Samuel A. Derieux

“ Through this group pushed the man with the ten-gallon can. Close behind now followed the gaunt Irish setter. It happened quickly, like one of those mountain tragedies that brood over such places, remnants of feuds that hang on to the skirts of civilization. Two muffled pistol shots broke the peace and security of the village and brought men running to the garage. For the man with the ten-gallon can had turned at last, and Frank had sprung straight at his throat.
From the confusion of crowding men came the hoarse shout,
"Turn me loose! Let me kill that dog! Can't you see? He's mad as hell!" ”

“ Here Larsen found him that afternoon. A boy crawled underneath and dragged him forth. He who had started life favoured of the gods, who that [Pg 133] morning had been full of high spirit and pride, who had circled his first field like a champion, was a shrinking, cringing creature, like a homeless cur.
The men laughed at the spectacle he made. To many people a gun-shy dog is, in his terror, a sight for mirth. Perhaps he is. Certainly he is as much so as a dog with a can tied to his tail. But some day neither sight will be funny to any human soul. ”

“ Beyond those misty bottoms, to the left, over those storm-swept ridges, lay Freedom Hill.
Halfway down the embankment he cried out again. He had slipped in the snow and fallen on his leg. Under shelter of the embankment he rested for a moment, panting as if the night were hot. Then lunging, tottering, falling, rising again, panting, gasping but with never another cry, old Frank fought his way up the river bottoms, past the farm of John Davis, across the field in front of Tom Belcher's store, now a dim smudge in the blackness—dragged himself over the last ridge, dragged himself home. ”

“ In the afternoon he returned to the edge of the woods. He saw Earle come down the back steps, peer into the box, and shake his head at Marian, who stood on the back porch. Then Earle walked round to the old south chimney in the sun and knocked out his pipe, straightened up, and called. A fine figure of a man—his call carried command in every tone! To resist the overwhelming impulse toward obedience, the dog sank to the ground, his tail shaking the leaves, his eyes bright with worship of yonder man—and with a glint of humour in them, too. ”

“ Many a creature, fox and wolf, and man himself, has through the centuries trembled at that sound. There was a silence during which he collected his wits, momentarily upset. Then again, faint and far away, like the ringing of a distant bell, came the sound. Miles between where he swung himself out of the creek and where he now stood the hound was coming on his trail. Tom turned like a stag, brushed aside the bushes and began for the first time to run.
At the top of the next hill, not having heard it while he crashed through the undergrowth of the bottom, he stopped again, panting. ”

“ He rushed another covey, that flew away like the wind. He sat down on his haunches and with ears erect watched the distant, whirling specks scatter into the woods. He was helpless in the daylight without man and gun. He remembered a white-tiled butcher shop on upper Broadway, and licked his chops at the recollection.
At midday, a hungry tramp, he approached a farmhouse. A big shepherd dog met him. When the fierce mix-up was over, and the shepherd had retreated, Dan carried in his shoulder a long, deep cut. Impelled by the gnawing in his stomach, he limped toward a log cabin. ”

“ Tommy looked at the dog with fear and with mute apology. In his heart was hatred of that baggageman, and vain, vain regret that he had ever come to Breton Junction to see the train. All the way home the dog trotted under the axle of the buggy. In the days that followed a far less sagacious dog than he would have sensed the anxiety that disturbed the homestead on the hill to which his destiny had led him. ”

“ He no longer resembled the dog that had graced the canine parade on Riverside Drive. He was gaunt, torn, caked with mud. His proud tail followed the curve of his haunches; he carried his head low to the ground; in his eyes gleamed hunger and outlawry. Freedom had exacted its price.
Near the close of the third day there was borne on the slight wind the smell of a man. Toward it he cautiously slunk, in his heart a desperate, gnawing loneliness. A masterless dog is like a godless man: there is no motivation sufficient for his struggles and achievements. ”

“ He had known some bird dogs who were the property of any hunter who chanced along with a gun, and others that stuck to one man, and one man alone. Prince was a one man's dog.
He left town in the afternoon, sitting on a box in the rear of Jennings's wagon, leading the mule by a halter. Before sunset they came to the country where he and Prince had hunted a hundred times. On top of that steep hill, yonder by that dead pine, Prince had held a covey an hour one stormy day in a gale of wind that threatened to blow him off his feet. ”

“ Now, Steve Earle, the father, was not only a mighty hunter, a bigger edition merely of the boy—he was also a modern, successful planter. His corn and tobacco and cotton crops were the talk of the county; his horses were pedigreed; his mules sleek; his chickens the finest. Among these latter was a prize-winning Indian Game super-rooster named Pete. He was big, boisterous, stubborn, and swollen with pride and vainglory.
It was Pete who now appeared through the aisles of the tall corn, within range of Tommy's periscopic vision, chortling and boasting to the sober harem that followed him. ”

“ Every shrub in the yard, every ancient oak, the wide-halled barn, the cribs filled with corn, the woodshed boarded up on the west, the blacksmith shop where Earle repaired the tools, all took on the intimate kindliness of home. He grew to be a privileged character with the very animals on the place. He took his privileges as his due, even treating with amused condescension the fat black woman in the kitchen, who fussed and spluttered like her frying pans when he entered, but who never drove him out. ”

“ First the boy attempted to unfasten the collar, but the leather was stiff, the buckle rusty. Then he tried to press the spring in. Once, like a dumpy animal, he crawled away. But he came back with a brickbat and hammered like a blacksmith at the spring. Then he bent over, caught the fastening savagely in his teeth, and gritted down. A sobbing intake of breath announced failure.
Time, precious time, was passing. People somewhere in the house were growing restless. The dog felt his self-control slipping in a mad desire to plunge at the chain. ”

“ And Davy, looking down into those upraised, beseeching eyes, and at that heavy block of wood, and at the raw place the collar had worn on the neck, then at Old Man Thornycroft's bleak, unpainted house on the hill, with the unhomelike yard and the tumble-down fences, felt a great pity, the pity of the free for the imprisoned, and a great longing to own, not a dog, but this dog. ”

“ And old Frank, fierce eyes shrewd, hair risen all the way down his gaunt back, rose [Pg 92] guardedly, crept through the bushes, came out in the road behind and followed.
Old Frank had been a companion of men all his days. He had hunted with them, shared their food and fire, looked up with steady, open eyes into their faces. He had never had a human enemy before. But now he stalked this man as his ancestors had stalked big game—muscles tense, head low between gaunt shoulder blades, eyes hard and bloodshot. When the man turned he would rush forward and spring at his throat. ”

“ Beside this tree he stood, his white hair and beard dishevelled and glistening in the sun, his eyes, that had shown a momentary despair when he sprang up from the log, steady, fierce, undismayed.
If the hound attacked him he would fight—fight with his hands, for he had no other weapon. If the hound merely bayed him, he would wait until the guards came up. Their commands he would disregard: he would not even throw up his hands. He knew what the result would be, he had no illusions about that: Simmons would kill him.
He did think of Molly. ”

“ Yonder through a gap in the trees rose the dome of a heavy-wooded mountain. Above it a vast pink and white evening cloud boiled motionless into the sky. Beyond this mountain rolled the solid blue undulations of whole ranges. For miles they had not passed a house. The breathless heat of a wilderness hung over this place.
The men, stiff, dusty, hot, got out. The heavy man's hand was bandaged. Then the woman got out; then the boy. A great trembling desire seized the dog to rush forward, to let the boy know he was here. Every muscle quivered ”

“ Frank stopped before the living-room door, and looked up at his master. He had to depend on human beings in matters like the opening of doors. And now he was in the living room, where a fire of oak logs roared up the chimney. Overwhelming joy seized him that he should be in here. He ran to Marian Earle and laid his head on her lap, looking up into her face; then to Tommy Earle, the boy, who caught hold of his heavy red mane. ”

“ What did the woman know of a bird dog's soul? The most intolerable of burdens is kindness where no understanding is. To Mrs. Devant it never occurred, even remotely, that her Riverside Drive apartment was a prison. She never dreamed why it was that on their afternoon walks the dog, straining at his leash, kept his hungry eyes fastened always on the cliffs across the Hudson. ”

“ From terrific speed men saw him flash ten times into the statuesque immobility of a point. They forgot even so steady and painstaking a fellow as Count Redstone. It was the pointer who captured their imaginations.
On Saturday night, while the crowd was at supper, the decision of the judges, who always stopped at Freedom Hill, was telephoned in. And the decision showed them to be dog men, not martinets—men who can overlook a grievous fault in the face of a magnificent accomplishment and a future full of promise. ”

“ It was a plain case of affinity between Davy Allen and Old Man Thornycroft's hound dog Buck. Davy, hurrying home along the country road one cold winter afternoon, his mind intent on finishing his chores before dark, looked back after passing Old Man Thornycroft's house to find Buck trying to follow him—trying to, because the old man, who hated to see anybody or anything but himself have his way, had chained a heavy block to him to keep him from doing what nature had intended him to do—roam the woods and poke his long nose in every briar patch after rabbits. ”

“ In answer, from a mile behind, so Tom calculated, came a far more terrible sound—the wild, savage yells of two men, one wilder and more savage than the other.
The old man took a deep breath and his beard was thrust suddenly forward. But for the dog, those men would be helpless. But for the dog, he could turn now, and the woods would swallow him up. In a flash an inspiration was born, a conquering purpose such as must have entered the mind of prehistoric man. He waited, his eyes on the hound.
A dog is nearsighted at best, and Sheriff was old. ”

“ On the platform the boy took firm hold of providence as represented by Steve Earle's big forefinger with one hand and clutched the dog's mane with the other, lest the "suction" all children fear draw him under the grinding wheels. He felt the solid earth [Pg 17] under his feet tremble as the great hissing engine rolled between him and the sun, the rod rising and falling on the terrible wheels, the engineer high above in a window. Then the long black baggage car—and in the door a man in a cap, who looked at them with open mouth as if he knew suddenly who they were. ”

“ There is this in fear, that once man or dog turns, fear increases. Witness the panic of armies, of theatre audiences when the cry of fire is given. Faster and faster from that terror that seemed following him Comet sped. Miles and miles he ran. Now and then, stumbling over briars, he yelped. His tail was tucked, his eyes crazy with fear. Seeing a farmhouse, he made for that. It was noon hour and a group of men loitered about the yard. With the cry "Mad dog!" one ran into the house for a gun. When he came out the others told him that the dog was under the porch, and must only have had a fit. ”

“ Count Redstone's handler, a bronzed, gray-haired veteran, said "Ready!" as he had said it a hundred times. The girl merely looked up at the judge and nodded.
"Let go!" ordered the judge.
Burton saw the dogs dash away. The girl, like an athlete, sprang into her saddle. Both handlers galloped after their dogs. Behind followed the judges, then, after an interval, the field, among them old Burton, his heart beating fast. The fight was on—but it was more than a fight between dogs. It was a conflict between a girl's will and the wild heritage in a dog's nature. ”

“ Something he saw there made him momentarily droop his ears and tail. Again there came over him the feeling of strangeness, of homesickness, mingled this time with dismay. Larsen's eyes were slits of blue glass. His mouth was set in a thin line.
Had Comet seen a different expression, had he received a single word of encouragement, there would have been no calamity that day. If he had trusted the man, he would have withstood the shock his nerves were about to receive. But he did not trust this pale man with the strange eyes and the hard-set mouth. ”

“ A dog can swim a long time. The sun dropped over the trees. Still the firing went on, regularly, like a minute gun.
Just before the sun set an exhausted dog staggered toward an old man, almost as exhausted as he. The dog had been too near death and was too faint to care for the gun that was being fired over his head. On and on he came, toward the man, disregarding the noise of the gun. It would not hurt him, that he knew at last. He might have many enemies, but the gun, in the hands of this man, was not one of them. Suddenly old Swygert sank down and took the dripping dog in his arms. ”