Albert Payson Terhune

“ Horses understand such failings on the part of the men who use them. Thus, not a pony on the Dos Hermanos ranch bothered to lift head and to whinny when old Fenno clumped into the barn in the morning. Not one that did not toss back the head in fear of a fist-blow when Joel undertook to bridle him.
His mount, to-day, was a temperamental little buckskin, Pancho by name, whose devil temper and inborn mischief had never been trained fully out of him. Royce Mack understood Pancho and got good service from him, in spite of the buckskin’s occasional phases of meanness. ”

“ Late into the warm evening, Joel Fenno sat silent on the porch. At his feet, in drowsy contentment, lay Treve. The old man’s face was aglow with wordless happiness. Every now and then he would stoop to stroke the sleeping dog. Then he would listen delightedly to the responsive lazy thump of Treve’s tail on the boards.
Life was worth while, after all. It was great to have a chum that was all one’s own, and to sit thus with him at the close of day. No more bickerings, no more jawing, no more need to pretend he didn’t like this wonderful collie of his. It was fine to be alive! ”

“ In other words, Joel Fenno, in trying to get up, had seen coming toward the alcove-space a tumble of lowered heads and express-train red bodies. Though he was a sheepman, he knew what a cattle charge meant. And he screamed horrified warning to his fellow-human in that death-trap.
Old cattleman though he was, Chris Hibben stood frozen to stone at the sight. Then he glanced toward the alcove fence behind them. Seven feet of close-meshed barbed wire—coyote-proof, bull-tight, horse-high. No man might hope to scale so bristling a stockade. ”

“ Joel returned the sorrowful gaze, with something of terror in his own leathern visage. He was jolted out of a lifetime’s beliefs and theories. His thoughts would not assemble themselves.
He tried once more to get to his feet. But his legs were numb. He sought to wriggle along on his stomach toward the mile-off waterhole. There he could quench the awful thirst that had begun to grip him. There, too, he might be found by some passerby, seeking water on the way across the arid waste. ”

“ I am too foolishly mush-hearted to inflict such torture on any of our Sunnybank collies. I never take my dogs to a show that cannot be reached by comfortable motor ride within two or three hours at most; nor to any show whence they cannot return home at the end of a single day. Thus, championship points mount up more slowly at Sunnybank than at some other kennels. But thus, too, our dogs, for the most part, stay alive and in splendid health. I sleep the sounder at night, for knowing my collie chums are not in misery in some distemper-tainted dogshow-building. ”

“ Royce and Fenno were entering the ranch house at the close of their day’s chilly work, when a shout from Toni, at the barns, made them stop and turn around.
Up the meadow, from the direction of the foothills, a scarred and thin collie was driving a bunch of thinner and leg-weary sheep. All day and at a racking pace Treve had driven them; giving them no semblance of rest; keeping them at a gallop whenever he could urge their tired legs into such violent action. ”

“ The dog made straight for Mack and Fenno; his plumed tail essaying to wag greeting to his masters. He was a sorry sight. In his dark deepset eyes lurked the glint of half-shame, half-fun, which is the eternal expression of a collie that has been in delightful mischief and fears a scolding for his pranks.
After that first loud exclamation from the foreman, none of the onlookers spoke or moved; for the space of perhaps ten seconds. Frozen, wide-eyed, jaws adroop, they stared at the oncoming Treve.
In every brain raced the same line of glaringly simple logic. ”

“ The whole flock was out of the gateway and safe on the trail; with Zit and Zilla weaving in and out, steering them straight; and the herdsmen in their places along the pattering ranks. Treve could change his flying zigzag gallop to a wolf-trot. He could even brush his panting muzzle against Royce Mack’s hand as he trotted past the busy rancher.
Up the coulée-side trail moved the sheep; the myriad patter of their hoofs sounding on the rutted roadbed like cloudburst rain on a shingle roof. ”

“ He led them to the empty fold and obligingly took up the scent there; tracing the strays far faster than his human companions could follow through the dense dark and over the rough ground.
Ahead of him, this morning, was another long day’s work as soon as the partners should finish breakfast. In the meantime, it was pleasant to sprawl sleepily on the dooryard’s soft sand.
Through the open door, rumbled the sound of voices. Being only a real-life collie and not a phenomenon, Treve could not understand one word in ten that reached his keen ears, as he lay there. ”

“ Toni, the Basque chief herder of the Dos Hermanos ranch, came into view. He was bent far forward under the weight of something that was balanced across his spine and which dangled lifelessly to either side of his ox-like shoulders.
Close behind him walked a smaller man, in soiled khaki and puttees; a repeating rifle slung by a bandolier athwart his back.
At sight and scent of the thing, carried by the big herdsman, Treve abandoned his puzzled efforts to make out what all the din and elocution were about. Wheeling, he bared his teeth and lowered his blood-stained head. ”

“ Floundering knee-deep through drifts, the partners and their herdsmen and Sing Lee, the new Chinese cook, sought puffingly to drive the scattered and snow-whipped sheep to places of shelter.
The dogs, half-submerged in the floury snow, staggered and fought their way in the teeth of the blast and the stabbing cold. Their pads were tight-packed with painful snow-lumps. There was no time to stop and gnaw these torments out. The dogs drove on, limping, unresting.
It was a madly busy three or four hours. Men and dogs alike were blinded by the whirling tons of snow. ”

“ Joel Fenno was wading almost thigh-deep in a billowing and tossing grayish sea. Here and there, near him, arose the upper two-thirds of other men—his young partner, Royce Mack; their chief herder, Toni, the big Basque; and the other Dos Hermanos shepherds.
The tossing gray-white sea was made up of sheep;—hundreds upon hundreds of milling and worried sheep. Through its billows, like miniature speed-boats of black and of red-gold, dashed Zit, the squat little black “working collie” and his little black mate, Zilla, and the glowingly tawny bulk of Treve. ”

“ Moreover, she was not the type of human that dogs like. Also, she took up too much of his master’s attention.
Intuitively, Treve realized Mack was not as fond of him as once he had been and that the man was not the jolly chum of yore. It grieved the sensitive collie. He sought wistfully to draw Royce’s attention more to himself and less to this painfully-scented outsider. But it was all in vain.
Royce Mack was blindly and deliriously in love. The world, for the time, contained for him only one person. That person was far more like an angel than a mere woman. ”

“ Under the pain of this, Pancho veered. A second slash veered him still farther from the crippled Joel.
Probably Treve had no clear idea why he dashed to the rescue of the man for whom he had no feeling except a vague dislike. While Pancho and Joel had fought upon more even terms, the dog had looked on impersonally, entertained by the spectacle, and with no impulse to interfere. But now that the man was down and helpless, somehow it was different.
To a dog, all men are gods. That does not mean they are his own particular gods or that he has any interest in most of them. ”

“ Joel Fenno rebuked this unwonted tirade from his pleasant-tempered partner by sinking into grieved silence. Surreptitiously, he hid under a slice of bread two tempting morsels of pork that he had been saving to give to Treve.
Seldom was the collie absent from meals, and Fenno missed him. He enjoyed feeding the big young dog on the sly, when Mack was not looking. The loveless, sour old man had never before made a pet or a chum of any dumb animal. He was unreasonably vexed that Treve should not be there to eat the bits of meat he had set aside for him. ”

“ Above her stood Treve; his eyes fixed on Hibben in cold menace. The big dog knew well that it was not permissible to attack a human; least of all a human who was the guest of his two masters. Perhaps swift death might be the punishment for his deed. But he did not falter.
His body shielding the wretched puppy, he stood there, tensely ready for Hibben’s next assault. Joel Fenno read the dog’s purpose and his thoughts; as he might have read those of a fellowman. The collie was playing with possible death, to guard something that could not defend itself. ”

“ As the way was short, and as the Number Three outfit’s only dog was a half mile away herding another and larger bunch of sheep, the man had undertaken to steer the lambs, singlehanded. He was making a ragged job of it.
At sound and scent of the approaching huddle of sheep, Treve leaped to his feet; queer ancestral instincts tugging at the back of his alert young brain. In all his eight months of life he had never seen nor smelt a sheep. But his Scottish ancestors, for a hundred generations, had earned their right to live by tending such creatures as these which came trooping past the shack. ”

“ The gesture made old Fenno shake from head to foot as with a congestive chill.
[Pg 119]
Royce Mack, hollow-eyed and desperate, pushed the amazed collie behind him; and stood shielding him with his own athletic body.
“That won’t get you nowheres!” sternly reproved Garry, noting the instinctive motion, and unstrapping his rifle as he spoke. “You know the law as well as I do. You ought to be thankful we’ve nailed him before he could do any more killing. It isn’t once in a blue moon that a Killer is nabbed at the very start; before he c’n get away to the hills. We’re plumb lucky. ”

“ The foreman had finished his breakfast and [Pg 27] had hurried back to his gang; as is the way of foremen when the boss or the bosses chance to be on hand. But Mack and Fenno were lingering over their flapjacks and black coffee.
Both looked up as a shadow—or rather two shadows—blocked the open doorway. On the threshold stood a man whose clothes and bearing proclaimed him a tramp. Close at his knee, and surveying the partners with gravely inquiring interest, was a tawny-golden young collie dog; one ear bound up in a queer arrangement of splints. ”

“ Now a horse is almost as quick as a dog to note a change in his master’s mood. Even before the blow—even before the burst of swearing—Pancho had become aware of a slackening in his rider’s wonted grim self-command. He had prepared, in his meanly uncertain mind, to take advantage of it.
Before the quirt had fairly landed athwart his neck, Pancho had left ground. This time he did not buck. Straight up in air shot his forequarters.
There was no warning of the outbreak. Moreover, Fenno had been sitting carelessly in the saddle; for the horse had been standing still. ”

“ It wasn’t till a very few years ago that women at large took any part at all in sport. They had to learn it from the beginning. Or rather, they still have to. Most of them haven’t made much of a start at it yet.”
“Uh-huh,” grunted the unhearing Fenno.
“Women don’t take a general part in any forms of sport, even yet,” pursued the reporter, “except dogshowing and tennis. At least those are almost the only sports they’ve achieved any prominence in. And look at the result! The dog game is full of squabbles and backbiting and poor sportsmanship. ”

“ It was so, too, after they had debarked and had found their way to the armory where the dogshow was in progress. As they entered the vast barnlike building, Treve’s ears and nostrils were assailed in a way that made him halt abruptly in his stately advance at Fenno’s side.
To him gushed the multiple plangent racket of hundreds of dogs barking in hundreds of keys. To a dog, even more than to a dogman, each bark carries its own translation. Treve read excitement in many of these barks that now yammered about his sensitive ears. In more, he read terror and loneliness and worried apprehension. ”

“ An awful sense of loneliness seized the tormented sufferer. Blithely would he have given his share of the ranch, in return for the dog’s comforting presence at his side. More blithely would he have given ten years of life for one drop of water, to ease the fever and maniac thirst that possessed him.
To few is it given to receive the granting of the only two wishes they make. But, presently, it was granted to Joel Fenno. He heard a patter of running feet. Toward him, from the direction of the waterhole, Treve came bounding. The collie’s massively shaggy coat was adrip with water. ”

“ They are brought to shows in the futile hope that a blue ribbon or a cup may lend zest to their owners’ pride in them. To a judge who is luckless enough to have a soft heart, these poor dogs and their cruelly disappointed owners are the saddest features of an exhibition which, at best, is never lacking in sad features.
Fenno stood, eyeing the dogs around him. He had a refreshing ignorance of everything which constitutes a collie’s good or bad show points. All he knew was that Treve was the grandest dog on earth. He had come here to prove it to mankind at large. ”

“ The big police dog had not relished being yanked from his crate, late at night, for brushing and rubbing. Indeed, he had not relished any part of the joltingly noisy ride. He was not in the sunniest of tempers.
Over to him scampered the friendly collie pup. As he came within a foot or so of his destination, the car gave a drunken lurch, in rounding a bend of the track. The capering puppy was thrown off his unaccustomed car-balance. He collided sharply with the police dog.
The impact set the larger dog’s ruffled temper ablaze. ”

“ When Treve saved Chris Hibben from a peculiarly hideous death under the hoofs of Chris’s own Triple Bar steers, he did more to patch up a truce between the Dos Hermanos and the Triple Bar outfits than could a score of peace conferences.
From the beginning, throughout the West, sheepmen and cattlemen have been mortal enemies. Seldom has this eternal feud blazed hotter than between Chris Hibben’s cattle ranch and the nearby Dos Hermanos sheep ranch of Joel Fenno and Royce Mack. ”

“ No expert trainer has worked more skillfully and tirelessly over a Derby winner than did Robert Friend over that dog’s shimmering red-gold coat. For an hour or more every day, he groomed Treve, until the burnished fur stood out like a Circassian beauty’s coiffure and glowed like molten gold. ”

“ True, hard snow-lumps had an annoying way of forming between his pads; so that he had to halt in his romps or his runs, every few minutes, to gnaw them out. But these were petty drawbacks. The snow, for the most part, was Treve’s loved playfellow.
Royce Mack was as enthusiastic over the snowfalls as was Treve himself. They reminded him of the jolly winter sports in the Vermont hills he had left so far behind him. He and Treve used to tramp for miles through the glistening whiteness; just for the fun of it. ”

“ Fenno made certain of his scheme’s verisimilitude by ordering Chang, the cook, to put up two days’ rations for him. Then, giving commands to Toni, he saddled his mustang for the lethal ride toward the Ova. At his imperative whistle, Treve ranged alongside the pony, and the two set forth.
The dog did not relish the prospect of a ride with Joel. True, almost every dog enjoys a walk or a ride with even a human whom he does not love. But Treve was aware of a queer distaste for to-day’s jaunt. Perhaps he was warned by the sixth sense which puzzles so many collie-students. ”

“ Hibben sprang to earth, flinging the reins over his pinto’s head.
A trained cow-pony will stand for hours if the rein is thus flung. But the pinto was not yet well trained. Also, he had been bewildered by the shot and by the spurring, into a forgetfulness of all he had learned. He set off at a panicky canter, the loose rein catching in his forefoot and snapping.
Unheeding, Chris Hibben ran forward to the niche where Treve was standing in grieved amaze above the body of the slain sheep. Halting just within the outer opening of the alcove, Hibben leveled his gun, using his left forearm as a rest ”

“ So occupied was Joel with the punitive values of curb and quirt and heel that he did not observe the loss of his provisions and water bag.
Treve had viewed the advent of the jack rabbit with pleased interest; foreseeing some excitement in chasing the long-eared and longer-legged bunny. But, instantly, the scrimmage between man and horse offered far more excitement for him, and with less need for active exercise. Wherefore, the collie stood, tulip ears cocked and classic head interestedly on one side, watching the battle. ”

“ For Treve could see the pony’s eyes. And a devil was smoldering behind them. Their whites showed unduly. There was a hint of murder in their rolling irises.
Joel Fenno, smugly confident in his own horsemanship and in the victory of man over brute, would have sworn there could not be an atom of fight left in the sweating and trembling victim of his beating. Thus, for the billionth time in history, a man might have profited vastly had he known as much as did his dog. ”

“ Joel [Pg 240] looked on with secret admiration and patiently contributed his own quota to the wise training.
Nellie could never hope to see. But, with almost miraculous intuition she learned to find her way about. A collie’s ears and nose are more to him than are his eyes. Nellie’s absence of sight intensified tenfold her power of scent and of hearing.
She could track either of the partners for miles, nose to earth; nearly always forewarned in some occult manner to avoid obstacles in her path. She was even, in a small way, of help to Treve in rounding up sheep. ”

“ Joel Fenno went green-white with horror. Mack groped feebly for a gun at his belt. But, as usual, his gun hung forgotten from a peg in his bedroom. Indeed the whole party could not [Pg 214] muster any weapon more lethal than a staff. The shepherds involuntarily came to a dazed standstill.
But Treve did not hesitate, for the space of an instant. Hurdling the sheep which struggled in the strands of wire, he cleared the low-slanted broken panel and sprang into the forbidden range of the enemy. His singed coat almost sweeping the ground as he sped, he bore down upon the hundred strays. ”

“ From a cupboard he took Treve’s heaped supper plate and set it on the hearth bricks.
The dog wagged his tail in appreciation and followed the Chinaman to the hearth; his white paws beating out an anticipatory little dance on the puncheon floor. He neither liked nor disliked this shuffling and queer-smelling Celestial. But always he was keenly interested in the plate of table-scraps Chang gave him at night.
Hungrily, now, he set to work on his supper. Eating with odd daintiness, yet with egregious speed, the dog became oblivious to everything around him. ”

“ Nellie’s uncannily keen nostrils sniffed the rider’s unfamiliar scent, as the breeze bore it to her.
Then, of a sudden, Treve got to his feet; his hackles bristling. Dutifully, Nellie followed his example.
The rider had jogged on for more than a hundred yards. But at the far end of the outbuildings he had halted his horse. Dismounting, he took a hesitant step toward the palings which separated the ranch from the road. Instantly, both dogs were in motion. Running shoulder to shoulder, they bore down upon the man to resent the threat of intrusion. ”

“ That’s all there was to that fight.”
“Treve!” babbled Joel. “Trevy!”
His unconscious exclamation went unheard in the hum of excitement.
“The collie lay down for a minute, panting,” finished Wilton. “Then he got up and sniffed at the dead wolf. Then, before I had the sense to try to stop him, he limped off, in this direction. It seemed to me I remembered him, when I was at Dos Hermanos, last time. I got to wondering if he’d be shot, by mistake, when news came of killed sheep and when he was all bloody. So I hustled on here, after him. A dog, like that, is too plucky to let die.” ”

“ To both the partners Treve was docilely obedient. Under their tutelage he had become one of the best herding dogs in that valley of herding dogs. But to only one partner did Treve grant the allegiance of his heart. Old Joel Fenno regarded all livestock as mere counters in his game for a livelihood. He neither liked nor disliked Treve. He worked him hard; and he saw that the collie obeyed orders. There the man’s interest in him ended.
Young Royce Mack was different. By nature he was a dog-lover. Moreover, he “had a way” with dogs. ”

“ The ultimatum habit is a rotten one. If I gave in to the first ultimatum, there’d be more and more of ’em; till some day there’d come one that I’d have to fight over. So, the first ultimatum is going to be the last one. That’s why I’m asking you to think it over and take it back. See you at supper time. So long.”
Still holding in his temper, he left the shack; Joel Fenno staring after him in baleful speechlessness.
As Mack came out into the dooryard, Treve was off the ground in one leap; and cantering up to him; eagerly expectant of accompanying his god whithersoever Royce might be going. ”

“ It is all very well to shout “Sigurd!” to a collie when he is the only dog in sight. But when there is a rackety and swirling and excited throng of them, the call of “Sigurd!” has an unlucky sibilant resemblance to the exhortation, “Sic ’im!” And misunderstandings—not to say strife—are prone to follow. So we sought a one-syllable kennel name for our golden collie pup. My English superintendent, Robert Friend, suggested “Treve.” ”

“ Even as man in dire distress turns to his God for aid, so did the heartbroken collie turn now to his two human gods.
Bounding up on the porch, he scratched imperiously at the locked door; whining and sobbing in stark anguish of heart. Perhaps these [Pg 260] humans could bring back to life the dear mate who had meant so much to him.
Fiercely impatient in his grief, he scratched the harder at the door panel; crying under his breath and quivering as in a death-chill.
After an eternity came a slumbrous and cross voice from Royce Mack’s room.
“Shut up there, Treve!” ”