Snoop

“ Snoop didn't like snow or water.
"Well, shall we make a snow man?" asked Bert, as he raced about with Snap, making the dog chase after sticks which would become buried deep under the snow, where Snap had to dig them out. But the dog liked this.
"Let's make a snow house. I think that would be more fun," said Nan.
"Oh, yes, and I can get my doll, and we can have a play party in the snow house," cried Flossie.
"Can't we take the snow man into the snow house?" Freddie wanted to know. "That'll be more fun than dolls. ”

“ The other dog, who it appeared had been growling at Snap all the while the two were in the car, now made a rush to get at him. Perhaps he only wanted to make friends, but it looked as though he wanted to bite. Snap did not like this so he barked at the other dog. Then the other dog became frightened and ran away, pulling loose from his master.
Straight toward Dinah, who was carrying Snoop in the basket, ran the other dog. His master called him to come back but he would not. Then Snap, seeing his enemy run, naturally ran after him, pulling the chain out of Bert's hand.
"Go 'way! Go 'way!" ”

“ I saw her go that way when the two dogs ran across the street, so I looked there for her. She didn't want to come out but I coaxed her. I like cats and they always come to me."
"That's 'cause you're kind to them," said Flossie. "Come on now, Snoop, you must go back into your basket until we get home."
"And don't run away again, either, Snap!" said Bert to the dog, shaking a finger at him. Snap seemed to understand and to be a bit sorry for what he had done. He drooped his tail, and when a dog does that he is either ashamed or afraid. ”

“ For looking slightly ahead, he saw that “Snooper,” thinking himself hidden from human sight, was crawling toward the body of a German, his intention obvious in his every movement.
Ollie could not shout a warning without attracting a concentration of bullets upon his own position. Unseen by “Snooper” Jones, all he could do was lie silent and watch. “Snooper” was now within a couple of feet of the body which lay with right hand outstretched, a ring upon the third finger.
With ghoulish greed Jones covered the short intervening distance and with a quick snatch reached out for the ring. ”

“ So is Hen.
Oh, bliss! The caressing, rollicking flood envelops you to the shoulders. You wade, you kick, you sputter, you blow, you plunge your length, you squeal your joy intense—you convince yourself and would convince others that you swim; and your comrades wade, and kick, and sputter, and blow, and plunge their lengths, and squeal—and ostentatiously paddle. While Snoopie, crawling about under water, grabs legs ”

“ Hen held his line so that you might see. To miss no chances, you measured accurately with a reed. Once more you adjusted your cork, moving it up a fraction of an inch, and you spat on your baited hook.
Again you threw in, landing your now irresistible lure the length of your pole and line from the shore.
“Quit your splashin’!” remonstrated Snoopie. “I had a dandy bite, an’ you scared him away. Darn you! can’t you throw in easy?” ”

“ Snoopers, as you said—or perceivers, or any other ringers they could ring in on us.”
“Nuts!” the assistant retorted. “Just who do you figure as ringers? The Vegian isn’t a snooper, she’s just a gambling fool. No Chickladorian was ever a snooper, or a perceiver either, and these people are just about all regular customers. And everybody’s winning. So just where does that put you?”
“Up the creek—I know. But dammit, there’s got to be snoopery or some other funny stuff somewhere in this!”
“Uh-uh. Did you ever hear of a perceiver who could read a deck or spot a gimmick from half a block away?” ”

“ With Bert and Harry he went outside. But neither calling nor whistling brought any bark from Snap. Nor did he come bounding joyfully up, as he usually did when summoned. The darkness about Snow Lodge was quiet. There was no sign of Snap.
"He's gone off in the woods and is lost," said Harry.
"Snap knows better than to get lost," declared Bert. "He could find his way home from almost anywhere. I think he must have followed someone away." ”

“ At last one joyous day the doctor sent for Banty, who rode over with a led horse, and Con, leaping into the saddle, waved good-bye to Snooks, who, now convalescent, stood in the door of the distant shack. As the boy galloped off up the trail, Snooks turned to the nurse and said:
"I'm going to live so that youngster will never regret what he's done. ”

“ Before the children had time to shake hands with the old gentleman, Snap darted forward and sprang upon him eagerly—not barking or sniffing round his feet and ankles, as he usually did to strangers, making them feel as if he were looking out for a nice place for a bite, but jumping up and throwing himself upon him with little yelps of delight, behaving, indeed, just as he always did if he thought anyone was going to take him for a walk. ”

“ If the visitor made a stand, he would bound away sideways on his four little legs; but the moment the visitor went on his way again, Snap was at his heels—“Yap! yap! yap!” He barked at the milkman, the butcher’s boy, and the baker, though he saw them every day. He never got used to the washerwoman, and she never got used to him. She said he “put her in mind of that there black dog in the Pilgrim’s Progress.” ”

“ Snowdon stepped forward to the edge of the shadow in which they stood, as if to confront the apparition alone. Out of the darkness it came, and in the full radiance of the light it paused. Mrs. Snowdon, being nearest, saw the face first, and uttering a faint cry dropped down upon the stone floor, covering up her eyes. Nothing human ever wore a look like that of the ghastly, hollow-eyed, pale-lipped countenance below the hood. All saw it and held their breath as it slowly raised a shadowy arm and pointed a shriveled finger at Sir Jasper. ”

“ But we must leave Towzer for the present and stick to Snap. Everyone was watching him now, and none more closely or more kindly than the man whom Snap considered chief of his born enemies, 'the Head.' 'Yes, he is a fine lad,' muttered that great man, 'I wish I knew how to manage him. He has stuff in him for anything.' And indeed he might have, though he was hardly good-looking. Tall and spare, with a lean, game look about the head, the first impression he made upon you was that he was a perfect athlete, one of Nature's chosen children. ”

“ In the bitterest weather Snap and the other men had to go out and feed; had to visit the different bands sheltering in the coulees and hollows of the foot-hills; look alter the young and the feeble; get the beasts out of the timber, where, if left alone, they would shiver and starve rather than face the bitter wind which drove them back from the feeding-ground on the bare lands below; keep an eye on the coyotes and wolves; and perform a hundred other duties which required strength and hardihood, and which were certain either 'to kill a boy or make a man,' as Wharton put it. ”

“ Snap was a perfectly built athlete, if there ever was one—tall and wiry, with not an ounce of spare flesh anywhere. Frank was the biggest of the three, a huge bull-necked Englishman, a man who could have killed even Snap as a terrier kills a rat if he got him in a railway-carriage or a corner, but no match for his active friend in the open. As for Dick, he was tough and old, 'old, with the might and breath of twenty boys.'
In a few minutes they had all mingled with the shadows, and Towzer and 'the Cradle,' alone, stood craning their necks after them in vain. ”

“ No muscles, you would think, could stand the strain of those furious bucks and kicks. Every moment Snap expected to see the strange figure part in flying fragments, the legs one way, the body another, and Atkins in a third direction. But, though for the second time since his arrival upon the prairie Snap himself got unseated, the cowboy sat tight until he was out of sight of our hero, who, having luckily stuck to his bridle, managed to recover and remount his horse, which had become almost as unmanageable as the one which carried the bear-skin. ”

“ Even the tough cattleman's frame had no chance against the legs and lungs of a schoolboy of eighteen.
How long Snap ran the madman in view he never knew, but at last he lost him. Panting and tired, he pulled up; climbed first one knoll and then another, and still no sight of the man or of his own comrades. It was now so dark that he could hardly see the tracks in the snow; the forest a few yards from him was dim and indistinct, and every minute the darkness deepened. ”

“ Now and again, as Snap went his rounds, he saw in the snow a track into which both his own feet would go without destroying its outline. Sometimes, after following this track for a while, he would find patches of blood on the trail, and then a dead steer, torn by the huge claws and mangled by the teeth of 'old Ephraim,' as the trappers used to call the grizzly. If the beast had been killed some time, there would be other tracks near—wolf and coyote—showing that others had finished what the fierce king of the forest had begun. ”

“ It was not a wise thing to do, for if anything will encourage a wild beast to attack, it is the appearance of flight in a man. And so it was in this case. As Snap gained the open he looked back, and as he did so, saw the long snake-like figure of the mountain lion come in long bounds across the snow.
As the boy faced about, the great reddish brute paused for a moment, crouching, its belly almost on the snow, for the last rush; its ears flattened back, its yellow eyes ablaze with murder, and its white fangs gleaming in the starlight. ”

“ There, too, lay Snipe's, longer in the legs by nearly a foot. "There's nothing in-doors but books, Snipy. There's only one thing to tempt a fellow out in the wet,—a fire, and small chance of that on such a day. We might take the guns up on the roof and shoot a few skylights or something——"
"Shut up!" said Snipe, at this juncture, suddenly, [19] impetuously throwing up his hand. "Twenty-third Street!"
Shorty sprang to the window and levelled an old opera-glass at the summit of an odd white tower that loomed, dim and ghost-like, through the mist above the housetops quarter of a mile away. ”

“ So I said—even I have my bright ideas at times—'if it got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it back from Snooks to Sevenoaks?' And the long and the short of it is, dear, he couldn't refuse me, and he changed his spelling there and then to Senoks for the bills of the new lecture. And afterwards, when we are married, we shall put in the apostrophe and make it Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him to mind that fancy of mine, when many men would have taken offence? But it is just like him all over; he is as kind as he is clever. ”

“ Snipe, brown-eyed and taciturn, as a rule; Shorty, blue-eyed and talkative (Loquax was Pop's pet name for him) ; Snipe was studious; Shorty quick to learn, but intolerant of drudgery. Both loved play, active exercise, and adventure. Both took naturally to everything connected with the fire department, but in addition the smaller boy had a decided love for the military, and was a member of the drum corps of a famous organization of the old State militia, and vastly proud of it. Snipe loved the fishing-rod, and Shorty had no use for one. Shorty loved drill, Snipe couldn't bear it. ”

“ He has confided to a friend since that he could 'hear the silence.' Certainly he could hear nothing else, unless it were the sudden creaking of some old tree's bough weighted with too much snow. And then his thoughts went after the madman. A thought struck him, and even Snap never fancied that it was the cold alone which made his knees knock together and his teeth rattle so. What if, now that he was alone, the madman should turn the tables and hunt him? Was not that him he saw sneaking over the snow in the dim light of the rising moon? ”

“ There is, no doubt, a good deal to annoy a tender-foot at first in big-game shooting in America. For a grown man to realise that he has not yet learned to walk is a rather bitter experience, and yet not one man in a thousand can walk or 'creep' decently to game in timber, even after a good many seasons' experience.
Though not nearly as cold on the Rosebud as it had been in that other forest, in which Snap passed a night a week previously, our hero was beginning to feel quite 'crisp' about the ears and nose before anything occurred to break the monotony of his watch. ”

“ Although strongly prejudiced against tender-feet as a class, Snap's friends were lucky enough to make a very favourable impression at Rosebud from the first, for, instead of driving over in a buggy from the railway depot, Frank and Towzer trudged in on foot, brown as berries, all their earthly goods in two small bundles which they carried on their backs, and ten dollars apiece in their pockets, earned by driving cattle up from the South, earning money by coming over two or three States on foot, instead of paying money to come on the cars. ”

“ The men move like kittens, but it is their first experience of the kind, and most of them are excited, even nervous. As for Snipe, he rages to see how he is trembling.
And then all of a sudden the major's horse, rejoicing that the weight is gone, gives himself a thorough shake, rattling housing and stirrups and accompanying the shake with a loud b'r-r-r-r of satisfaction. All too late [220] Snipe springs from saddle and seizes both horses by the nostrils. Almost instantly booted heels are heard within, and manly, ringing voices. Somebody comes striding to the door and throws it open. ”