft--had only two hundred
+in cash; but possessed, besides, an invincible objection to owing or
+borrowing. (Resembling Jean in his knowledge of the wild, he was
+curiously different in most other ways, having a good deal of sentiment
+and a keen, almost conventional sense of honor.)
+
+"He's worth three hundred, all right," said the man--who hailed from New
+England--when he had seen Jan at work.
+
+"You bet," said Jean, laconically.
+
+"But I just haven't got the money, or he'd be my dog."
+
+Jean grinned. "Ah, well, eet's money talks," said he. And on that they
+parted; for this last talk between them came when Jean's team was
+pulling out for the north-west, after a profitable little rest-time in
+which Jean had exchanged a little rubbish for a lot of good food and a
+quite considerable wad of dollars.
+
+But Jean did, on occasion, make mistakes; not vital mistakes, but slips
+that might injure his pocket. He made one when he put Jan in the lead,
+and named Bill wheeler, in place of Blackfoot. Jean wanted to make a
+completely educated dog of Jan as soon as might be. But he did not want
+to lose Bill--a very useful dog--nor yet to injure Blackfoot's health
+and efficiency. Bill, as leader reduced to wheeling, made Blackfoot's
+life a hell upon earth for the kindly wise old dog with Newfoundland
+blood in him; and that, of course, was not good for Blackfoot.
+
+But this was not the worst of it. As recognized leader of the team, Bill
+could endure Jan's officious zeal, and even make shift to suffer the big
+hound's real supremacy, while by craft he could avoid a conflagration.
+So far, then, Bill had remained a force making for discipline and the
+working efficiency of the team. As wheeler, he became at one stride a
+crafty and embittered mutineer, aiming primarily at Jan's discomfiture,
+and generally at the disruption of the team as a compact entity. When
+not occupied in working off his vindictive spleen upon poor Blackfoot,
+whose hind quarters he gashed at every opportunity, Bill concentrated
+all his notable energies upon stirring up disorder, indiscipline,
+confusion, and strife among his mates.
+
+Jean flogged Bill pretty severely; and in the interval he said:
+
+"Tha's all right, Bill. Jan 'll lick all thees outer you, bimeby."
+
+And that was where Jean's mistake lay. Jan could safely be trusted to
+lick pretty well anything into, or out of, the rest of the team; but
+there was that in Bill, the ex-leader, which no power on earth would
+lick out of him. He knew it; and Jan knew it. And that was where, in
+this one matter, they both saw a little farther than the astute Jean.
+The thing of it was that what they saw did not trouble either of them.
+They were content to bide the issue. But had he known of it, Jean would
+not have been at all content with anything of the sort. Far from it.
+
+In any event, the issue involved loss for Jean, since, as both dogs well
+knew, it meant death for Jan or for Bill. They were quite content in
+their knowledge. But Jean could not conceivably have found content in
+any prospect involving himself in monetary loss; for that would have
+been contrary to the only guiding principles he knew. Pride in his own
+unfailing knowledge of dogs and life in the north helped to make Jean
+establish Jan as leader of the team. But if he could have foreseen
+monetary loss in the arrangement, his pride had assuredly been called
+down and Bill re-established in the lead.
+
+Jean saw that Jan made an exceptionally fine leader. There was no sort
+of doubt about it. He set a tremendously high working standard, and
+hustled the team into accepting it by the exercise of an almost
+uncannily far-seeing severity. Nothing escaped him, least of all a hint
+of any kind of shirking. He was quicker than Jean's whip, more sure, and
+more compelling. But while Jean saw all this, and more, with genuine
+admiration for Jan, and for his own astuteness in foretelling this
+exceptional capacity and acquiring ownership of the hound, he also saw,
+with angry puzzlement, that his team was falling off in condition and in
+efficiency as a unit.
+
+It was not that the leader lacked either justice or discretion in his
+fiery severity. Jan displayed both to a miracle. But the team had to
+live between his severity while at work, and Bill's bitter and tireless
+persecution and crafty incendiarism outside the traces. Over all, for
+their consolation, were the whips of the masters. But so infernally
+crafty was Bill, that he never once allowed the masters to detect the
+real wickedness of the part he played. They could see poor Blackfoot's
+bleeding hocks: "We got to call heem Redleg soon. Damn that Beel!"--but
+they could not see Bill's continuous crafty incitements to mutiny, or
+the hundred and one ways in which he strove, when out of harness, to
+work up hatred of Jan among his mates, or when in harness to play subtle
+tricks which should produce an effect discreditable to the new leader.
+
+Intuitively Jan became aware of most of these things. But even where he
+detected Bill at fault, he could not trounce the ex-leader as he
+trounced the other dogs, because he and Bill knew very well that there
+could be no sparring, no such lightsome thing as mere chastisement,
+between them. There was war to the death in Bill's snarl when Jan so
+much as looked at him. He was perfectly certain he could, and would,
+kill Jan directly a suitable opportunity offered. Jan was not so sure
+about that; but he did know very well that he was not capable of just
+thrashing Bill and letting it go at that; for over and above Bill's
+unbeaten prowess as a fighter and master dog there was a mortal hatred
+in him where Jan was concerned--a hatred which, weighed as a fighting
+asset, was almost equivalent to a second set of fangs.
+
+And then came the memorable evening upon which Jean killed a bull-moose
+and all the team fed full--except Bill.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+THE FEAST AND THE FASTER
+
+
+Jean and Jake were not out on a hunting expedition, and if it had
+involved hunting, the probabilities are Jean would never have bagged
+that bull-moose. But it happened that, when his sharp eyes sighted the
+moose in mid-afternoon, the poor beast had just managed to break one of
+its forelegs in a deep hole masked by snow. It was practically a sitting
+shot for Jean, and that at a range which made missing impossible for
+such a man.
+
+The dogs were wild with excitement, but fortunately they were still in
+the traces and anchored to a laden sled. In spite of this there was
+something of a stampede among them until Jean made it clear that he
+meant the team to remain in harness for the present. Then the masters'
+whips, backed by policeman Jan's remorseless fangs, soon had order
+re-established. And this was as well, for at that particular juncture
+Jean and Jake were traveling fairly light, and a strong team can quickly
+work serious damage by stampeding among trees with a light sled.
+
+When Jean had examined the moose, he decided to avail himself of the
+magnificent supply of fresh food it offered, and to carry on as large a
+share of the meat when frozen as the sled would take. To this end he and
+Jake decided to camp for the night at a spot no more than a few hundred
+paces away from the dead moose. The dogs were too much excited to lie
+down in their traces. (It was many weeks since any of them had tasted
+fresh meat, and though dried salmon makes an excellent working dietary,
+it is, of course, a very different thing from fresh meat with blood in
+it.) So they stood and sat erect, with parted jaws all drooling, while
+Jean and Jake set to work with their long knives on the great carcass.
+
+The cutting up of a full-grown moose is no light task, and darkness had
+fallen before the two men had finished stowing away all the heavy frozen
+strips of moose-meat the sled could carry. Then, having removed the
+choicest portions for their own use for that night and the next day,
+Jean and Jake set to work to loose the dogs that they might tackle their
+banquet. Jean knew the eight of them could give a pretty good account of
+the remains on the skeleton.
+
+According to custom the leader was the first dog loosed. Jan made a
+bee-line for the skeleton. Within a few seconds six other dogs were
+streaking across the intervening stretch of soft snow between the camp
+and the belt of timber in which the moose had fallen. But the seventh
+dog, Bill--though his jaws had been dripping eagerness like all the rest
+of them--walked slowly in the same direction as though food were a
+matter of indifference to him.
+
+"What in hell's the matter with that Bill?" said Jake. "Seems like as if
+he's full, but he can't be."
+
+"Beel, hee's an angry dog for sure," said Jean, with a grin.
+
+"Looks 'most as if he's sick," said Jake.
+
+"H'm! Hate-seeck, mebbe," replied Jean, as the two turned to the task of
+preparing their own supper.
+
+As a fact no dog was ever more fit or more perfectly self-controlled
+than Bill was at that moment. In his own good time and with a most
+singular deliberateness he did set his teeth in fresh moose. But he did
+it much as house-dogs in the world of civilization put their noses into
+their well-filled dinner-dishes, with a deliberate absence of gusto
+which would have simply astounded any understanding observer who could
+have seen it. The other seven dogs were blissfully unconscious of
+anything under heaven outside their own ravening lust of flesh. In a
+temperature well below zero, the lure of fresh-killed meat at the end of
+fourteen hundred miles of solid pulling, and five or six weeks of fish
+rations, is a force the strength of which cannot easily be conceived by
+livers of the sheltered life. It is the pull of an overwhelming strong
+passion.
+
+And Bill, the deposed leader of the team, just nosed and tasted with the
+calm indifferent temperateness of an English house-dog; while every
+organ of his supremely healthy body ached with a veritable neuralgia of
+longing for red meat.
+
+The rest of the team, including Jan, fed like wolves; indeed, some of
+them were literally but one or two removes from the wolf, and all of
+them had of late lived a life which brings any dog very close to the
+wolf in his habits and instincts. It is a life which, so far as his
+instincts are concerned, carries a dog back and back through innumerable
+generations till his contact with his primeval ancestors is very close
+and real.
+
+They fed like hungry wolves, and their feeding was not a pretty sight.
+When in his ravenous guzzling one dog's nose chanced to be thrust at all
+nearly to another's, there would arise a horrid sound of half-choked
+snarling; the fierce hissing rattle of snarls which came from flesh and
+blood-glutted jaws. Obeying instincts to the full as strong as any human
+passion which has ever gone to the making of tragedy, these working-dogs
+made a wild orgy of their feast. They wantoned and they wallowed in
+their perfectly natural gluttony. Having fed full and overfull, they
+desired more by reason of their long hunger for meat and the hard vigor
+of their lives. The last remains of flesh exhausted, they gnawed and
+tugged at bones, each snarling still, though half exhausted, whenever
+other fangs than his own touched a chosen bone.
+
+And Bill, despite the flame of desire in his bowels, just nosed and
+tasted, eating no more than an ordinary workaday ration. Long before the
+final stage of bone-gnawing he actually walked away and curled himself
+down at the roots of a big spruce where the ground rose slightly, some
+fifty paces distant from the place of orgy.
+
+A couple of hundred yards away, by the shelter of their fire, Jean and
+Jake composed themselves to rest and smoke; for they also had fed full.
+One by one even the lustiest of the dogs forsook the bones, drawing back
+heavily, lazily licking their chops. The dense calm of satiety descended
+slowly upon all the visible life-shapes in that place like the fumes of
+some potent narcotic--upon all forms of life save one. Bill, curled at
+the root of his spruce, had within him a blazing fire of life and
+activity which no earthly force could slake while his breath remained to
+fan it. But the rest of the world slept.
+
+The moon that night was too young to shed much light. But just after
+Jean and Jake sleepily laid aside their pipes and closed their eyes, the
+aurora borealis flamed out icily in a clear sky, bringing more than all
+the light Bill needed. In that frozen stillness Bill's brain was like
+the interior of a lighted factory with all its machinery in full swing.
+Fed by hate and slowly accumulated stores of bitter anger, his thoughts
+went throbbing in and out the lighted convolutions of his brain with the
+silent positive efficiency of a gas-engine's pistons.
+
+Bill understood everything in the world that night in his own world, and
+he overlooked nothing. He would have given much, very much, to have been
+able to remove Jean's camp a mile or so away. The belt of open
+snow-space between it and him was all too narrow for his liking. Well he
+knew how swiftly Jean could move, how certainly he could strike when the
+need arose. But for this Bill had done murder that night, as surely as
+ever softly treading human desperado in the dead of night has done
+murder at a bedside. As it was he thought he must fight. Well, he was
+prepared. Nay, his bowels yearned for it just as strongly as any dog's
+bowels had yearned for fresh-killed meat that night. More strongly, for
+in him the one yearning had mastered and ridden down the other yearning,
+thus giving him his perfect preparation.
+
+The full-fed team-dogs had been too idle that night to dig out proper
+sleeping-nests for themselves in the snow. A mere circling whisp of head
+and tail and feet had served them, and the upper half of Jan's
+magnificent frame lay fully exposed halfway down the slope from Bill's
+tree. Very deliberately now Bill rose, and moved toward Jan, walking
+with dainty, springy steps like a cat at play. In all that countryside
+Bill possessed an absolute monopoly of springiness and elasticity. But,
+at their most sluggish, dogs in the northland are, of course, more alert
+than the home-staying dogs of civilization. Snip snarled fatly as Bill
+passed with his catlike tread. Jan, the crimson haw of one eye gleaming
+as its lid lifted, growled savagely but low as Bill approached him. His
+big limbs twitched convulsively and the hair about his shoulders
+stiffened; but so grossly full-fed was he that he did not rise, though
+the note of his growl ascended toward that of a snarl as Bill came
+nearer.
+
+Here again, and for the hundredth time that night, Bill's icy
+self-control, his really marvelous command of his impulses, was sorely
+tried. His enemy actually was recumbent in the snow before him, while
+he, taut as a strung bow, was most exquisitely poised for the attack.
+Why fight? Why not swift delicious murder, and the gush of the loathed
+one's throat-blood between his fangs? Bill knew well why it must not be.
+But given the knowledge, how many dogs in his case, nay, how many men
+similarly tempted, could have forced discretion to master impulse?
+
+Attempted murder must mean furious uproar, and uproar must mean
+attempted rescue; and attempted rescue, so close to camp, might well rob
+Bill of the life he claimed. It might leave Jan alive and himself
+clubbed into insensibility. In the fire-lighted brain of Bill was
+understanding of all things, and the determination to take no chances
+with regard to this the greatest killing of his life.
+
+And so, with the most delicate care, the most minutely measured
+instalments of provocation, he proceeded to "crowd" the infinitely
+sluggish Jan. So sunk in sloth was Jan that he, who three hours earlier
+had been pricked to fury by an insolent glance from Bill's eyes, now
+positively submitted to the actual touch of Bill's nose on his hocks
+before he would budge. And then with a long snarl he only edged himself
+a yard or two away.
+
+"Be still, be still! For God's sake give peace!" his heavy movements
+seemed to say.
+
+Peace! And in Bill's lighted brain the roar of furnaces and the
+remorseless whirl of swiftly driven machinery!
+
+With the fathomless scorn of the self-mastering ascetic for the sodden
+debauchee, Bill proceeded coldly with his task of "crowding" Jan out and
+away from the safety of that place and into the wilderness. In a few
+minutes he ventured to hasten matters by actually nipping one of Jan's
+hind legs with his teeth. But with what precise delicacy! It had been
+sweet to drive the fangs home and feel the bone and sinew crack. But
+that would not mean death and might bring rescue. So Bill's jaws pressed
+no more hardly than those of a nursing-mother of his kind what time she
+draws a too venturesome pup into the shelter of her warm dugs.
+
+It was beautifully done; a triumph of self-mastery and an exquisitely
+gauged piece of tactics. It brought Jan quickly lumbering to his feet,
+snarling savagely but not very loudly. It sent him sullenly some twenty,
+thirty paces nearer to his doom and farther from the camp. A dozen paces
+Bill followed him, crowding threateningly to enforce the right
+direction. And then Bill halted, not wishing to risk causing Jan to
+dodge and double backward toward the camp. And because his persecutor
+stopped when he did, Jan followed the line of least resistance,
+lumbering on down the slope into the deep wood for twenty paces more
+before lowering himself again with a grunt for the repose which, to his
+glutted sloth, seemed more desirable now than all the meat in the world,
+aye, and of more pressing import than all his dignity, than all his new
+pride in working efficiency in his leadership.
+
+With a patience no red Indian could have excelled, Bill repeated these
+tactics twenty or thirty times; but always with the same nicely balanced
+accuracy; with ample pauses between each fresh beginning; with
+mathematically accurate gauging of the precise provocation needed to
+shift Jan farther and farther into the wilderness without seriously and
+dangerously arousing his somnolent faculties.
+
+But though he himself did not know it, and Bill could not possibly
+suspect it, it yet was a fact that something of wakefulness remained and
+grew through the intervals between Jan's forced marches. It seemed that
+though he did most unwillingly move on and on at Bill's cunningly given
+behests, Jan barely was roused from his heavy sleep into which he
+plunged fathoms deep every time he resumed the recumbent position. So it
+seemed. Thus Bill saw the outworking of his devilishly ingenious
+tactics. And could Jan have understood any challenge on the subject, he
+would have admitted that this was the way it worked.
+
+And now, toward the end of Jan's twentieth or thirtieth move, when his
+subconsciousness was simply one ache of continuous boding discomfort,
+while still his outer consciousness barely permitted the lifting of his
+heavy eyelids, now Bill, that incarnation of calculating watchfulness,
+gathered up his magnificent muscles for the act which should bring the
+first instalment of his reward, the guerdon of his season of
+super-canine self-mastery. In another second or so Jan would sink down
+again to sleep. Bill did not snarl or growl. He needed no trumpet-call.
+He made no more sound than a cat makes in leaping for a bird. Yet he
+rushed upon the blinking, half-comatose Jan as though impelled thereto
+from the mouth of a spring cannon.
+
+There was no possibility that in his then condition Jan could withstand
+the shock of that furious impact. And he did not. Indeed, he spun
+through the air feet uppermost, and Bill, in his eyes a cold flame of
+elation, knew that when he did reach earth it would be to yield the
+throat-hold at which your fighting-dog always aims, and to die the death
+which he, Bill, had long pictured for the usurper of his office.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+THE FIGHT IN THE WOODS
+
+
+The one thing for which Bill had made no allowance was the thing of
+which he could not possibly have any knowledge; the strength of Jan's
+subconscious self which had now been wide awake for some time.
+
+During the fraction of time which Jan's body spent in mid-air this
+subconscious self of his worked several miracles simultaneously. It
+jagged the whole of Jan's outer consciousness into the widest
+wakefulness. It explained to him the inner meaning of most things that
+had happened since Jean shot the moose. And acting through a muscular
+system which, always fine, had been made well-nigh perfect during the
+past six weeks, it succeeded in accomplishing the patently impossible
+and bringing Jan to earth again almost erect, certainly on his four feet
+and with spread jaws pointing toward Bill--instead of landing him on the
+broad of his back where Bill had quite properly and logically expected
+to see him.
+
+Now began the fight between Bill and Jan, ex-leader and leader; the
+veteran northland dog, comparatively empty and exquisitely poised and
+prepared; and the new-comer from the outside world, terribly full,
+heavy, and unprepared. All, or nearly all, had fallen out as Bill had
+planned. Their distance from the camp was a safe one; Jan was grossly
+bloated and he, Bill, was in quite perfect fighting trim.
+
+Only one thing was wrong: Jan ought, by all the calculations of his
+enemy, to be lying feet up with his throat exposed; and instead he was
+standing, and as it happened, on slightly raised ground, waiting with
+dripping jaws for Bill's attack. Bill knew not fear. His brain was as
+brilliantly lighted, his furnace of hate as hot within him, as ever.
+But--the new-wakened Jan's snarl was certainly terrific, and his bulk,
+as he stood there with erect stern, bristling hackles, high-lifted lips,
+and legs planted like buttresses--the bulk of him was immense.
+
+"Come on!" his roaring snarl seemed to say. And fiery Bill, like a
+wrestler, pranced to and fro for an opening. Rage filled him to the
+throat, but never for an instant did it cloud his vision. Jan's instinct
+kept him still, warning him that he was too heavy now for the lightning
+footwork of the wolves, that his sole chance lay in his strength, and
+that by the same token his strength must be conserved.
+
+Whoof! Tsss!
+
+Jan's right ear hung in two separate flaps. Valiantly he strove to
+extort some penalty by thrust of massive shoulder and clash of fangs.
+But Bill to all seeming was twice his own length away in the same
+instant that he flashed in to the attack. Jan breathed hard in a defiant
+snarl.
+
+Hup! Grrrr!
+
+The massive shoulder which had missed its thrust was cut clear into the
+bone, a groove four inches long, and in the selfsame fraction of a
+second the catlike Bill, from two lengths distant, darted his red tongue
+in and out at Jan in cold ribaldry.
+
+A little show of temper now on Jan's part had been a thing of priceless
+worth to Bill. Indeed, it was the ex-leader's one desire, its
+provocation his sole objective for the moment. This it was that drew his
+pointed red tongue in and out like a flame, this the tuning-fork that
+gave his snarl its key; the note of insolent, jeering defiance.
+
+"You hog! You're bloated. Ungainly beast, I can bleed you when and where
+I will. Take that!" snarled Bill, as he flashed in again, tearing clean
+away a little section of soft-coated fine skin from the left side of
+Jan's dewlap, where Desdemona's blood in him left him but lightly
+covered.
+
+(In the bloodhound the skin is very loose and fine in texture all about
+the head and flews and dewlap. In Jan it hardened quickly on the neck,
+where the mat of his dense coat thickened.)
+
+Again and again, not fewer than a dozen times in all, Bill drank deep of
+sheer delight as he flashed in and out upon Jan, drawing blood every
+single time, reaching bone more than once or twice, and winning back to
+safety without the loss of so much as one hair.
+
+Jan no longer snarled. He had no breath to waste. He was standing to his
+fearsome punishment like a bulldog now. And like a bulldog he seemed, in
+a heavy, dogged way, and almost to glory in the bitter thrusts he took.
+
+Then Bill overstepped himself. Striving to win a second bite from the
+one rush, he got the full thrust of Jan's bloody right shoulder so
+shrewdly directed that Bill went down under it as corn under a sickle.
+So far so good for Jan; and by good rights that thrust should have given
+him his lead to victory. But the plain truth is Jan was too full of
+moose-meat. He plunged down and forward for the throat-hold--appreciably
+too late--and lost more than blood and fur from his flank as Bill
+wheeled into action again without any apparent loss of poise, though he
+had turned completely over on the snow.
+
+Jan breathed like a bull as he resumed the defensive; and like a bull he
+lowered his head with a swaying motion as though to ease his labored
+breathing and drain his jaws of the spume that clogged them. He was
+bleeding now from more than a dozen wounds. The frost nipped those
+wounds stingingly. The hard trampled snow about his feet was flecked
+with blood and foam--his life-blood, his foam. Bill remained unscathed
+and to all seeming as coldly calculating as ever.
+
+At this stage a backer of Jan (if any such reckless wight existed) might
+easily have booked a hundred to one against the big hound from an
+audience of experienced northland men, had any been there to see this
+wonderful fray. It seemed a breathless business enough, with never a
+moment for anything like reflection. But of a truth, as Jan swung his
+massive head now in a gesture which added blazing coals to the fire of
+triumphant hate in Bill, his mind was busy with a mort of curious
+things. There were many differences between Jan and the average dog, and
+this illustrated one of them. As he stood heavily swaying to Bill's
+lightning attacks, he saw pictures in his busy mind through a mist of
+blood; pictures that made the whole business of this fight far more
+terrible for him than it would have been for most dogs.
+
+The dominating picture Jan saw, and the one that kept forcing itself
+forward upon the screen of his imagination through and over all the
+others that came and went, was a picture of himself on his back in the
+trampled snow. Bill's jaws were at his throat in this picture, and his
+blood ebbed out, an awful tide, flooding the snow with its crimson for
+as far as he could see. And then the picture moved and showed him the
+satisfied, triumphant Bill, walking proudly away to the camp to his
+regained leadership; and himself, Jan, stark, helpless, dead, in that
+forsaken clear patch in the woods with only the cold gleam of the aurora
+borealis to bear him company.
+
+Another picture showed him the stripped framework of the moose and his
+own reckless feasting there with the rest of the pack, while Bill,
+pitilessly far-seeing Bill, watched them and abstained. Jan saw it all
+now and gulped upon his bitterness as he realized how cunningly it had
+all been planned, and just why it was that, while his enemy seemed made
+of steel springs actuated by electricity, he, Jan, was heavy and clumsy
+as an English house-dog.
+
+So that was the way of this bloody business thought Jan as, swifter than
+a bullet, Bill registered another visit to his streaming right shoulder.
+There was no trace left now of that queer stubborn sort of bulldog glory
+in the endurance of punishment which Jan had shown during the first
+half-dozen attacks. His stern was still erect, bladelike, his hackles
+almost as stiff as before. But the flame of his deep-hawed and now
+glazing eyes had died down to a dim red smolder; his hard breathing
+spared nothing for a snarl now, and his head and body movements were, if
+anything, a little slower than before.
+
+And in and out among the vivid pictures in his mind of immediate local
+happenings came swiftly passing little silhouettes of people and
+happenings farther away in point of time and distance. He saw Dick
+Vaughan, in scarlet tunic and yellow-striped breeches, sitting on a box
+with his, Jan's, head between his knees, his hands fondling the long
+ears that now were so terribly torn and bloody. He saw the great, gray,
+lordly Finn pacing gravely beside the Master and Betty Murdoch on the
+Downs at Nuthill; himself trotting to and fro between Betty and the
+noble hound that sired him. He heard Dick Vaughan's long, throbbing
+whistle, and then the old familiar call:
+
+"Jan, boy! Ja--an!"
+
+And as he heard this call he had never once failed to answer, some
+subtle force at work in Jan loosed the cord that had seemed to hold him
+fettered to the heavy aftermath of his greed that night. His heart
+swelled within him in answer to the sovereign's call, till it seemed to
+send new blood, hot and compelling, racing through all his veins into
+the last least crevices of his remotest members. His massive head ceased
+to sway. It was uplifted in the moment that a roaring baying cry escaped
+him; he knew not how or why. And that was the moment called
+psychological. For it was the instant of a new and different attack from
+Bill, this tremendous moment of Jan's real awakening.
+
+For some minutes now, while he flashed in and out, bleeding his prey in
+preparation for the final assault, Bill had noted with infinite cold joy
+that swaying motion of Jan's great head. He knew it well for the gesture
+of the baited creature, and as the head swung lower the flames of Bill's
+hate shot higher and ever higher; for this lower swaying, as he knew,
+was the signal of the end for which he had striven so cunningly and
+long.
+
+At the moment that Jan heard Dick's call, Bill drew up his muscles for
+administration of the final thrust. (The bull had bled sufficiently. Now
+for the steel in the nape.) Bill leaped, red froth flying from his bared
+fangs. As he leaped, Jan's strange baying roar smote upon his senses
+with a chill foreboding. He knew nothing of the call that had loosed
+from its lethargy the essential Jan. But the roar spoke of doom and Bill
+flinched; wavered in his attack, as a horse will momentarily waver at a
+high leap. That peril might have passed. But it was part of a double
+blunder. The leap had been wrongly conceived. It had come too soon. And
+now the leaper balked, conscious of error; conscious also, dimly, of
+some terrific change in Jan, heralded by his awe-inspiring cry.
+
+Bill jarred down to earth, short of his mark, his feet ill placed, his
+world awry. And in that instant the big hound was upon him like a bolt
+from heaven: the strangest attack surely that ever dog faced, or so it
+must have seemed to stricken Bill, the northland fighter for the killing
+throat-hold, who never had seen the famous killing grip that was always
+used by Jan's tall sire, Finn the wolfhound.
+
+Jan came down upon Bill as though from the clouds. (He stood a full four
+inches higher than Bill.) His huge jaws, stretched to cracking-point,
+took Bill where the base of the skull meets the spinal cord. One jaw on
+either side that rope of life, they drove down; through the matted armor
+of Bill's coat, through skin and flesh, and on to their ultimate
+destination, under the crushing pressure of a hundred and forty pounds
+of steel-like muscle, bone, and sinew, the invincible product of the
+trail-life developed upon a foundation of scientifically attained health
+and strength.
+
+Bill, the fearless and unbeaten, now screamed aloud; not for mercy, but
+in mortal pain. His tense body squirmed, convulsed, under Jan's great
+weight like a thing galvanized by electricity.
+
+Jan's jaws sank deeper.
+
+Bill snapped at the bloody snow in his frenzy, actually breaking his own
+fangs.
+
+Jan's jaws sank deeper.
+
+A long horrible shudder passed through the squirming body of Bill. And
+Jan's jaws sank a little deeper. Then with a dreadful sucking sound and
+a sharp gasp for breath, those jaws parted and were withdrawn; for
+Bill's long fight and his life were ended now, and Jan was quite alone
+in that desolate place.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+REAL LEADERSHIP
+
+
+The thrifty Jean was far from pleased when, on the morning after his
+lucky moose-shot, he found that the sled-team was short of one dog. As
+it happened, Jake was the first to note the absence of Bill, the
+ex-leader; and while he looked this way and that for the missing dog,
+Jean, by a thought process which went a little farther, called Jan to
+him and proceeded to look over the big hound.
+
+"You don't need to look for no Beel," he said, grimly, to Jake. "Look
+thees Jan, here. By gar! that was some fight, now I'm telling you. See
+that, an' thees. Look that ear. See thees shoulder. By gar! that Beel he
+fight good an' hard. But when he fight Jan, tha's the feenish--for
+Beel."
+
+Jake and Jean together made the best job they could of patching up Jan's
+wounds a little against the frost and the rub of trace and breast-band.
+
+"Good dog, too, that blame Bill," mused Jake.
+
+"Sure, he was good dog, very good dog; by gar! yes," agreed Jean. "But
+thees Jan, hee's best of all dogs. No good for Beel to fight heem. Only
+he was too blame full o' moose-meat, he don' lose no blood to Beel, you
+bet. That why Beel he don' eat las' night. Seeck? No. He too cunning,
+that Beel." A long pause, while Jean spat out chewed tobacco and juice
+over one of Jan's worst wounds, with a view to its antiseptic and
+healing properties. And then, on a grunting sigh: "Ah, well, I reckon
+that makes Jan's price five hunderd. That blame Beel, he worth two
+hunderd any day."
+
+So, by Jean's simple commercial method, the big hound's wounds and the
+previous night's great fight were best summed up by reckoning that they
+added two hundred dollars to Jan's market price. And, all things
+considered, he was very likely right; for there could be no sort of
+doubt about it, the episode had taught Jan lessons he never would
+forget; it had advanced his education hugely and added a big slice to
+the sum of his knowledge of the wild northland life. Therefore it had
+made him the more fit to survive in the north; and hence it must have
+added to his value.
+
+Dogs may not do much talking one with another, as humans understand
+talk; but their methods of intercourse suffice them. Just as Jean saw no
+need to hunt for the missing Bill, once he had looked over Jan's wounds,
+so every dog in the team knew perfectly well why Bill was not of their
+number that morning. They asked no questions; but they knew. The thing
+was indelibly recorded in their minds. Bill, who had mastered them, had
+disputed Jan's mastery. And now Bill was no more. They would not forget.
+
+But all the same, their deductive powers were far from perfect. They saw
+in Jan a leader who could not hide the soreness and stiffness caused by
+his many wounds. They, for their part, were feeling rather like
+indiscreet workmen after a public holiday that has been too recklessly
+enjoyed. They had no headache, but were feeling fat and lazy; and,
+noting the stiffness of Jan's movements, they slouched and shirked, and
+caused delays over the making of a start that morning.
+
+"H'm! Too much moose-meat. Thees will be a short day," growled Jean, as
+he reached out for his whip before proceeding farther with the
+harnessing. Only the stiff-legged leader was in his place; the rest lay
+dotted about with lolling tongues, bent on loafing.
+
+Jan saw Jean go for his whip. But it was no fear of the lash that moved
+him to action. He had been desperately conscious for a good many hours
+of his stiffness and weariness, and had hoped his services as policeman
+of the team would not have been needed that morning. Now, in a flash, he
+comprehended the true position. And he knew the sled was now twice its
+previous weight. He looked across at Jean, and gave a short, low bark,
+which meant:
+
+"Don't you trouble about your whip. This is my job. Don't suppose I've
+forgotten it, or that this team is going to be any the weaker for Bill's
+loss. Devil a bit of it."
+
+And with that Jan tossed aside his stiffness and flew around among his
+six team-mates, the very incarnation of masterful leadership. Not one
+dog, not even old Blackfoot, escaped him; and if their leader began the
+day's work as a sorely wounded dog, it was certain that each dog behind
+him began it with one sore spot to occupy his mind withal. Inside of one
+minute he had the six of them standing alertly to attention in their
+respective places, waiting for their harness and itching to be off; not
+by reason of any sudden access of virtue or industry in them, but
+because the leader they had thought too sore and stiff to accomplish
+much that day was pacing sternly up and down their rank, with fangs
+bared, and the hint of a snarl in every breath he drew; ready, and
+apparently rather anxious, to visit condign punishment upon the first
+dog who should stir one paw a single inch from its proper place.
+
+"Five hunderd!" shouted Jean, with his broad, cheery grin. "By gar! tha'
+Jan hee's worth ten hunderd of any man's money for team-leadin'. Yes,
+_sir_; an' you can say I said so. I don't care where the nex' come from;
+tha' Jan, hee's masterpiece."
+
+Jake readily admitted, when, over their pipes that night, he and Jean
+came to review the day's run, that the team had worked better this day
+than on any previous day in the past month.
+
+"With double load, an' one dog short," Jean reminded him.
+
+"That's so," said Jake. "I guess that moose-meat's put good heart into
+them."
+
+"Ah! moose-meat, hee's all right; good tack, for sure," said Jean. "But
+tha's not moose-meat mushed them dogs on so fast an' trim to-day. No,
+_sir_. Tha's Jan--bes' dog-musher in 'Merica to-day, now I'm tellin'
+you. He don' got Beel to upset things to-day, and, by gar! you see how
+he make them other dogs mush. You don't need no wheep, don't need no
+musher, so's you got Jan a-leadin', now I'm tellin' you."
+
+Jan imbued each of the other dogs with a portion of his own
+inexhaustible pride in the team's perfect working. Ready to start in the
+morning he would stand in the lead, pawing eagerly at the snow, his head
+turning swiftly from side to side as he looked round to make sure his
+followers were in order, and in his anxiety to catch the first breath of
+the command to "Mush on there!"
+
+And when the word came, with what a will those seven dogs bowed to their
+work! How furiously their hard pads scrabbled at the trail, to overcome
+the first inertia of the laden sled, before it gained the gliding
+momentum which they would never allow it to lose for an instant until
+the order came to halt! If any dog put one ounce less than the pressure
+he was capable of exerting into his breast-band, Jan knew it that
+instant, more surely than the watching man behind; and would let out a
+sharp, low-sounding bark. And very well each dog in the team knew what
+that bark meant. They feared it more than Jean's thong. For Jan had
+taught them to know that this bark gave warning of a shrewder blow to
+come than any whip could give; and a blow from which there would be no
+possible escape. Men-folk might sometimes forget a promised cuff. Jan
+was never known to forget a promised bite; and if twelve hours should
+elapse between promise and payment, so much the worse for the payee; for
+Jan had a system of his own for the reckoning of compound interest, the
+efficacy of which, at one time or another, each dog in the team had
+tested, and found deadly.
+
+Yes, in the fortnight that followed the shooting of the moose and the
+disappearance of Bill the sled-team driven by Jean and Jake was perhaps
+the finest and the most efficient in all that white world of
+hard-bitten, hard-trained, hard-working men and dogs. And, by that
+token, there was no happier team living, and none in better condition.
+There are not many teams, of course, whose members eat moose-flesh every
+day. But quite apart from the substantial addition to their dietary
+which Jean's lucky moose-shot brought, his sled-team was superbly fit
+and efficient, because it was perfectly led and perfectly disciplined.
+
+And then came all the strange confusion of the noisy mining town and the
+end of this particular phase of Jan's life.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+THE COST OF INCOMPETENCE
+
+
+Jan's private impressions of the northern mining town were, first, that
+it was the most horrible place he had ever seen; second, that it was
+perhaps the most interesting place he had ever seen; and, third and
+lastly, that it was a very good place to get away from, and that he
+would be pleased to exchange its complex interests for the clean,
+arduous stress and strain of the trail.
+
+Jan spent less than a week in the town; but into that week was packed
+perhaps rather more than the allowance of new impressions and excitement
+of one sort and another that go to make up the record of her first
+season in town for the average human debutante. The cynic might protest
+that many a modern debutante is as certainly put up for sale to the
+highest bidder of the town season as Jan was. Well, at least the thing
+is a good deal more carefully wrapped up and veiled, and a great deal
+more time is given to it.
+
+Jean was very firmly set in his determination not to part with Jan for a
+cent under five hundred dollars. (Had not Jan cost him two hundred
+dollars on the night of Bill's disappearance?) Had there been any really
+knowledgeable judges of dogs in the town just then who needed a dog,
+they would hardly have quarreled with his owner over Jan's price. But it
+happened there were none. And the result was that Jan had to be put
+through his paces five separate times for the benefit of five separate
+prospective purchasers, not one of whom was really capable of
+appreciating his superlative quality, before the five hundred dollars
+demanded did eventually find its way into Jean's pouch and he was called
+upon to part with his leader. He intended to give Snip the leadership of
+his team now, because Snip was a curiously remorseless creature; and to
+buy a husky as cheaply as might be to take the trace ahead of
+Blackfoot--kindliest of wheelers.
+
+Jean's parting with Jan was characteristic of the man. He had conceived
+an admiring and prideful affection for the big hound, and had liefer
+died than allow this to be shown to any other man. His pride in his
+dog's ability, his full appreciation of the animal's many points--yes,
+he would show these, and very insistently, to any man. But for his
+perfectly genuine affection; that, as he understood it, was a culpable
+weakness which no living soul must be permitted to suspect--no, not even
+Jan himself. And that was where Jean fooled himself. For his occasional
+blows and frequent curses did not in the least deceive Jan, who was
+perfectly well aware of Jean's fondness for him, and, to a considerable
+extent, reciprocated the feeling. He did not love Jean; but he liked the
+man, and trusted and respected him for his all-round ability and
+competence.
+
+"Ye--es," said Jean, slowly, to the moneyed _chechaquo_ who had
+purchased Jan, "tha' Jan, hee's ther bes' lead dog ever I see, an' I've
+handled some. But ef you take my word, Mister Beeching, you won' ask Jan
+to take no other place than lead in your team. Eef you do, your leader
+'ll hear about it, en he might lose some hide over it, too, I guess. But
+tha' Jan, hee's a great lead dog, all right, an' I'm tellin' you. Well,
+so long, boss; I'll be gettin' along. Git back there, you, Jan! By gar!
+you stay right there now, when I say so. What 'n hell d'you want
+follerin' me? Git back!"
+
+That was how Jean bade Jan good-by. Jan, scenting trouble vaguely, was
+determined to stick to Jean, and thought he went about it craftily
+enough. But Jean caught him each time, and kicked him back to the place
+where the _chechaquo_ stood, cuffing him roughly over the head by way of
+final salutation.
+
+"I'll larn ye to foller me," he said, sourly.
+
+"Mighty little _he_ cares for his dogs!" thought the tenderfoot; and he
+turned (with his more delicate sentiments) to caress Jan's head. But Jan
+abruptly lowered his head to avoid the touch; though, obedient now to
+Jean, the proved master, he remained where he had been told to stay.
+
+But these things happened within twenty-four hours of Jan's departure
+from that town. In the days immediately preceding this one of his
+parting from Jean he had roamed the town at large with Blackfoot, Snip,
+and the others of his team, observing, making acquaintances, fending off
+attacks, administering punishment, and swaggering with the best among a
+great company of sled-dogs of all sorts and sizes and in every varying
+grade of condition, from fatted and vainglorious sleekness to downright
+emaciation. For there were dogs here who, having recently shared cruelly
+hard times with their men, would require weeks of recuperation to make
+them fit for the rigors of the trail. Some of this latter sort were for
+sale, and could be bought for a tenth of Jan's price, or less. Others,
+again, were "resting," as the actors say, while their impoverished
+masters worked at some other craft to earn money enough to give them
+back the freedom of the trail.
+
+None the less, he felt tolerably forlorn and desolate when, upon his
+last evening there, he was led away by his new master, whose name, it
+seemed, was Beeching, and locked in a small inclosure of high iron rails
+with nine other dogs, the remaining complement of the team in which he
+was now to serve. However, for a while he was kept too busy here to
+spare much thought for the matter of the loss of his companions.
+
+Every one of the nine strangers was sleek and well fed. _Chechaquo_
+Beeching was bound for the sea and civilization, with the moderate pile
+which a beginner's luck, rather than any skill or enterprise of his, had
+brought him; and he was bent on doing the trip in style, he and his
+curious friend, whom he called Harry. Of these nine finely conditioned
+dogs, four had met Jan about the town and learned to show him some
+deference. Two--Jinny and Poll--were bitches, and therefore not to be
+regarded by Jan as possible opponents in a fight; but the remaining
+three members of the crowd, lusty huskies, full of meat and insolence,
+had never seen the big hound before, and these had to be thrashed pretty
+soundly before Jan won his footing in the inclosure.
+
+Fortunately, the two bitches were disposed to be friendly from the
+outset, and of the three huskies, two were intently engaged upon bones
+at the time of Jan's entrance. The third husky attacked him, blindly,
+without stopping to exchange so much as glances. This little incident
+was soon ended. In ten seconds Jan had bowled clean over on his back the
+too temerarious Gutty--to give this particular husky the name under
+which Mr. Beeching had bought him--and was shaking him by the throat as
+a terrier shakes a rat. But Jan was far from being really angry, or
+Gutty had paid with his life for the impudence of his attack; and when
+the husky chokingly whined for mercy he was allowed to spring to his
+feet and slink away into a dark corner, with nothing worse than a little
+skin-wound to worry over.
+
+The case of the other two huskies was more serious, however; for in the
+half-light Jan chanced to brush against one of them as he gnawed his
+bone; and in the next moment they both were leaping at him with clashing
+fangs, convinced that he aimed at plunder. While Jan, in warding off
+their attacks, tried to explain, good-humoredly, that he meant them no
+ill, Jinny and Poll made off with their bones. But of this the two
+huskies knew nothing, being fully occupied by their joint attack upon
+the great dog who, had they but known it, was destined for some time to
+be their master, in the traces and out of them.
+
+It was a rather troublesome fight, involving considerable bloodshed; for
+Fish and Pad, the two huskies, were quite notable battlers, and Jan, for
+his part, was genuinely anxious to avoid any killing. He was quite
+shrewd enough to know that he had now joined a new team, and, while it
+was very necessary that his prowess should be recognized and respected,
+he desired peace, and perfectly understood that, if he began by killing,
+the results might be serious for the team and for himself.
+
+In the end, having made some sacrifices, he had to inflict a severe gash
+on the side of Pad's face, and to come near to throttling the life out
+of Fish, before he could reduce the pair of them to a state of
+comparatively decent, if still snarling, submission. After that there
+was peace; Fish and Pad were too busy in dressing their wounds to notice
+the loss of their bones; and Jan was free to introduce himself to the
+others of the pack, which he did in friendly fashion enough, despite his
+still raised hackles and rather noticeably stiff gait.
+
+There was quite a gathering assembled next morning to see the last of
+Jan's new masters. But though he eyed the crowd closely to find them,
+Jan saw nothing of Jake or Jean, nor any of his old team-mates. Beeching
+and Harry--the latter a gentleman who, having apparently no faith in his
+own luck, believed in attaching himself firmly to any more fortunate
+person who would tolerate his society--were, to all seeming, not really
+unpopular. The thoroughly unpopular man is rarely guyed, with roars of
+open laughter and back-slapping merriment, by men who wink and nod at
+one another while joining forces in the matter of ragging their butt.
+
+That was how Beeching was treated by the crowd of acquaintances who came
+to give him his start on the southward, seaward trail. Harry was, for
+the most part, merely ignored. It was understood that now, as in the
+past, he was supposed to make himself "useful" by way of paying his
+shot; and as he had never been known to be any other thing than useless,
+it was evidence rather of the easy good nature than the perspicacity of
+his associates that he never had actually lacked food and shelter in
+that place. But that was as much, men thought, as "Tame Cat Harry" could
+possibly expect. One of the last fond messages flung at Beeching, as his
+overloaded sled swung out on the trail, was:
+
+"Don't you be letting Harry loose, mind you, or he'll surely hark back
+on the trail; an' then we'll shoot him on sight."
+
+"Well, say," yelled another man, "if you do loose him any, be sure you
+put a muzzle on him, so's to keep our grub-boxes safe."
+
+After which crude gibe at Harry's sponging proclivities, Homeric
+laughter set a period upon the town's farewell to Jan's new masters. And
+that laughter stirred to fresh activity the uneasy want of confidence,
+the rather cheerless sense of foreboding, which, for close upon
+twenty-four hours now, had been growing in the breast of the team's
+leader. Jan should, perhaps, have felt drawn toward Beeching and Harry,
+since both were compatriots of his and hailed from southern England. But
+England has sent a good many of her most confirmed wastrels oversea,
+along with the very cream of her manhood; and whether or no, Jan had no
+more confidence in his masters than he had in Gutty, the husky he had
+thrashed overnight, and far less than he had in Fish and Pad, the two
+opponents he had found so much more difficult to trounce.
+
+As a fact, Jan's skepticism was amply justified. In the thirty-five-day
+trip thus begun--which should have been completed in sixteen days--Jan
+was given as striking an example of the effects of man's muddle-headed,
+slack-minded incompetence as that which Jean had furnished him of the
+effects of man's able-bodied, clear-headed competence and efficiency.
+Jan never worked it out in precisely this way, but after his own simple
+and direct fashion he came to the definite conclusion, before he had
+been two days on the trail with Beeching and Harry, that, for his part,
+he would sooner thole the harshest kind of severity or even cruelty in a
+master, so that it be allied with competence, than he would endure this
+evils which (in the northland more than in most places) attend all the
+steps of the man who is slack, shiftless, and incompetent; and, be it
+noted, make miserable the days of all and sundry who are forced to be in
+any way dependent on that man.
+
+It was with much wistful regret that Jan recalled in these days the
+daily round of his life, after the fight with Bill, as Jean's lead dog.
+The swift, positive, and ordered evolutions of those smoothly running
+days seemed merely miraculous in retrospect as Jan compared his memory
+of them with the wretched muddle of Beeching's wasteful scramble across
+the country: They carried no trade goods, nothing save the necessary
+dog-food and creature-comforts for the two men; yet their sled--an
+extra-large one--was half as heavy again to pull as Jean's had been,
+despite the ten primely conditioned dogs who made up Beeching's "flash"
+team.
+
+The morning was generally far advanced when Beeching and Harry started
+in to clear the muddle of their amateurish night's camp, with all its
+preposterous litter of bedding, utensils (always unclean), and other
+wasteful truck such as no men can afford to carry in the northland. But
+the day would be half done by the time their muddled preparations were
+finally completed.
+
+And then, more often than not, one of the men would add his own not
+inconsiderable weight to that of the half-packed, overladen sled; and,
+at the best, Harry as a trail-breaker and finder was of no more use than
+a blind kitten would have been. A dozen times in the day a halt would be
+called for some enforced repacking of the jerry-built load on the sled;
+and at such times some unpacking would often have to be done to provide
+liquor or other refreshment for the men. There were times when, on a
+perfect trail, the day's run would be no more than twenty miles; and
+there were days of bad trail, when even Jean would have been put to it
+to make more than five and twenty miles, and these incompetents, with
+their ten-dog team, covered a bare eight or ten miles.
+
+Pride in his leadership was as impossible for Jan in these conditions as
+was content or pride in his share of the work for any other member of
+the team. But that was not the worst of it. During the first day or two
+of the trip Jan was staggered to find that these new masters of his had
+no notion of measuring dog-rations, or even of serving these with any
+sort of regularity as to time, or portions, or gross quantity. They
+would feed some or all the dogs, at any time of day at all, and in any
+feckless way that came handy. At their first and second midday halts,
+for instance, they flung down to the team, as though to a herd of sheep
+or swine, food enough for three days' rations, their own leavings, and
+the orthodox dog-ration stuff, in a mixed heap.
+
+Given decent, proper feeding, Jan would have seen to it that order was
+preserved and no thieving done. Each dog should have had his own
+"whack," and none have been molested. But with all his genuine love of
+order and discipline, Jan was no magician. He could not possibly
+apportion out a scattered refuse-heap. He had necessarily to grab a
+share for himself; and, as was inevitable, the weaker members of the
+team went short, or got nothing.
+
+Then--unheard-of profligacy--came another equally casual distribution at
+night; and yet another, it might be, in the morning--in the morning,
+with the trail before them!
+
+It resolved itself into this: there were no dog-meals on that journey;
+but only daily dog-fights--snarling, scrapping, blood and hatred-letting
+scrimmages for grub; disgraceful episodes, in themselves sufficient to
+shut out any hope of discipline in the team.
+
+The quite inevitable shock came on the evening of the twelfth day. (With
+his costly team, Beeching had gaily figured on fifteen days for the
+entire trip, in place of the thirty-five days which it actually
+occupied.) The only good thing that memorable twelfth day brought was
+the end of Beeching's whisky-supply. Incidentally it marked, too, the
+end of his easy-going good temper. And to the consternation of an
+already thoroughly demoralized team, it brought also the serving out, in
+a heap as before--this cruel and messy trick, more perhaps than any
+other one thing, marked the men's wretched slackness and incompetence;
+qualities generally more cruel in their effects than any harshness or
+over-severity--of fish representing in the aggregate rather less than
+half a day's ration for each dog in the team.
+
+The next day, and the next, and the next brought a similar dispensation
+to the dogs; no more. By this time the nightly feeding had become a
+horrid and bloody battle.
+
+"Nasty savage brutes!" said sponging Harry.
+
+"Blood does tell," observed the oracular Beeching, himself by repute a
+man of family. "They're every one of 'em mongrels."
+
+The son of lordly Finn and queenly Desdemona attached no meaning to
+these words, of course; but were it not for the discipline, the
+generations of discipline in his blood, he could have strangled these
+two muddlers for the tragic folly of their incompetence, the gross
+exhibition of their slackness.
+
+As the men themselves began to feel the belly-pinch, they brought up no
+reserves of manhood, but, on the contrary, they took to cruelly beating
+their now weakened team, when the dogs were safely tethered in the
+traces, and to cowardly avoidance of the poor brutes at all other times.
+Harry was quite unashamedly afraid to throw the dogs their beggarly half
+or quarter ration; and but for Beeching, it may be the dogs had starved
+while food still remained on the sled.
+
+Maybe the fact that Beeching, with all his faults, had never reached
+Harry's depths as a sponger, preserved him from this particular crime.
+But he had small ground in that for self-gratulation, since it is a fact
+remembered in the country that when he did eventually stagger down to
+salt water with his sadly reduced team, the dogs had positively not had
+their harness off for a week. Mr. Beeching and his precious partner had
+been afraid to let their dogs out of the traces and the safe reach of
+their whips!
+
+The fatally unwise Gutty was the first to succumb. Fish downed him for a
+morsel of food he had grabbed; and when the team had been over the spot
+on which he fell, there simply was no Gutty left. Poll, the slighter of
+the two bitches, died under Harry's whip--the haft of it--or she, like
+Jinny, would have seen salt water, because their sex was their
+protection--from their fellow-dogs, though not from the now starving and
+insensate clowns who drove them.
+
+Everything but the scant remains of the men's food had, of course, been
+jettisoned before this. The dogs made a meal of the smart water-proof
+sheets, and Jan ate Beeching's show pair of moccasins. The whole
+business forms a wretched and shameful record that need not be
+prolonged.
+
+To be quite just, one should mention that Beeching was afoot (hammering
+Jan's protruding haunches) when they staggered into the township on the
+evening of the thirty-fifth day. Harry lay groaning on the sled, and had
+been there, too lame to walk, he said, too despicable, perhaps, for
+Death's consideration, for three days and more. The ten-dog team of
+prime-conditioned animals of five weeks before consisted now of seven
+gaunt, staggering creatures, each a bony framework, masked in dried
+blood and bruises; each suffering jarring agony from every tremulous
+step taken, and all together (as the market went) worth, it might be--to
+a very speculative dog-doctor--say, ten dollars. The team had cost the
+deplorable Beeching about three thousand.
+
+But, as a matter of fact, Pad died in the moment of stoppage, and two of
+his mates got their release while yet in the traces. Jan, Jinny, and two
+others survived still at the bitter end of what was perhaps the most
+wretchedly bungled trip ever made over that famous trail.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+JAN OBEYS ORDERS AT THE GREAT DIVIDE
+
+
+Experienced observers contended that the most truly remarkable thing
+about _Chechaquo_ Beeching was not, after all, his super-slackness or
+his criminal stupidity, but his invincible luck.
+
+Where many good men and true, infinitely capable and knowledgeable, had
+starved, or failed to make a scavenger's wage, Beeching had tumbled into
+possession of a couple of hundred thousand dollars, and, after having
+sampled most methods of "burning" money known to the northland, still
+had fully half this sum to his credit.
+
+That was one astounding proof of his tenderfoot's luck. But more
+remarkable evidence of it was found, by those who understood, in his
+memorable journey to salt water.
+
+By all the rules of the game, men said, Beeching and his hanger-on
+should have been starved, frozen, and eaten by their outraged dogs a
+week or more before the end of their trip. And failing that, some
+old-timers pointed out, they should have been publicly lynched on
+arrival at salt water.
+
+Instead, they fell into the hands of roughly good-natured men, who not
+only gave them food and drink and helped them down to the wharf, but
+actually set them up with a traveling-kit of new clothing.
+
+Then, again, consider the really astounding fact that a steamer should
+have been waiting to cast off at the moment these two men arrived, and
+that her skipper held his ship up for half an hour to suit the
+convenience of the precious pair, and finally carried them on in his
+best two cabins!
+
+"But what about the sled and the team?" whined Harry, as he and Beeching
+hobbled up the gangway of the waiting steamer, bound for luxury and
+civilization. It may be Harry had thought of these as one of his
+hard-earned perquisites.
+
+"Oh, to blazes with the sled and dogs!" cried _Chechaquo_ Beeching. "The
+town's welcome to 'em, for all I care."
+
+Generous man! And at that precise moment, his tough life starved and
+hammered out of his hardy body, the exhausted Fish was breathing his
+last--still in the traces; and Jan, in whom the fires of life, though
+better laid than those of ninety-nine dogs in a hundred, were burning
+very low just now--barely flickering, indeed--was concentrating such
+energies as remained in him upon gnawing feebly at his traces, for the
+double purpose of extracting some nutriment from them, if that might be,
+and freeing himself from their control.
+
+The first of these aims was a tolerably hopeless one, since Jan could
+not just now swallow any hard thing. But in the second he achieved
+success, just as the steamer's gangway was hauled up and the population
+of the town was engaged in waving farewell to the craft that connected
+with the big outside world, where sentimentality and dollars rule, just
+as in the northland muscle, grit, endurance--and dollars rule. Yes, even
+there money does play one of the chief ruling parts. But, as a general
+thing, sentimentality does not.
+
+The remaining wrecks of the team, two dead, one dying, and three too far
+gone in the same direction to be capable of any effort, lay where they
+had fallen at the moment when willing hands had come to help their
+masters to the steamer.
+
+It may be that Jan had bigger physical reserves to draw upon than his
+mates had. It is more likely, however, that the powers which kept him
+striving still to live, after the others had given up effort, were
+factors on the mental side of his composition. His memories were
+stronger and more vivid, his imagination a thing far more complex, than
+that of any husky. Also his faith in men and his desire for their help
+and companionship--even after five weeks with Beeching and Harry--were
+greatly stronger than the same factors were in any of his team-mates.
+The culminative influences of hundreds of generations of civilization
+spoke in him here.
+
+And so, trailing beside him the gnawed-off ends of his traces, Jan
+dragged his emaciated frame along in jerks over the hard-trodden snow
+while the folk of the town cheered the departing steamer. In a little
+while Jan came to a small tent, the flap of which hung loose and open.
+At the entrance Jan smelt the fresh trail of a man; from within came--to
+nostrils cunning as Jan's--the odor of foodstuffs. Jan propped and
+jerked himself feebly into the tent, though for months now he had known
+that it was forbidden to enter the habitations of men-folk.
+
+Nosing weakly to and fro, Jan found on a low shelf a can of milk. A
+half-blind jab of his muzzle brought it tumbling to the ground. Its lid
+was open, but the milk was firmly frozen. Jan licked at it, cutting his
+deep flews as he did so on the uneven edges of the tin. The warmth of
+his tongue extracted a certain sweet milkiness from this. But the metal
+edges were raw and sharp; Jan's exhaustion was very great, and presently
+he sank down upon the twig-strewn ground, and lay there, breathing in
+weak, sobbingly uncertain gasps, the milk-can between his outstretched
+paws.
+
+Jan was now drawing very near, nearer than he had ever been before, to
+the Great Divide.
+
+Within a hundred yards of Jan were groups of solid frame houses, with
+warm kitchens in them, and abundant food. But the tent, standing by
+itself, came first; and, though he could not know it, the tent was, on
+the whole, the very best of all the habitations in that bleak little
+town--for Jan. For this tent was the temporary home of an American named
+Willis--James Gurney Willis; as knowledgeable a man as Jean himself and,
+in addition, one known wherever he went into the northland as a white
+man.
+
+Not many minutes after Jan's lying down there Jim Willis came striding
+up to his tent from the wharf, and found the half of its floor-space
+occupied by the gaunt wreck of the biggest hound he had ever seen.
+Willis was a man of experience in other places than the northland, and
+he would always have known a bloodhound when he saw one. But never had
+he seen a hound of any kind with such a frame as that he saw before him
+now. The dead, blood-matted black and iron-gray coat was no bloodhound's
+coat, he thought; too long and wiry and dense for that. But yet the
+head--And, anyway, thought Willis, how came the poor beast to have died
+just there, in his tent?
+
+And in that moment the heavy lids of Jan's eyes twitched and lifted a
+little. It was rather ghastly. They showed no eyes, properly speaking.
+The eyes seemed to have receded, turned over, disappeared in some way.
+All that the lifted lids showed Willis was two deep, triangular patches
+of blood-red membrane. And above the prominent, thatched brows rose the
+noble bloodhound forehead, serried wrinkle over wrinkle to the lofty
+peak of the skull.
+
+"My God!" muttered Willis, with no irreverent intent.
+
+Always rich in the bloodhound characteristic of abundant folds of loose,
+rolling skin about the head, neck, and shoulders, the wreck of Jan, from
+which so very many pounds of solid flesh had been lost during the past
+month, seemed to carry the skin of two hounds. And set deep in these
+pouched and pendent folds of skin--tattered, blood-stained banners of
+the hound's past glories--the face of Jan was as a wedge, incredibly
+long and narrow.
+
+His eyes had been torn out, it seemed. That was what forced the
+exclamation from Willis. But it was only an abnormal extension of the
+blood-red haws that Willis saw. The eyeballs had rolled up and back
+somewhat, as they mostly do when a hound is _in extremis_; but they
+would have shown if Jan had had the strength properly to lift his lids.
+Yet he had seen Willis. It was his utter weakness, combined with the
+hanging weight of his wrinkled face and flew-skin, that caused the
+ghastly show of blood-red membrane only where eyeballs should have been.
+
+But Jan did see Willis, and the loose skin of his battered shoulders
+even shrank a little, in anticipation of a blow. Jan thought himself
+still in the traces. (As a fact he was; and breast-band, too.)
+
+The moment Willis spoke--his low "My God!"--Jan fancied he had heard the
+old order to "Mush on!" and doubtless that another blow from the haft of
+Beeching's whip was due. In view of his then desperate state, the effort
+with which Jan answered the command he fancied he heard was a positive
+miracle. He actually staggered to his feet, though too weak to lift his
+eyelids, and plunged forward, with weakly scrabbling paws, to throw his
+weight upon the traces. And plunging against nothing but space, he had
+surely crashed to earth again, and in that moment crossed the Divide,
+but for Willis.
+
+Willis was not of the type of men who waste breath over repetitions of
+exclamation of surprise. As Jan slowly heaved up his body, in a last
+effort at duty, Willis swiftly lowered his own body, dropping upon his
+knees, both arms widely extended. And it was at Willis's broad chest,
+and between his strongly supporting arms, that the wreck of Jan plunged,
+in response to what must be reckoned by far the greatest effort, till
+then, that the great hound had ever made.
+
+And if the thing had ended there, this incident alone proved that when
+he chose the tent, before any of the more ambitious habitations near by,
+Jan had chosen what was assuredly the best place for him in all that
+town.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+BACK TO THE TRAIL
+
+
+Late that same evening two men who looked in to see Jim Willis found him
+playing sick-nurse to all that remained of the strangest-looking hound
+ever seen in those parts. His stove was well alight, and near by, on the
+bed, were a spoon, a flask of whisky, a dish of hot milk, and some
+meat-juice in a jar.
+
+There was some talk about the hound, and then the bigger of the visitors
+said:
+
+"Well, Jim, what's it to be? Will you tackle the job, or won't you? You
+must admit, if the trail _is_ bad, the money's pretty good. Will you
+go?"
+
+Willis nodded shortly. That meant acquiescence in the statement that the
+money was "good." Then he pointed to the hound, whose head rested on his
+knee. (He himself was sitting on the ground.)
+
+"Well, no, Mike; I guess I won't," he said, slowly. "You say I'd have to
+hit out to-morrow; and I reckon I'm going to try an' yank this feller
+back into the world before I go anywheres."
+
+"But, hell, Jim," said the other man, a little petulantly. "I like a
+dawg as well as the next man, and this one does seem to have been some
+husky in his time. Only--well, you admit yourself the money's good,
+and--say, I won't try any bluffs with you. There ain't another man in
+the place we could trust to do the job. Come, now, is it a go, Jim?"
+
+Willis pondered a minute, eying Jan's head the while.
+
+"Well, Mike," he said at length, "I've kinder given my word to this
+feller here. He's a sort of a guest o' mine, in a way--in my tent, and
+that. No, Mike, I'll not hit out to-morrow, not for any money. But if
+you'd care to leave it for a week or ten days--ten days, say, I'll go.
+An' that's the best I can do for ye. Think it over, an' let me know
+to-morrow."
+
+And with that the two men had to content themselves. They went out
+growling. Three minutes later the shorter of the two returned.
+
+"Say, Jim," he remarked, as he thrust his head and shoulders in at the
+tent-flap, "I've been puzzling my head about that blame crittur ever
+since we first come in; an' now I've located him. He's dyin' a long way
+from home, Jim, is that dawg. But I can give ye his name. He's Jan,
+that's who he is. There! See his eyes move then, when I said 'Jan.'
+Look! Jan! See that?"
+
+Jim Willis nodded comprehendingly as he watched Jan's feebly flickering
+eyelids.
+
+"Yes, sir," continued the other man; "I've seen a picture of him in the
+Vancouver _News-Advertiser._ He's Jan of the R.N.W.M.P., that's who he
+is; 'the Mounted Police bloodhound,' they called him. He tracked a
+murderer down one time, somewhere out Regina way; though how in the
+nation he ever made this burg has me fairly beat. Where'n the world did
+that blame _chechaquo_ raise him, d'ye suppose? Surely he'd never have
+sand enough to go around dog-stealing, would he? An' from the North-west
+Mounted! Not on your life he wouldn't. Sneakin' coppers out've a blin'
+man's bowl 'd be more in his line o' country, I reckon. But that's Jan,
+all right; an' you can take it from me. Queer world, ain't it? Well, so
+long, Jim. I jest thought I'd look back an' tell ye. So long!"
+
+"So long, Jock. Oh, say, Jock! What's happened the rest o' that--that
+feller's team, anyway?" asked Willis.
+
+"Well, Seattle Charley told me they was plum petered out. Most of 'em's
+died, I believe. But two or three's alive. That Indian musher across the
+creek's got 'em, doctoring of 'em up, Charley says. He reckons to pull
+some round, an' make a bit on 'em, I suppose. But this feller here, he's
+too far gone, Jim. You can see he's done."
+
+"Ah! Well, good night, Jock."
+
+"S'long!"
+
+And with that Jim Willis was left alone again with the hound he was
+nursing.
+
+He folded a deerskin coat loosely, and placed it under Jan's head. Then
+he reached for his spoon, and proceeded to force down a little more warm
+whisky and milk beside the clenched jaws. One knew, by the way he lifted
+one of Jan's flews, raised the dog's head, and gently rubbed his gullet
+between thumb and forefinger to help the liquor down, that he had
+handled sick dogs before to-day. He had covered Jan's body with an old
+buffalo robe, and now he proceeded to fill a jar with boiling water, and
+placed that against Jan's chest.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There could be no doubt but what Jan chose more wisely than he knew in
+entering that tent.
+
+On the morning of the ninth day--Jim Willis's word was a little better
+than the bonds of some men--after the departure for the south of
+Beeching and Harry, Willis hit the trail upon the commission he had
+undertaken for Mike and Jock; or for the more richly moneyed powers
+behind those two.
+
+Willis's team consisted of five huskies, good workers all; and he
+traveled pretty light, with a sled packed and lashed as only an old hand
+at the trail can perform that task. But the queer thing about the outfit
+was that Willis had a sixth dog with him, a dog half as large again as
+any in the traces; and this one walked at Jim's heel, idle; though, at
+the outset, it had taken some sharp talk to get him there. Indeed, the
+big dog had almost fought for a place at the head of the team of
+huskies. But Jim Willis was accustomed to see to it that his will, not
+theirs, ruled all the dogs he handled; and as he had decided that this
+particular dog should, for the present, run loose at his heels, the
+thing fell out thus, and not otherwise.
+
+In nine days Jan had made a really wonderful recovery. He was not strong
+and hard yet, of course; but, as every one who had observed his case
+admitted, it was something of a miracle that he should be alive at all.
+And here he was setting out upon a fourteen-hundred-mile journey, and,
+to begin with, fighting for a place in the traces.
+
+"If I have any more of your back-talk, my gentleman," Jim Willis had
+said, with gruff apparent sternness, "I'll truss you like a Thanksgiving
+turkey an' lash you atop the sled. So you get to heel an' stay there.
+D'ye hear me?"
+
+And Jan, not without a hint of convalescent peevishness, had heard, and
+dropped behind.
+
+The bones of his big frame were still a deal too prominent, and he
+carried more than even the bloodhound's proper share of loose, rolling
+skin. But his fine black and iron-gray coat had regained its gleaming
+vitality; his tread, if still a little uncertain, was springy; his dark
+hazel eyes showed bright and full of spirit above their crimson haws;
+his stern was carried more than half erect, and he was gaining weight in
+almost every hour; not mere fatty substance--Willis saw to that--but the
+genuine weight that comes with swelling muscles and the formation of
+healthy flesh.
+
+"There's nothing like the trail for a pick-me-up," said Jim Willis. And
+as the days slipped past, and the miles of silent whiteness were flung
+behind his sled, it became apparent that he was in the right of it, so
+far, at all events, as Jan was concerned.
+
+It was exactly forty-two days later that they sighted salt water again
+and were met in the town's one street by Mike and Jock. And on that day,
+as on each of twenty preceding days, Willis's team consisted of six
+dogs, instead of five, and the leader of the team was half as big again
+as his mates. It was noticed that Willis's whip was carried jammed in
+the lower lashing of his sled-pack, instead of in his hand. He had
+learned as much, and more, than Jean had ever known about Jan's powers
+as a team-leader.
+
+"No use for a whip with that chap in the lead," he told an inquirer. "If
+you hit Jan, I reckon he'd bust the traces; and he don't give you a
+chance to find fault with the huskies. I reckon he'd eat 'em before he'd
+let 'em really need a whip. I haven't carried mine these three weeks
+now."
+
+"You don't say," commented a bystander. Jim nodded to show he did "say."
+
+"I tell ye that dog he don't just do what you tell him; he finds out
+what you want before you know it, and blame well does it before you can
+open your mouth. An' he makes the huskies do it, too, on schedule, I can
+tell you, or he'll know the reason why. Yes, sir. I take no credit for
+his training. I guess he was kinder born to the job, an' knows it better
+'n what I do. I don't know who did train him, if anybody ever did; but
+as a leadin' sled-dog he's got all the Yukon whipped to a standstill.
+He's the limit. Now you watch!"
+
+Of set purpose, Willis spoke with elaborate carelessness.
+
+"Just mush on a yard or two, not far, Jan."
+
+His tone was conversational. Jan gave a short, low bark; and in the same
+moment the five huskies flung themselves into their collars behind him.
+The sled--its runners already tight frozen--creaked, jerked, and slid
+forward just eight feet. Jan let out a low, warning growl. The team
+stood still without a word from its owner.
+
+"Say, does he talk?" asked a bystander. And then, with a chuckle: "Use a
+knife an' fork to his grub, Jim?"
+
+"Oh, as to that," said Willis, "he don't need to do no talkin'. He can
+make any husky understand without talk; an' when that husky understands,
+if he won't do as Jan says, Jan'll smother him, quick an' lively."
+
+As Jan stood now at the head of his team, awaiting final orders, he
+formed a picture of perfect canine health and fitness. He represented
+most of a northlander's ideals and dreams of what a sled-dog should be,
+plus certain other qualities that came to him from his breeding, and
+that no dog-musher would have even hoped for in a sled-dog: his immense
+size, for example, and his wonderful dignity and grace of form and
+action.
+
+Jan never had been so superlatively fit; so instinct in every least hair
+of his coat, in every littlest vein of his body, with tingling life and
+pulsing energy. His coat crackled if a man's hand was passed along his
+black saddle.
+
+Despite the lissom grace of all his motions, Jan moved every limb with a
+kind of exuberant snap, as though his strength spilled over from its
+superabundance, and had to be expended at every opportunity to avoid
+surcharge. His movements formed his safety-valve, you fancied. Robbed of
+these, his abounding vitality would surely burst through the cage of his
+great body in some way, and destroy him. He walked as though the forces
+of gravitation were but barely sufficient to tether him down to mother
+earth.
+
+"And I reckon he weighs near a hundred and sixty," said Willis; a guess
+the store scales proved good that night, when Jan registered exactly one
+hundred and fifty-seven pounds, though he carried no fat, nor an ounce
+of any kind of waste material.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+THE PEACE RIVER TRAIL
+
+
+Winter set in with unusual rigor, the temperature dropping after heavy
+snow to fifty below zero, and hovering between thirty and sixty below
+for weeks together.
+
+Jim Willis and his sled-team lived on a practically "straight" meat
+diet. Jan had forgotten the taste of sun-dried salmon, and men and dogs
+together were living now on moose-meat chopped with an ax from the slabs
+and chunks that were stowed away on the sled. Willis occasionally
+treated himself to a dish of boiled beans, and when fortune favored he
+ate ptarmigan. But moose-meat was the staple for man and dogs alike.
+
+For months the valleys they had traversed had been rich in game. But in
+the northland the movements of game are mysterious and unaccountable;
+and now, in a bleak and gloomy stretch of country north of the Caribou
+Mountains, they had seen no trace of life of any kind for a fortnight
+except wolves. And of these, by day and by night, Jim Willis had seen
+and heard more than he cared about. It seemed the brutes had come from
+country quite unlike the valleys Willis had traveled, and resembling
+more nearly that in which he now found himself. For these wolves were
+gaunt and poor, and the absence of game made them more than normally
+audacious. So far from seeking to avoid man and his dogs, they seemed to
+infest Willis's trail, ranging emptily and wistfully to his rear and
+upon either side as hungry sharks patrol a ship's wake.
+
+The circumstances would have had little enough of significance for
+Willis, but for an accident which befell just before the cold snap set
+in. Hastening along the track of a moose he had already mortally
+wounded, beside one of the tributaries of the Mackenzie, Willis had had
+the misfortune to take a false step among half-formed ice, and he and
+his gun had fallen into deep water. The bigger part of a day was given
+to the attempted salvaging of that gun. But in the end the quest had to
+be relinquished.
+
+The gun was never seen again; and, though Jim had good store of
+ammunition, he now had no weapon of any sort or kind, save ax and whip.
+This was the reason why the presence of large packs of hungry wolves
+annoyed him and made him anxious to reach a Peace River station as
+speedily as might be. He carried a fair stock of moose-meat, but
+accidents might happen, and in any case, apart from the presence of
+hungry wolves in large numbers, no man cares to be without weapons of
+precision in the wilderness, for it is these which more than any other
+thing give him his mastery over the predatory of the wild.
+
+Just before three o'clock in an afternoon of still, intense cold, when
+daylight was fading out, the narrow devious watercourse whose frozen
+surface had formed Willis's trail for many a mile, brought him at last
+to a bend of the Peace River from which he knew he could reach a
+settlement within four or five days of good traveling. Therefore his
+arrival at this point was of more interest and importance to Willis than
+any ordinary camping halt. But it struck him as curious that Jan should
+show the interest he did show in it.
+
+"Seems like as if that blame dog knows everything," he muttered as he
+saw Jan trotting to and fro over the trail, his flews sweeping the
+trodden snow with eager, questing gestures, his stern waving as with
+excitement of some sort.
+
+"Surely there's been no game past this way," thought Willis, "or them
+wolves would be on to the scent of it pretty quick."
+
+He could hear his tireless escorts of the past week yowling a mile or
+more away in the rear. Having built and lighted a fire of pine-knots, he
+called the dogs about him to be fed. Jan seemed disinclined to answer
+the call, being still busily questing to and fro. Willis had to call him
+separately and sternly.
+
+"You stay right here," he said, sharply. "This ain't no place for
+hunting-excursions an' picnic-parties, let me tell you. You're big an'
+husky, all right, but the gentlemen out back there 'd make no more o'
+downing an' eatin' you than if you was a sody-cracker, so I tell ye now.
+They're fifty to one an' hungry enough to eat chips."
+
+His ration swallowed, Jan showed an inclination to roam again, though
+his team-mates, with ears pricked and hackles rising in answer to the
+wolf-calls, huddled about as near the camp-fire as they dared.
+
+"H'm! 'Tain't jest like you to be contemplatin' sooicide, neither; but
+it seems you've got some kind of a hunch that way to-night. Come here,
+then," said Willis. And he proceeded to tether Jan securely to the sled,
+within a yard of his own sleeping-place. "If I'd my old gun here, me
+beauties," he growled, shaking his fist in the direction from which he
+had come that day, "I'd give some o' ye something to howl about, I
+reckon." Then to Jan, "Now you lie down there an' stay there till I
+loose ye."
+
+Obediently enough Jan proceeded to scoop out his nest in the snow, and
+settle. But it was obvious that he labored with some unusual interest;
+some unseen cause of excitement.
+
+Next morning it seemed Jan had forgotten his peculiar interest in the
+Peace River trail, his attention being confined strictly to the
+customary routine of harnessing and schooling the team.
+
+But two hours later he did a thing that Willis had never seen him do
+before. He threw the team into disorder by coming to an abrupt
+standstill in mid-trail without any hint of an order from his master. He
+was sniffing hard at the trail, turning sharply from side to side, his
+flews in the snow, while his nostrils avidly drank in whatever it was
+they found there, as a parched dog drinks at a water-hole.
+
+"Mush on there, Jan! What ye playin' at?" cried Willis.
+
+At the word of command Jan plunged forward mechanically. But in the next
+moment he had halted again and, nose in the snow, wheeled sharply to the
+right, almost flinging on its side the dog immediately behind him in the
+traces.
+
+For an instant Jim Willis wondered uncomfortably if his leader had gone
+mad. He had known sudden and apparently quite inexplicable cases of
+madness among sled-dogs, and, like most others having any considerable
+experience of the trail, he had more than once had to shoot a dog upon
+whom madness had fallen. At all events, before striding forward to the
+head of his team Willis fumbled under the lashings of the sled and drew
+out the long-thonged dog-whip which for months now he had ceased to
+carry on the trail, finding no use for it under Jan's leadership of the
+team.
+
+A glance now showed the cause of Jan's abrupt unordered right turn.
+Close to the trail Jim saw the fresh remains of a camp-fire beside the
+deep marks of a sled's runners.
+
+"Well, an' what of it?" said he to Jan, sharply. "'Tain't the first time
+you've struck another man's trail, is it? What 'n the nation ails ye to
+be so het up about it, anyway?"
+
+And then, with his practised trailer's eyes he began to examine these
+tracks himself.
+
+"H'm! Do seem kind o' queer, too," he muttered. "The sled's a
+middlin'-heavy one, all right, only I don't see but one dog's track
+here, and that's onusu'l. Mus' be a pretty good husky, Jan, to shift
+that load on his own--eh? But hold on! I reckon there's two men slep'
+here. But there's only one man's track on the trail, an' only one dog.
+Some peculiar, I allow: but this here stoppin' and turnin' an' playin'
+up is altogether outside the contrac', Jan. Clean contr'y to discipline.
+Come, mush on there! D'ye hear me? Mush on, the lot o' ye."
+
+It may be that, if he had had no reason for haste, Jim Willis would have
+gone farther in the matter of investigating Jan's peculiar conduct. As
+it was he saw every reason against delay and no justification for close
+study of a trail which he was desirous only of putting behind him. As a
+result he carried his whip for the rest of that day, and used it more
+often than it had been used in all the months since he first saw Jan.
+For, contrary to all habit and custom, Jan seemed to-day most singularly
+indifferent to his master's wishes, and yet not indifferent, either, to
+these or to anything, but so much preoccupied with other matters as to
+be neglectful of these.
+
+He checked frequently in his stride to sniff hard and long at the trail.
+And after one or two of these checks Jim Willis sent the end of his
+whip-thong sailing through the keen air from his place beside the sled
+clear into Jan's flank by way of reminder and indorsement of his sharp,
+"Mush on there, Jan!"
+
+When a halt was called for camping, as the early winter darkness set in,
+the unbelievable thing happened. Jan, the first dog to be loosed, took
+one long, ardent sniff at the trail before him and then loped on ahead
+with never a backward glance for master or team-mates.
+
+"Here, you, Jan! Come in here! Come right in here! D'ye hear me? Jan!
+Jan! You crazy? Come in here! Come--here!"
+
+Jim Willis flung all his master's authority into the harsh
+peremptoriness of his last call. And Jan checked in his stride as he
+heard it. Then the hound shook his shoulders as though a whip-lash had
+struck them, sniffed hard again at the trail, and went on.
+
+Willis caused his whip to sing, and himself shouted till he was hoarse.
+Jan, the perfect exemplar of sled-dog discipline, apparently defied him.
+The big hound was out of sight now.
+
+"Well!" exclaimed Willis as he turned to unharness and feed his other
+dogs. And again, "Well!" And then, after a pause: "Now I know you're
+plumb crazy. But all the same--Well, it's got me properly beat. Anyhow,
+crazy or no, I guess you're meat just the same, an', by the great
+Geewhillikins! you'll be dead meat, an' digested meat at that, before
+you're an hour older, my son, if I know anything o' wolves." Later, as
+he proceeded to thaw out his supper, "Well, I do reckon that's a blame
+pity," growled Willis to his fire, by way of epitaph. And for Jim Willis
+that was saying a good deal.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+THE END OF JAN'S LONE TRAIL
+
+
+With every stride in his solitary progress along that dark trail Jan's
+gait and appearance took on more of certitude and of swift concentration
+upon an increasingly clear and definite objective.
+
+Of the wolves in the neighborhood all save two remained, uneasily
+ranging the neighborhood of the trail to the rear of Willis's camp. As
+it seemed to them, Jim Willis's outfit was a sure and safe quarry. It
+represented meat which must, in due course, become food for them. And so
+they did not wish to leave it behind them, in a country bare of game.
+
+Two venturesome speculators from the pack had, however, worked round to
+the front, one on either side of the trail. And these were now loping
+silent along, each sixty or seventy yards away, watching Jan. Jan was
+conscious of their presence, as one is conscious of the proximity of
+mosquitoes. He regarded their presence neither more nor less seriously
+than this. But he did not forget them. Now and again one or other of
+them would close in to, perhaps, twenty or thirty paces in a sweeping
+curve. Then Jan's lip would writhe and rise on the side nearest the
+encroaching wolf, and a long, bitter snarl of warning would escape him.
+
+"If I hadn't got important business in hand, I'd stop and flay you for
+your insolence," his snarl said. "I'll do it now, if you're not careful.
+Sheer off!"
+
+And each time the wolf sheered off, in a sweeping curve, still keeping
+the lone hound under careful observation.
+
+Wolves are very acute judges; desperate fighters for their lives and
+when driven by hunger, but at no time really brave. If Jan had fallen by
+the way, these two would have been into him like knives. While he ran,
+exhibiting his fine powers, and snarled, showing his fearlessness, no
+two wolves would tackle him, and even the full pack would likely have
+trailed him for miles before venturing an attack.
+
+But, however that might be, it is a fact that Jan spared no more than
+the most occasional odd ends of thought for these two silent, slinking
+watchers of his trail. His active mind was concentrated upon quite other
+matters, and was becoming more and more set and concentrated, more
+absorbingly preoccupied with every minute of his progress.
+
+A bloodhound judge who had watched Jan now would have known that he no
+longer sniffed the trail, as he ran, for guidance. The trail was too
+fresh for that. He could have followed it with his nose held high in the
+air. It was for the sheer joy it brought him that he ran now with
+low-hanging flews, drinking in the scent he followed. And because of the
+warmth of the trail, Jan followed it at the gallop, his great frame well
+extended to every stride.
+
+Of a sudden he checked. It was exactly as though he had run his head
+into a noose on the end of a snare line made fast to one of the darkling
+trees which skirted his path on the right-hand side. Here the scent
+which he followed left the trail almost at right angles, turning into
+the wood.
+
+A moment more and Jan came into full view of a camp-fire, beside which
+were a sled, a single dog, and two men. But Jan saw no camp-fire, nor
+any other thing than the track under his questing nose.
+
+The single dog by the sled leaped to its feet with a growling bark. One
+of the two men stood up sharply in the firelight, ordering his dog in to
+heel. His eyes (full of wonder) lighted then on the approaching figure
+of Jan, head down; and he reached for his rifle where it lay athwart the
+log on which he had been sitting.
+
+As Jan drew in, the other dog flew at his throat. Without wasting breath
+upon a snarl, Jan gave the husky his shoulder, with a jar which sent the
+poor beast sprawling into the red flickering edge of the fire. And in
+the same moment Jan let out a most singular cry as he reared up on his
+hind feet, allowing his fore paws, very gently and without pressure, to
+rest on the man's chest.
+
+His cry had something of a bark in it, but yet was not a bark. It had a
+good deal of a kind of crooning whine about it, but yet was not a whine.
+It was just a cry of almost overpowering joy and gladness; and it was so
+uncannily different from any dog-talk she had ever heard, that the
+singed and frightened husky bitch by the fire stood gaping open-mouthed
+to harken at it.
+
+And the man--long-practised discipline made him lay down his gun,
+instead of dropping it; and then he voiced an exclamation of
+astonishment scarcely more articulate than Jan's own cry, and his two
+arms swung out and around the hound's massive shoulders in a movement
+that was an embrace.
+
+"Why, Jan--dear old Jan! Jan, come back to me--here! Good old Jan!"
+
+It was with something strangely like a sob that the bearded sergeant,
+Dick Vaughan, sank down to a sitting position on the log, with Jan's
+head between his hands.
+
+His beard was evidence of a longish spell on the trail; and the weakness
+that permitted of his catching his breath in a childlike sob--that was
+due, perhaps, to solitude and the peculiar strain of his present
+business on the trail, as well as to the great love he felt for the
+hound he had thought lost to him for ever.
+
+"How d'ye do, Devil! How d'ye do! We were just hurryin' on for your
+place. Will ye take a drop o' rye? I'm boss here. That's only my
+chore-boy you're slobberin' over, Mister Devil. Eh, but it's hunky down
+to Coney Island, ain't it?"
+
+These remarks came in a jerky sort of torrent from the second man, one
+of whose peculiarities was that his arms above the elbow were lashed
+with leather thongs to his body. There were leather hobbles about his
+ankles, and on the ground near by him lay a pair of unlocked handcuffs,
+carefully swathed in soft-tanned deerskin.
+
+Sergeant Dick Vaughan's companion may possibly have accentuated the
+solitude in which he traveled; such a companion could hardly have
+mitigated it as a source of nervous strain, for he was mad as a March
+hare. But there was nothing else harelike about him, for he was
+homicidally mad, and had killed two men and half killed a third before
+Sergeant Vaughan laid hands upon him. And his was not the only madness
+the sergeant had had to contend with on this particular trip.
+
+A strong and overtried man's weakness is not a thing that any one cares
+to enlarge upon, but without offense it may perhaps be stated that tears
+fell on the iron-gray hair of Jan's muzzle as he stood there with his
+soft flews pressed hard against Dick Vaughan's thigh. It seemed he
+wanted to bore right into the person of his sovereign lord; he who had
+never asked for any man's caress through all the long months of
+wandering, toil, and hardship that divided him from the Regina barracks.
+His nose burrowed lovingly under Dick's coat with never a thought of
+fear or of a trap, although, for many months now, his first instinct had
+been to keep his head free, vision clear, and feet to the ground,
+whatever befell.
+
+"My old Jan! My dear old Jan!"
+
+Dick Vaughan paid no sort of heed to the jerky maunderings of his poor
+demented charge. But Jan did. Without stirring his head, Jan edged his
+body away at right angles from the madman, and the hair bristled over
+his shoulder-blades when the man spoke.
+
+Jan did not know much about human ailments, perhaps, but he had seen a
+husky go mad, and had narrowly escaped being bitten by the beast before
+Jim Willis had shot it. He did not think it out in any way, but he was
+intuitively conscious that this man was abnormal, irresponsible, unlike
+other men. The homicidal devil was the force uppermost in this
+particular man, and that naturally left no room for emanations of the
+milk of human kindness and goodness. Jan was instantly aware of the
+lack. In effect he knew this man was killing-mad.
+
+But remarkable, nay unique, in his experience as the contact was, Jan
+spared no thought for it. His hackles rose a little and he edged away
+from the madman, because instinct in him enforced so much. For his mind
+and his heart they were filled to overflowing; they were afloat on the
+flood-tide of his consciousness of his sovereign's physical presence,
+the touch of his body.
+
+The night was far spent when Dick Vaughan proceeded to tether his
+prisoner as comfortably as might be and to stretch himself in his
+blankets for sleep. Jan may have slept a little that night, but his eyes
+were never completely closed for more than a minute at a stretch; and
+his muzzle, resting on his paws, was never more than three feet from
+Dick's head. It was to be noted, too, that he chose to lie between Dick
+and the madman, although the proximity of the latter was more than a
+little painful to Jan.
+
+Toward morning, when the fire was practically out, the husky bitch came
+timidly nosing about Jan's neighborhood, and Jan breathed through his
+nose at her in quite friendly fashion. But when she happened to place
+one foot across the direct line in which the hound watched his
+sovereign's face--then Jan growled, so low and softly as not to waken
+Dick, and yet with a significance which the husky instantly comprehended
+and acted on.
+
+"Anywhere else you like, but not between my lord and me, for he is mine,
+and I am his; not to be divided."
+
+So said Jan's low, throaty growl. And the husky, comprehending,
+withdrew, and dug herself a place in the snow under Jan's lee, which, as
+the big hound thought, was well and fittingly done. He gave the bitch an
+approving glance from the tail of one eye.
+
+The pride of Jan, like his happiness, was just now deep beyond all reach
+of plummets.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+"SO LONG, JAN!"
+
+
+The way in which Jan brought Jim Willis and Dick Vaughan together that
+morning was notable and strange.
+
+In finding Dick, Jan had found all he wanted in life. But at the back of
+his mind was a sort of duty thought which made it clear to him that he
+must let Willis know about these things, if possible. Willis had
+undoubted and very strong claims upon the leader of his team, and Jan,
+at this stage of his North American life and discipline, was not the dog
+to ignore those claims. He wanted Jim Willis to know. He desired
+absolution. And, short of letting Dick out of his sight--a step which no
+threat or inducement would have led him to take--Jan was going to set
+this matter right.
+
+The outworking of his determination, in the first place, caused a number
+of delays, and then, when by affectionate play of one kind and another
+he could no longer keep Dick from the trail, he set to work to try and
+drag or seduce his lord back over his tracks of the previous day. Now
+Dick was far too well versed in doggy ways to make the mistake of
+supposing that Jan was indulging mere wantonness. He knew very well that
+Jan was not that sort of a dog.
+
+"H'm! And then, again, old chap, as I said last night, you can't have
+dropped from heaven upon the trail beneath. There must be somebody else
+where you've come from. I see the collar and trace marks on your old
+shoulders--bless you! What would Betty say to them, old son? So don't
+excite yourself. We'll wait a bit and see what happens. I could do with
+the help of a team, I can tell you, for my own shoulder's bruised to the
+bone from the trace. You take it from me, Jan, one man and one husky are
+no sort of a team. No, sir, no sort of a team at all. So sit down, my
+son, and let me fill a pipe."
+
+Naturally enough, Dick thought he waited as the result of his own
+reflections, to see what things the trail Jan had traveled by would
+bring forth. But, all the same, he would not have waited but for Jan's
+artful insistence on it. Sometimes, but not very often, a dog acquires
+such guile in the world of civilization. In the wild it comes easily and
+naturally, even to animals having but a tithe of Jan's exceptional
+intelligence and wealth of imagination.
+
+Dick Vaughan had not waited long there beside the trail when his ears
+and Jan's caught the sound of Jim Willis's voice and the singing of his
+whip. Evidently, in the absence of their leader, Jan's team-mates had
+not settled down very well to the day's work. In the distance, away back
+on the trail, could be heard now and again the howl of a wolf.
+
+Jim Willis showed no surprise when, in response to a wave of Dick's
+hand, he drew up his team alongside a R.N.W.M.P. man and his own missing
+team-leader. Jim was not much given to showing surprise in the presence
+of other men. He nodded his comprehension, as Dick told the story of
+Jan's appearance on the previous evening, and of his disappearance, many
+months before, from Lambert's Siding in Saskatchewan.
+
+"It's a bit of a miracle that I should find him again--or he find me,
+rather--away up here, isn't it?" said Dick.
+
+"Ah! Pretty 'cute sort of a dog, Jan," said the laconic Jim.
+
+He was noting--one cannot tell with what queer twinges, with what
+stirrings of the still deeps of his nature--the fact that, while Jan
+lolled a friendly tongue at him and waved his stern when Jim spoke, he
+yet remained, as though tied, with his head at Sergeant Vaughan's knee.
+
+The two men leaned against Jim's sled and exchanged samples of tobacco
+while Dick briefly told the tale of his travels, with his mad charge,
+from a lonely silver-mining camp near the Great Slave Lake. It seemed
+Dick had had some ground for fearing that he had stumbled upon some
+horrible kind of epidemic of madness in the lone land he had been
+traversing. At all events, one of the team of seven huskies with which
+he started had developed raging madness within a day or so of the
+beginning of his journey, and had had to be shot.
+
+"I couldn't find that the brute had bitten any of the others, but next
+day two of 'em suddenly went clean off, and they certainly did bite
+another pair before I shot them. Next day I had to kill the other pair,
+and was expecting every minute to see the bitch, the only one left,
+break out. However, she seems to have escaped it."
+
+Dick said nothing of the weary subsequent days in which he himself had
+toiled hour after hour in the traces, ahead of his one dog, with a
+maniac wrapped in rugs and lashed on the sled-pack. But Jim Willis
+needed no telling. He saw the trace-marks all across the chest and
+shoulders of Dick's coat, and he knew without any telling all about the
+corresponding mark that must be showing on Dick's own skin.
+
+"Well, say," he remarked, admiringly, "but you do seem to 've bin up
+against it good an' hard."
+
+Very briefly, and as though the matter barely called for mention, Dick
+explained, in answer to an inquiry, why he had to make a dead burden of
+the madman.
+
+It seemed that when first his team had been reduced to one rather
+undersized dog he did arrange for his charge to walk. And within an
+hour, having cunningly awaited his opportunity, the demented creature
+had leaped upon him from behind, exactly as a wolf might, and fastened
+his teeth in Dick's neck. That, though Dick said little of it, had been
+the beginning of a strange and terrible struggle, of which the sole
+observer was a single sled-dog.
+
+To and fro in the trampled snow the men had swayed and fought for fully
+a quarter of an hour before Dick had finally mastered the madman and
+bound him hand and foot. He was a big man, of muscular build, and
+madness had added hugely to his natural capabilities as a fighter. Dick
+Vaughan's bandaged neck, and his right thumb, bitten through to the
+bone, would permanently carry the marks of this poor wretch's ferocity
+in that lonely struggle on the trail.
+
+"Don't seem right, somehow," was Jim Willis's comment. "I guess I'd have
+had to put a bullet into him."
+
+"Ah no; that wouldn't do at all," said Dick.
+
+He did not attempt to explain just why; and perhaps he hardly could have
+done so had he tried, for that would have involved some explanation of
+the pride and the traditions of the force in which he served, and those
+are things rarely spoken of by those who understand them best and are
+most influenced by them.
+
+"And where might you be making for now?" asked Jim.
+
+"Well, I'm bound for Edmonton. But since I got down to this one little
+husky I'd thought of making Fort Vermilion, to see if I could raise a
+team there."
+
+"Aye. Well, I was bound for steel at Edmonton, too, an' I've bin
+reckoning on some such a place as Fort Vermilion since I lost my gun,"
+said Jim. "I'm wholly tired o' makin' trail for these gentlemen
+behind"--the howling of the wolves was still to be heard pretty
+frequently--"without a shootin'-iron of any kind at all."
+
+"It seems to me we're pretty well met, then," said Dick, with a smile,
+"for I want what you've got, and you want what I've got."
+
+"Well, I was kind o' figurin' on it that sort of a way myself," admitted
+Jim. "If it suits you, I guess we can make out to rub along on your Jan
+an' my dogs right through to Edmonton."
+
+In the end the order of the march was arranged thus: two of Jim Willis's
+dogs, with Jan to lead them, were harnessed to Dick's sled, with the
+madman and Dick's rugs for its load. The remainder of Dick's pack was
+loaded on Jim's sled and drawn by Jim's other three dogs, aided by the
+sole survivor of Dick's team. And in this order a start was made on the
+five-hundred-mile run to Edmonton.
+
+From the first Jim showed frankly that there was to be no question as to
+Jan's ownership. He told how Jock, back there on the edge of the North
+Pacific, had informed him as to Jan's name and identity from a picture
+seen in a newspaper. Then Dick broached the question of how much he was
+to pay for Jan, seeing clearly how just was the other man's claim as
+lawful owner of the hound. Jim laughed quietly at this.
+
+"Why, no," he said; "I haven't just come to makin' dollars out of other
+folks' dog-stealin'. No, sir. But it's true enough I have paid, in a
+way, for Jan; an' I guess there's not another son of a gun in Canada,
+but his rightful owner, with money enough to buy the dog from me. I'd
+not've sold him. And I'll not sell him now--because a sun-dried salmon
+could see he's yours a'ready. But I'll tell you what: I'm short of a
+gun, an' I've kinder taken a fancy to this one o' yours--I reckon
+because I'd had such a thirst on me for one before I struck your trail.
+Jan is yours, anyway, but if you'd like to give me your gun to remember
+ye by I'll say 'Thank you!'"
+
+"Well, I'm sorry, but I can't make out to give you the gun, anyway,"
+said Dick, "because it isn't mine. It's an R.N.W.M.P. gun. But you wait
+another day or two, my friend, and when we've got shut of this gentleman
+in Edmonton"--with a nod in the direction of the madman--"you and I will
+give an hour or so to finding out the best gun in the city; and when
+we've found it we'll have your name engraved on it, and underneath,
+'From Jan, the R.N.W.M.P. hound, to the man who saved his life.' I know
+you'll take a keepsake from Jan, boy."
+
+And so it was arranged. Jim would not hear of any selling or buying of
+the hound; but in Edmonton, where he sold his sled and team, preparatory
+to taking train for the western seaboard, he accepted, as gift from Jan,
+the best rifle Dick could find, inscribed as arranged; and, as gift from
+Dick, a photograph of himself and Jan together.
+
+Their parting was characteristic of life in the North-west. Each man
+knew that in all human probability he would never again set eyes upon
+the other. Yet they parted as intimate friends; for their coming
+together--again most typical of north-western life--had been of the kind
+which leads swiftly to close friendship--or to antipathy and hostility.
+
+Dick, greatly impressed by the other man's solid worth, urged upon him
+the claims of the R.N.W.M.P. as offering a career for him.
+
+"For you," said Dick, "the work would all be simple as print; plain
+sailing all the way."
+
+Jim Willis, like most northland men, had a very real respect for the
+R.N.W.M.P., but he smiled at the idea of joining the force.
+
+"But why?" asked Dick. "It would be such easy work for you."
+
+"Aye, I'll allow the work wouldn't exactly hev me beat," agreed Jim.
+"But--Oh, well I ain't a Britisher, to begin with, an', what's more to
+the p'int, a week in barracks 'd choke me."
+
+"But they'd be wise enough to keep you pretty much on the trail; and
+you're at home there."
+
+"Yes, I guess the trail's about as near home as I'll ever get, mebbe,
+but I'd have no sorter use for it if I j'ined your bunch."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Well, now, I guess that 'd be kinder hard to explain to you, Dick." (In
+the northland, between men, it is always either Christian names or
+"Mister.") "You see, we was raised different, you an' me; an' what comes
+plum nateral to you would set me kickin' like a steer, first thing I'd
+know. The trail suits me, all right, yes. But I hit it when I want to,
+an' keep off it when I'm taken that-a-way. I'm only a poor man, but
+ther' isn't a millionaire in America can buy the right to say 'Come
+here' or 'Go there' to me, Dick, an', what's more, ther' ain't goin' to
+be, not while I can sit up an' eat moose. It's mebbe not the best kind
+of an outfit; an', then again, it's mebbe not jest the worst; but, any
+ol' way you like, Dick, it's the only kind of an outfit I've got."
+
+Dick nodded sympathetically.
+
+"Why, yes, you can see it stickin' out all over. Look at that little
+dust-up with the lun_at_ic. Well, now, I should jest 've pumped that
+gentleman as full o' lead as ever he'd hold. 'You'd bite me,' I'd ha'
+said. 'Well, Mister Lun_at_ic,' I'd ha' said, 'I count you no more 'n a
+mad husky; an' when I see a mad husky, I shoot. So you take this,' I'd
+ha' said, an' plugged him up good an' full. But for you--well, I see how
+it is. He's a kind of a sacred duty, an' all the like o' that. Yes, I
+know; only--only I'm not built that kind of a way, ye see."
+
+And Jim was right, and Dick knew he was right. As white and straight and
+true a man as any in the north, and able to the tips of his fingers and
+toes, but--but not the "kind of an outfit" for the R.N.W.M.P.
+
+And so they parted, on a hard hand-grip. And to Jan Jim Willis gave a
+grim, appraising sort of a stare, and (spoken very gruffly) these words:
+
+"Well, so long, Jan! The cards is yours, all right, an' I guess you take
+the chips!"
+
+He did not touch the big hound as he spoke. But then, despite their long
+and close association, he never had touched Jan in the way of a caress.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+BACK TO REGINA
+
+
+Long before Sergeant Dick Vaughan--he was always spoken of thus, by both
+his names--arrived at the R.N.W.M.P. headquarters in Regina news was
+received there of his strange single-handed journey from the Great Slave
+Lake, of the mad murderer, the mad dogs, of the sergeant's own toil in
+the traces, and of his being tracked down by Jan.
+
+The surgeon in Edmonton who attended to Dick's badly wounded and
+poisoned neck and right thumb happened to be a man with a strong sense
+of the picturesque and a quite journalistic faculty for visualizing
+incidents of a romantic or adventurous nature.
+
+An _Edmonton Bulletin_ reporter, in quest of a "story" for his paper,
+had the good luck to corner the surgeon in his consulting-room. The
+result took the form of promotion for that reporter, following upon
+publication in the _Bulletin_ of a many-headed three-column article
+which was quoted and reproduced all up and down America. Summaries of
+the "story" were cabled to Europe. Snap-shots of Dick and Jan were
+obtained by enterprising pressmen in Edmonton, and distributed quite
+profitably for their owners to the ends of all the earth. Many months
+afterward extracts and curiously garbled versions of this northland
+Odyssey cropped up in the news-sheets of Siam, the Philippines,
+Mauritius, Paraguay, and all manner of odd places.
+
+Their London morning newspaper presented the matter at some length to
+the Nuthill household and to Dr. Vaughan in Sussex, while Dick and Jim
+Willis, five or six thousand miles away, were choosing a rifle to have
+Jan's name inscribed upon it.
+
+As a fact, the subject-matter of the story was sufficiently striking in
+character, for in a temperature of fifty below zero, with no other help
+than a little undersized husky bitch can give, it is no small matter for
+one man to drag a laden sled for twelve days while looking after a
+maniac who has come very near to killing him.
+
+To this was added the romantic recovery of the famous "R.N.W.M.P.
+bloodhound," as Jan was called; and that aspect of the business brought
+special joy to the newspaper writers. To some extent also, no doubt, it
+colored Dick's addition to R.N.W.M.P. records, and caused that addition
+to figure more strikingly than it might otherwise have done in the
+archives of the corps.
+
+A quaint thing about it all was the fact that every one else knew more
+about it than the two men most concerned, for it happened that neither
+Dick Vaughan nor Jim Willis had ever cultivated the newspaper habit.
+Willis was hugely startled and embarrassed, hundreds of miles away in
+Vancouver, to find himself suddenly famous.
+
+In Edmonton Dick Vaughan presented a very stern front to the
+snap-shooters because he conceived the idea that he and Jan were being
+guyed in some way. By the reporters he was presently given up as
+hopeless, because he simply declined to tell them anything. Their
+inquiries touched his professional pride as a disciplined man, and they
+were told that Dick could have nothing whatever to say to them with
+regard to his official duties. But his innocence made surprisingly
+little difference in the long run. The surgeon's story was real
+journalistic treasure-trove, the richest possible kind of mine for
+ingenious writers to delve in; and after all the most determined
+reticence in no way affects the working of cameras.
+
+Withal, the welcome prepared for Dick and Jan at Regina station was
+hardly less than alarming for one of the two men in Canada and the
+United States who had not read the newspapers.
+
+"You'll excuse my saying so, sir," explained Dick in a flustered aside
+to Captain Arnutt, "but this is the very devil of a business. I--surely
+I haven't got to say anything!"
+
+The civilian crowd at the station was good-humoredly shouting for a
+"speech," cameras were clicking away like pom-poms, and the Regina
+pressmen were gripping Dick almost savagely by either arm, showing
+considerable personal bravery thereby, for Jan growled very
+threateningly as their hands touched the sergeant's tunic, and in common
+humanity Dick was forced to grab the famous hound by the neck and give
+him urgent orders to control his wrath.
+
+As Dick subsequently explained to Captain Arnutt, the thing struck him
+as the more awkward because, having found Jan, he desired now to be
+allowed to resign from the force, as he wanted to return to England.
+
+"But, hang it, man! you've been gazetted a full sergeant-inspector
+and--unofficially, of course--I'm told we are only waiting word from
+Ottawa about offering you commissioned rank."
+
+Dick shrugged his shoulders in comic despair. His speech was finally
+delivered from the perilous eminence of a booking-clerk's stool, an
+elevation which Jan so gravely mistrusted that he felt impelled to rise
+erect on his hind feet, placing both fore paws beside his lord's raised
+heels, and thereby providing the camera men with the most famous of all
+the snap-shots yet obtained.
+
+The speech, as literally recorded in shorthand by one of Regina's most
+promising young pressmen, if not a very finished or distinguished
+effort, was clearly a hardy and quick-growing production, since it did
+eventually develop into a long half-column in some newspapers, according
+to the unimaginative and literal stenographic record aforementioned. It
+was as follows:
+
+"It's very good of you fellows--er--Right you are, sir! er--ladies and
+gentlemen!--But, really, you know, I can't make a speech. It's no use.
+I--er--I'm tremendously obliged to you all. What you say is--er--well,
+the fact is I've only done what any other man in the service would have
+done. It's splendid to see you all again and--I _have_ brought back the
+Mounted Police Dog. Thank you!"
+
+And, according to the shorthand man, that was all. But a generous
+sub-editorial fraternity understood the speech differently; and
+newspaper readers doubtless came to the conclusion that oratory must now
+be added to the other accomplishments of the versatile R.N.W.M.P.
+
+There were no embarrassing calls for speeches at the barracks, but even
+there Dick (still closely attended by Jan, upon whom one of the
+impressions produced by his return to the complex conditions of
+civilization was an anxious fear that his sovereign lord would somehow
+be spirited away from him if he ever let Dick out of his sight) was
+called upon to face a raking fire of compliments from his commanding
+officer, delivered in the presence of a full muster of commissioned and
+non-commissioned ranks.
+
+"You have done your duty finely as a sergeant of the Royal North-west
+Mounted Police, and, for us who know what it means, I don't know that
+the ablest man in the country can hope to earn higher praise than that."
+
+Those were the chief's concluding words, and the full-throated, if
+somewhat hoarse, cheer which they elicited from the men assembled behind
+Dick and Jan, as well as from the group beside the chief, had the
+curious effect of filling Dick's eyes with moisture of a sort that
+pricked most painfully, so that as he came to the salute before retiring
+he saw the familiar buildings in front of him but dimly, as through a
+fog.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+THE FALL OF SOURDOUGH
+
+
+Just before darkness fell that evening Captain Arnutt called Dick from
+his quarters and asked him to go for a stroll. Together, and closely
+followed by Jan, they started. Before the barracks gate was reached they
+were met by Sergeant Moore, with Sourdough at his heels.
+
+Sourdough had aged a good deal during the past year, but despite the
+twist in his near fore leg, which caused him to limp slightly, the old
+dog still held his own as despotic ruler of all the dogs in that
+locality. But for a good many years he had done no work of any kind,
+neither had he had any very serious fighting or come in contact with
+northland dogs. His swiftest movements would have seemed clumsy and slow
+to the working husky, inured to the comparative wildness of trace life
+in the north. But his morose arrogance and ferocity had suffered no
+diminution, as was shown by the fact that he flew straight for Jan's
+throat directly he set eyes on the big hound.
+
+"Call your dog off, Sergeant, or he'll be killed," shouted Dick.
+
+Sergeant Moore spake no word. In his queer heart intelligence of Dick's
+fame rankled bitterly, yet not so bitterly as the fact of Jan's return
+to barracks. His obsession made him certain in his own mind that the
+redoubtable Sourdough could certainly kill any dog. And so he spake no
+word while Sourdough flew at Jan.
+
+And for Jan, as he caught sight in the gloaming of his ancient enemy,
+his hackles had risen very stiffly, his pendent lips had twitched
+ominously.
+
+Jan was perfectly well aware that the killing of Sourdough or any other
+dog he had seen since his return to cities would be a supremely easy
+matter for him. Indeed it would be for almost any dog having his
+experience of the wild. And having in his simple dog mind no shadow of a
+reason for sparing Sourdough, of all creatures that walked, one may take
+it that Jan savored with some joyousness the prospect of the killing
+which Sourdough's snarling rush presented to him.
+
+He received that rush with a peculiar screwing thrust of his left
+shoulder, the commonest trick among fighting-dogs in the northland, but
+one for which old Sourdough seemed totally unprepared, since he made no
+apparent preparation to withstand it, and as an inevitable consequence
+was rolled clean over on his back by the force of his own impetus,
+scientifically met.
+
+That, by all the rules in the northland game of which Jan was a
+past-master, brought Sourdough within seconds of his end. The throat was
+exposed; the deadly underhold, given which no dog breathing could evade
+Jan.
+
+And at that moment came Dick's voice in very urgent and meaning
+exhortation:
+
+"Back, Jan! Don't kill him. He's too old. Back--here--Jan!"
+
+Jan's jaws had parted for the killing grip. His whole frame was
+perfectly poised for the thrust from which no dog placed as Sourdough
+was could possibly escape. A swift shudder passed through him as though
+his sovereign's words reached him on a cold blast, and, stiff-legged,
+wondering, his shoulder hair all erect, and jaws still parted for the
+fray, Jan stepped back to Dick's side.
+
+"You'll have to keep that old tough in to heel if you mean to save him,
+Sergeant," said Captain Arnutt. "You can't expect Jan to lie down to
+him. Why don't you keep him in to heel, man?"
+
+The sergeant passed on, saluting, without a word. Doubtless he had
+liefer far that Captain Arnutt had hit him in the face. But, when all is
+said, no words could hurt this curious monomaniac now, after that which
+he had seen with his own eyes and that which he now saw.
+
+Complete enlightenment had come to old Sourdough in one fraction of a
+moment. In the moment when he reached earth, on his back, flung there by
+his impact with the calculated screwing thrust of Jan's massive
+shoulder, Sourdough knew that his day was over. He expected to die then
+and there, and was prepared to die. Contact with Jan had told him in a
+flash things which could not be written in a page. He tasted in that
+moment the cold-drawn, pitiless efficiency of the methods of the
+northland wild, and realized that he could no more stand against this
+new Jan than a lady's house-bred lap-dog could have stood against
+himself. As his feet left the ground his life was ended, as Sourdough
+saw it.
+
+And then had come Jan's miraculous, shuddering withdrawal, wholly
+inexplicable, chilling to the heart in its uncanny unexpectedness.
+Sourdough mechanically regained his footing, and then with low-hung
+head, inward-curling tail, and crouching shoulders he slunk away at the
+heel of his bitterly disappointed master. The collapse of this old
+invincible within a few seconds was a rather horrid sight and a very
+strange and startling one.
+
+From that hour Sourdough was never again seen in the precincts of the
+R.N.W.M.P. barracks, and, though many people puzzled over the old dog's
+disappearance, none ever knew what became of him. The sergeant had been
+for some time entitled to retire from the service. That night he
+obtained his commanding officer's permission to do so.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+HOW JAN CAME HOME
+
+
+Captain Arnutt proved himself a friend indeed to Dick Vaughan. Once he
+had come to understand the position, he fully sympathized with Dick's
+wish to leave the service at once and return to England. That sympathy
+he proceeded forthwith to translate into action, and within the month
+Sergeant-Inspector Dick Vaughan had received his discharge and booked
+his passage--with Jan's--for England.
+
+Despite his elation over the prospect before him, Dick found the actual
+parting with his comrades in Regina a good deal of a wrench. They were
+fond of him, and of Jan, and proud of both. And Dick found when the
+packing was over and valedictory remarks begun that these men had
+entered pretty deeply into his life and general scheme of things.
+
+They were good fellows all, these hard, spare, long-limbed riders of the
+plains, and they and the North-west had made of the Dick who was now
+bidding them good-by a man radically different in a hundred ways from
+the careless, irresponsible, light-hearted Dick who had come to them a
+few years back direct from kindly, indulgent Sussex.
+
+Dick had become a fit and proper part of his western environment and had
+"made good" in it, as the saying is. We most of us like doing that which
+we do well. Dick's mature and able manhood had come to him in the West.
+He would never lose it now, however far eastward he might travel.
+But--the West and the good folk tugged pretty hard at his heart-strings,
+as from the rear platform of his car on the east-bound train he watched
+the waving stiff-brimmed hats of his comrades, and a little later the
+last of the roofs of Saskatchewan's capital fading out in the distance.
+
+Hard land as many have found it, hard though it had been in many ways
+for Dick, the North-west had forced its bracing, stimulating spirit into
+his being and made him the man he was, just so surely as the northland
+wilderness had made of Jan the wonderful hound he now was.
+
+And Dick left it all with a swelling heart; not unwillingly, because he
+was going to a great promised happiness, but with a swelling heart none
+the less, and a kind of mistiness of vision, due in great measure to the
+real respect, the sincere gratitude he felt toward the land and life and
+people who had helped him to make of himself a very much bigger and
+better man than any previous efforts of his had promised to evolve out
+of the same material in Sussex, for example.
+
+Winter ruled still in the land, and so the actual seaboard--Halifax--and
+not the big St. Lawrence port, was rail-head for Dick and Jan. But for
+Jan the enforced confinement of the journey was greatly softened by
+regular daily visits from his lord. And in Halifax two and a half days
+of almost unbroken companionship awaited them before their steamer left.
+
+This homeward journey was a totally different matter for Jan from the
+outward trip. It was true he gave no thought to England as yet. But he
+perfectly understood the general idea of travel. He knew that he and his
+lord were on a journey together, that certain temporary separations were
+an unavoidable feature of this sort of traveling, and that, the journey
+done, the two of them would come together again. The sum of Jan's
+knowledge, his reasoning powers, and his faculties of observation and
+deduction were a hundredfold greater now than at the time of his
+departure from England.
+
+Jan loathed the close confinement of his life at sea, but he did not
+rebel against it, neither was he cast down by it. He knew that it was to
+be no more than a brief interlude, and he understood quite well that
+though, unfortunately, men-folk had so arranged things that he must be
+kept out of sight of his sovereign, save during those daily intervals of
+delight in which Dick visited him in his house beside the butcher's
+shop, yet his lord was in the same vessel with him, at no great distance
+from him, and bound with him for the one destination. He knew that he
+and Dick were traversing the one trail.
+
+And sure enough the morning came at length, after all their shared
+divagations since the night of meeting beside the Peace River trail,
+when Jan stood beside his lord again, under the open sky and on the
+steamer's boat-deck, watching the rapidly nearing shores of England.
+
+Many pictures were passing through Jan's mind, some inspired by memory
+of the tense, strenuous life he had left behind him in the northland,
+but a larger number having for background and subjects scenes that he
+remembered in his old life in Sussex-by-the-Sea.
+
+The steamer was in yellow tidal waters now, with land close in all about
+her. As Jan reached the open deck he had drawn in first one and then
+another and another long, tremulous, deep breaths which, passing through
+the infinitely delicate test-tubes of his wonderful nostrils, recorded
+in his brain impressions more vivid and accurate than any that vision
+could supply to him.
+
+In this air, incalculably more soft and humid than any he had breathed
+for many a long day, were subtly distinctive qualities that were quite
+easily recognized by Jan. Well he knew now the meaning of this voyaging.
+Well he knew that this was England. It was this knowledge made him lift
+his muzzle and touch Dick's left hand with his tongue. The other hand
+held binoculars through which Dick was gazing fixedly at the line of
+wharfs they were approaching.
+
+"Well, old chap," said he, in answer to the meaning touch. "You know all
+about it, eh? I believe you do; begad, I quite believe you do. Well, see
+if you can understand this: On the wharf there, where we shall be in a
+few minutes, there's old Finn, your sire, waiting, and the Pater and the
+Master, and--and there's Betty, Jan, boy, there's sweet Betty standing
+there, and she's waiting for you and me. She's waiting there for us,
+Jan, boy, and we're never going away from her again, old chap--never, as
+long as ever we live."
+
+And if Jan did not understand it all just then he did very soon
+afterward, when he felt Betty Murdoch's arms about his neck, and lordly
+gray old Finn was sniffing and nuzzling friendly-wise about his flanks.
+
+Jan fully understood then that after all his far wanderings he had at
+the last of it come home.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jan, by A. J. Dawson
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