Albert Payson Terhune

“ By dint of strength and of weight, he had torn himself free of Wisp’s weak grip, had flung the lighter dog to earth and had pinned him there. Right gallantly did little Wisp battle in the viselike grasp of the giant. Fiercely he strove to bite at the rending jaws and to rip free from the crushing weight above him.
But, as ever, mere courage could not atone for dearth of brute strength and ferocity. Undeterred by his foe’s puny efforts or by the fusillade of blows from Harry’s stick and from Janet’s pudgy fists, the Black had slung Wisp to one side and had lunged once more at him. ”

“ The dog scratched imperiously at the garage door. The sagging wood shook and grumbled under the impact. But it held firm. Nor did anyone come from inside to answer the summons. Frightened at the silence, yet certain of the scent he sought, Buff circled the building once more, nose to earth, steps uncertain, head darting from side to side.
The quest did not bring to his senses any trace of Trent. But it did bring to him a dual odour that set the dog’s ruff to bristling, and his teeth to glinting from under his uncurled lip. For here, side by side, had trodden Hegan and Gates. ”

“ For a few minutes it startled him to see the countryside running backwards on either side of him, and to feel the bumping vibration and throb of the car under his feet. But almost at once he felt the joy of the new sensation, as does the average dog that gets a chance to motor.
Besides, this rescuer of his was a most interesting person, a man whose latent strength appealed to Buff’s canine hero-worship; a man, too, who was unhappy. And, with true collie perception, Buff realised and warmed to the human’s unhappiness. ”

“ He and the black-and-tan were about of a height. Both were collarless, wolf-thin and of a totally disreputable aspect.
Every city has scores of such strays—forlorn mongrels that eke out a rickety living on the dumps and in garbage cans until they fall prey to dogcatcher or police or vivisector, or until a gang of pursuing boys frighten them into a blind panic and thereby start a new mad-dog scare,—a scare which wins a credit-mark for the fearless bluecoat whose pistol is emptied into the harmless and terrified little fugitive. ”

“ For more than thirty months now Buff had been the lonely Trent’s closest chum and almost his only companion. With true collie efficiency, the dog had learned his hard and confusing farm lessons from the master, who never lost his temper with him and who never dealt unjustly by him. The bond between the two had sharpened and increased Buff’s naturally “human” tendencies, and had brought out in him the great soul and uncanny brain wherewith nature had endowed him. ”

“ And now began Buff’s tortured experience as a stray—as a leal one-man dog whose master is gone. Goaded on ever by that vague hope of somewhere finding Trent, and the scarce lesser hope of finding and wreaking vengeance on the men he associated with Trent’s disappearance, the great collie wandered aimlessly over the face of the countryside.
Unhappiness and the nerve-wrack of his endless quest lent him a strange furtiveness, and made him revert in a measure to the wild. Always searching—always avoiding his own kind and humans—he grew gaunt and lean. ”

“ The wild steed sought to fling up his head to shake off this anguishing weight of seventy odd pounds. But he could not shake himself free. He checked his furious pace and reared, striking out with his forefeet, and threatening to pitch backward into the buggy.
But a fierce wrench of the hanging jaws and a wriggle of the intolerable weight brought him down on all fours again. At once Buff released his grip and stood in front of the trembling horse. The runaway made as though to plunge forward. But he flinched at the memory of the dog’s attack and at the threat of its renewal. ”

“ A dog awakens instantly and with all his faculties acute. With him there is none of the owlish stupidity and dazedness which marks the transition from sleep to awake, among humans. At one instant he is fast asleep; at the next he is wide awake. And so it was with Buff.
He was interested now at the sound of steps, because he hoped one of the two men whose tread he heard might be Michael Trent. But at once he knew it was not. Trent’s step was as familiar to Buff as was Trent’s scent. And neither of these two approaching persons had a semblance to Trent’s light, springy stride. ”

“ The man shook off the child’s convulsive hold with a vehemence that sent her flat in the dust of the road.
And on the same instant a huge and lean and hairy beast burst through a roadside thicket and flung himself on the man, bearing him to earth by the sheer weight of his assault.
By the time the thief had landed, rolling and yelling, in the roadway, Buff had deserted him, and was at another of the trio. And this was the collie of it. A bulldog secures his grip and holds it till doomsday. A collie, fighting, is everywhere at once. ”

“ A dozen times a night the wakeful Klyda could hear the big dog get to his feet and start off on a thorough patrol of the grounds.
This sentry-go accomplished, he would circle the porch and return to his doormat bed for another fitful snooze. But the very slightest sound was enough to awaken him and to bring him at once to fierce alertness. The step of a belated wayfarer on the highroad beyond,—the faintest stir of one of the sleepers within the house,—any of a hundred negligible noises of the night,—sufficed to rouse him to his duty. ”

“ From that day on, he has hustled every pup or grown dog off the drive, whenever a car has come in sight through the gateway.
When the pups are too far scattered for him to round them up and shove them out of harm’s way, in so short a time, he adopts a still better mode of clearing the drive. Barking in wild ecstasy, he rushes at top speed down the lawn, as though in pursuit of some highly alluring prey. No living pup can resist such a call. Every one of the youngsters dashes in pursuit. ”

“ And so the years went on at the Snowden home, pleasantly and uneventfully. Baby Marise was a leggy and big-eyed girl of nine, and Jock was in the full hale prime of latter middle age. Dick and Klyda were sweethearts, as ever. They and their child and their huge gold-and-white dog formed a close corporation that made home life very beautiful for all four of them.
Then, over the smugly complacent land, rang a bugle-call. Half the world was sick unto death with the Hun pestilence, and America alone could stay the hideous disease’s assault on humanity. America alone could cure a dying world. ”

“ But, in the same motion, the Black’s flying head had veered; and his jaws had found a hold above Tam’s jugular. Again, with the normal dog, such a hold might well have ended the fight. But, the Providence which ordained that a collie should guard sheep on icy Highland moors also gave him an unbelievably thick coat, to fend off the weather. And this coat serves as an almost invulnerable armour; especially at the side of the throat. The Black’s teeth closed upon a quantity of tangled fur; but on only the merest patch of skin and on none of the under flesh at all. ”

“ Fast as the dog had run, and with as few delays, yet he had arrived far too late to ameliorate or even share his master’s doom. Fast as a collie can run—and no dog but the greyhound can outstrip him—yet a new and desperately driven motor-car can cover thrice the same ground in far less time than can he. ”

“ It was Billy Gates who broke the brief spell. Even as Ruth started forward, with a choking little cry, towards Trent, the convict’s nerve and brain suddenly collapsed. Waving a tremulous arm at the raging Buff, Gates babbled in horror:
“Take him away! For the Lord’s sake, take him away! That’s no dog! It’s a devil! A—a ghost! I—I shot him and I buried him in a—a forty-foot well with a rope and a stone on his neck! Take him away! He’s come back for me!”
At a nod from Hammerton the chief of police shoved Hegan into an adjoining room. ”

“ Buff’s grinding jaws had found the jugular. The fight was over. The victor stood up, panting and weary, and looked down at the inert mass that had so lately been a mighty fighting machine.
Half an hour later, shaved and clean, Michael Trent set forth for Ruth Hammerton’s home. Buff, wholly rested from his battle, trotted happily at his master’s heels. The maid at Hammertons’ gaped wordlessly at sight of the visitor.
Buff, as politeness bade him, wagged his tail and took a step towards her. The maid, by nature, was built for endurance rather than speed. ”

“ Humans had celebrated her recovery with presents. And he, watching, had imitated them. He had gone far and had toiled hard to bring her an offering that his canine mind deemed all-desirable.
It was carrion; but it represented, to a dog, everything that a present should be.
Dogs do not eat carrion. They merely rub their shoulders in it; on the same principle that women use perfumes. It is a purely æsthetic pleasure to them. And carrion is probably no more malodorous to a human being than is the reek of tobacco or of whisky or even of some $15-an-ounce scent, to a dog. ”

“ On this particular November night of ice and moonlight, King had turned his back on the warmth of the living-room fire and the disreputable [Pg 17] old fur rug that was his resting-place, and had stretched himself upon the veranda mat, head between forepaws; his deep-set dark eyes fixed on the highroad leading from town. Shawe had gone to town for the evening. He had forbidden King to go with him. But, collie-like, the champion had preferred waiting on the cold porch for a first glimpse of his returning master, rather than to lie in smug comfort indoors. ”

“ One dog man earned Rorke’s lifelong hatred and the many-adjectived appellation of liar by his tactlessness in saying:
“Why, most any good purp will do as much as that; if he thinks someone’s trying to hurt the feller that owns him.”
Dan Rorke was calmly certain that no other dog on earth would have had the pluck and the loyalty to do it. And gradually Jeff became to him a sort of fetish for everything that was noblest. Which perhaps was quite as natural as that a high-bred collie should deem Dan Rorke worthy of adoration. ”

“ As all the pups, presumably, were asleep in their houses, the man did not bother to shut the wire gate behind him as he entered the yard.
Buff saw the open portal. Beyond, somewhere in the dense darkness, were the stables where his mother lived. His mother had always been able to solve his few perplexities and soothe his hurts in the days when he still had lived with her. Doubtless she could help him worry off this miserable collar and tag.
On the instant, the pup trotted out, through the swinging gate, without so much as a glance at the dimly seen man who was bending over the row of pans. ”

“ Toddling babies may maul him to their hearts’ content; and Wolf revels in the discomfort.
Like Lad, he is the Mistress’ dog. Not merely because he belongs to her; but because he has adopted her for his deity.
When we leave Sunnybank, for two or three months, yearly, in midwinter, Wolf knows we are going; even before the trunks are brought from the attic for packing. And, from that time on, he is in dire, silent misery. When at last the car carries us out of the gate, he sits down, points his muzzle skyward, and shakes the air with a series of raucous wolf-howls. ”

“ Once a troop of small boys gave chase, realising the chances of reward that lay in the capture of so fine a dog. But Buff, with that odd and choppy wolf-stride of his, soon out-distanced them. And they threw stones, futilely, in the wake of the flying tawny shape.
Again, a Great Dane whirled out of a dooryard and pursued the passing collie. Buff was aware of the larger dog’s presence only when a spring and a snarl warned him to wheel, in bare time to avoid the full shock of the Dane’s charge. ”

“ On the swung canvas strip, a hundred of his bull-terrier ancestors had been made to strengthen the crushingly powerful jaw muscles they had bequeathed to Buff.
The pup’s forty pounds of squirming weight deflected the blow’s aim, and saved Trent’s skull from certain fracture.
The thief, in pain and terror, tore at the clinging furry body in frantic rage. But the bulldog jaws were locked, and the fearless collie spirit refused to unlock them at the yells and the hammerings of the panic-stricken thief. ”

“ Your dog is not a collie. The Lord alone knows what he is, but he’s no collie. That’s all. Clear out!”
For a man with heart or imagination, there is no ordeal more irksome than to judge dogs. For, in almost every division, there is some such beast as Robin Adair;—a dog loved by his owners, who know nothing of shows or of show points. A judge, in fairness to the better exhibits, must pass over these poor animals; and thereby must cause heartache and shame to their pathetic owners. It is not a pleasant task. Nor is any phase of dog-judging pleasant. ”

“ As he breasted the ridge-crest, the dog took in the scene below him in a single glance. He saw the milling and straggling sheep, and his distracted master in the centre of the panic throng. Thus, he did not wait, as usual, for the signals Trent had taught him in “working” sheep. Instead, he went into action on his own account.
Through the waves of greyish-white a tawny and wedge-shaped head clove its way at express-train speed. With seeming aimlessness, Buff swirled through the mass, sheering now to right, now to left, now wheeling, now halting with a menace of thundered barks. ”

“ He was turning in at the gateway of his farm as he finished the rambling tale. Buff thrust his nose into his master’s hand and whined softly. Then, in a trice the collie had stiffened to attention and darted forward through the shadows towards a patch of white that emerged from the darkness of the dooryard.
When Gates and Hegan came home to Boone Lake that day they brought with them a new possession in the shape of a mongrel bulldog of huge proportions and with a local fame for being one of the “dirtiest” fighters that ever set upon a weaker foe. ”

“ And, but for his own strong strain of collie blood, the fight must have ended then and there. For a bulldog would have gained this foreleg grip and would have hung onto it, heedless of the fact that his own spine and the back of his neck were within easy reach of the foe.
Wherefore, merely giving the forefoot an agonising bite as he went, he continued his diving rush. Under and between the bowed forelegs of the bulldog he slipped, eel-like, in swift elusiveness, slashing the other’s underbody again as he went, and emerged safe on the far side of the enemy. ”

“ But his scent told him Trent was no longer there. His scent told him more—much more. It confirmed his memory of his master’s two assailants, and stamped their odour for ever in his mind. Their steps led him to the barn whither they had carried Trent. The senseless man’s clothing [Pg 79] had brushed the lintel of the barn door as they had lifted him into the car. Buff looked wildly about him, sniffing the air, his tense brain telling him much.
Then a red light began to smoulder in his deep-set eyes. Out into the high road he dashed, not running now like a collie, but like a timber wolf. ”