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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924075789481 
 
His Dog 
 
ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE 
 
 His Dog 
 
 Grosset 8c Dunlap 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 NEW YORK 
 
Copyright, 1922 
 By E. P. Dutton & Company 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 FBINTM) IN THE UNITED STATES OF AUERICA 
 
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 TO MY DEAR LITTLE FRIEND 
 
 CYNTHIA DRYDEN KUSER 
 
 IN HAPPY MEMORY OF HOURS 
 AT FAIRCOURT AND SUNNYBANK 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 HIS DOG 
 
 CHAPTER PAGS 
 
 I. The Derelict ,. . . 1 
 
 II. The Battle 49 
 
 III. The Ordeal 94 
 
 IV. The Choice 142 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE DEBELICT 
 
 LINK FERRIS was a fighter, Not 
 by nature, nor by choice, but to keep 
 alive. 
 His battleground covered an area of 
 forty acres^-broken, scrubby, uncertain side- 
 hill acres, at that. In brief, a worked-out 
 farm among the mountain slopes of the 
 North Jersey hinterland ; six miles from the 
 nearest railroad. 
 
 The farm was Ferris's, by right of sole 
 heritage from his father, a Civil-War vet- 
 eran, who had taken up the wilderness land 
 in 1865 and who, for thirty years thereafter, 
 had wrought to make it pay. At best the 
 
 1 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 elder Ferris had wrenched only a meager 
 living from the light and rock-infested soil. 
 
 The first-growth timber on the west wood- 
 lot for some time had staved off the need of 
 a mortgage; its veteran oaks and hickories 
 grimly giving up their lives, in hundreds, to 
 keep the wolf from the door of their owner. 
 When the last of the salable timber was gone 
 Old Man Ferris tried his hand at truck 
 farming, and sold his wares from a wagon to 
 the denizens of Craigswold, the new colony 
 of rich folk, four miles to northward. 
 
 But to raise such vegetables and fruits as 
 would tempt the eyes and the purses of 
 Craigswold people it was necessary to have 
 more than mere zeal and industry. Sour 
 ground will not readily yield sweet abun- 
 dance, be the toiler ever so industrious. 
 Moreover, there was large and growing 
 competition;, in the form of other huckster 
 routes. 
 
 2 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 And presently the old veteran wearied of 
 the eternal uphill struggle. He mortgaged 
 the farm, dying soon afterward. And Link, 
 his son, was left to carry on the thankless 
 task. 
 
 Link Ferris was as much a part of the 
 Ferris farm as was the giant howlder in 
 the south mowing. He had been born in 
 the paintless shack which his father had 
 built with his own rheumatic hands. He 
 had worked for more than a quarter cen- 
 tury, in and out of the lull fields and the 
 ramshackle barns. From babyhood he had 
 toiled there. Scant had been the chances 
 for schooling, and more scant had been the 
 opportunities for outside influence. 
 
 Wherefore, Link had grown to a wirily 
 weedy and slouching manhood, almost as 
 ignorant of the world beyond his mountain 
 walls as were any of his own "crittesrs." 
 His life was bounded by fruitless labor, 
 
 3 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 varied only by such sleep and food as might 
 fit him to labor the harder. 
 
 He ate and slept, that he might be able to 
 work. And he worked, that he might be 
 able to eat and sleep. Beyond that, his life 
 was as barren as a rainy sea. 
 
 If he dreamed of other and wider things, 
 the workaday grind speedily set such 
 dreams to rout. When the gnawing of 
 lonely imrest was too acute for bovine en- 
 durance — and when he could spare the time 
 or the money — ^he was wont to go to the 
 mile-off hamlet of Hampton and there get 
 as nearly drunk as his funds would permit. 
 
 It was his only surcease. And as a rule, 
 it was a poor one. For seldom did he have 
 enough ready money to buy wholesale for- 
 getfulness. More often he was able to 
 piu-chase only enough hard cider or fusel- 
 oil whisky to make him duU and vaguely 
 miserable. 
 
 4 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 It was on his way home one Saturday 
 night from such a rudimentary debauch at 
 Hampton that his Adventure had its small 
 beginning. 
 
 For a half mile or so of Link's homeward 
 pilgrimage — before he turned off into the 
 grass-grown, rutted hill trail which led to 
 his farm — his way led along a spur of the 
 state road which linked New York City 
 with the Ramapo hill country. 
 
 And here, as Link swung glimily along 
 through the springtide dusk, his ears were 
 assailed by a sound that was something 
 between a sigh and a sob — a sound as of one 
 who tries valiantly to stifle a whimper of 
 sharp pain. 
 
 Ferris halted, uncertain, at the road edge; 
 and peered about him. Again he heard the 
 soimd. And this time he located it in the 
 long grass of the wayside ditch. The grass 
 was stirring spasmodically, too, as with the 
 
 5 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 half -restrained writhings of something lying 
 close to earth there. 
 
 Link struck a match. Shielding the^ 
 flame, he pushed the tangle of grass to one 
 side with his foot. 
 
 There, exposed in the narrow space thus 
 cleared and by the narrower radius of match 
 flare, crouched a dog. 
 
 The brute was huddled in a crumpled 
 heap, with one foreleg stuck awkwardly out 
 in front of him at an impossible angle. His 
 tawny mass of coat was mired and oil 
 streaked. In his deep-set brown eyes 
 burned the fires of agony. 
 
 Yet, as he looked up at the man who 
 bent above him, the dog's gaze was neither 
 fierce nor cringing. It held rather such an 
 expression as, Dumas tells us, the wounded 
 Athos turned to D'Artagnan — ^the aspect 
 of one in sore need of aid, and too proud to 
 plead for it. 
 
THIS DERELICT 
 
 Link Ferris had never heard of Dumas, 
 nor of the immortal musketeer. None the 
 less, he could read that look. And it ap- 
 pealed to him, as no howl of anguish could 
 have appealed. He knelt beside the suffer- 
 ing dog and fell to examining his hurts. 
 
 The dog was a collie — beautiful of head, 
 sweepingly graceful of line, powerful and 
 heavy coated. The mud on his expanse of 
 snowy chest frill and the grease on his dark 
 brown back were easy to account for, even 
 to Link Ferris's none-too-keen imagination. 
 
 Link, in his own occasional trudges along 
 this bit of state road, had often seen costly 
 dogs in the tonneaus of passing cars. He 
 had seen several of them scramble fran- 
 tically to maintain their footing on the 
 slippery seats of such cars; when chauffeurs 
 took the sharp curve, just ahead, at too high 
 speed. He had even seen one Airedale 
 flung bodily from a car's rear seat at that 
 
 7 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 curve, and out into the roadway; where a 
 close-following motor had run over and 
 killed it. 
 
 This collie, doubtless, had had such a fall; 
 and, unseen by the front seat's occupants, 
 had struck ground with terrific force — a 
 force that had sent him whirling through 
 mud and grease into the ditch, with a 
 broken front leg. 
 
 How long the beast had lain there Link 
 had no way of guessing. But the dog was 
 in mortal agony. And the kindest thing to 
 do was to put him out of his pain. 
 
 Ferris groped aroimd through the gloom 
 until, in the ditch, his fingers closed over a 
 ten-poimd stone. One smashing blow on 
 the head, with this missile, would bring a 
 swift and merciful end to the sufferer's 
 troubles. 
 
 Poising the stone aloft. Link turned back 
 to where the dog lay. Standing over the 
 
 8 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 victim, he balanced the rock and tensed his 
 muscles for the blow. The match had long 
 since gone out, but Link's dusk-accustomed 
 vision could readily discern the outUnes of 
 the coUie. And he made ready .to strike. 
 
 Then — ^perhaps it was the drink playing 
 tricks with Ferris's mind — it seemed to him 
 that he could still see those deep-set dark 
 eyes staring up at him through the murk, 
 with that same fearless and yet piteous look 
 in their depths. It was a look that the brief 
 sputter of match-light had photographed 
 on Link's brain. 
 
 "I — I ain't got the heart to swat you 
 while you keep lookin' that way at me," 
 he muttered half -aloud, as if to a human 
 companion. "Jes' you turn your head the 
 other way, pup! It'll be over quick, an' 
 easy," 
 
 By the faint light Link could see the dog 
 had not obeyed the order to turn his head. 
 
 9 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 But at the man's tone of compassion the 
 great plumy tail began to thump the 
 ground in feeble response. 
 
 "H'ml" grunted Link, letting the stone 
 drop to the road, "got nerve, too, ain't you, 
 friend? 'Tain't every cuss that can wag his 
 tail when his leg's bust." 
 
 Kneeling diDwn again he examined the 
 broken foreleg more carefully. Gentle as 
 was his touch, yet Link knew it must cause 
 infinite torture. But the dog did not flinch. 
 He seemed to vmderstand that Ferris meant 
 kindly, for he moved his magnificent head 
 far enough to lick the man's hand softly and 
 in gratitude. 
 
 The caress had an odd effect on the love- 
 less Ferris. It was the first voluntary mark 
 of affection he had encountered for longer 
 than he hked to remember. It set old 
 memories to working. 
 
 The Ferris farm, since Link's birth, had 
 
 10 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 been perhaps the only home in all that 
 wild region which did not boast a dog of 
 some kind. Link's father bad had an in- 
 born hatred of dogs. He would not allow 
 one on the place. His overt excuse was 
 that they killed sheep and worried cattle, 
 and that he could mot afford to risk the 
 well-being of his scanty hoard of stock. 
 
 Thus, Link had grown to manhood with 
 no dog at his heels, and without knowing 
 the normal human's love for canine chum- 
 ship. 
 
 The primal instinct, long buried, stirred 
 within him now; at touch of the warm 
 tongue on his calloused hand and at sound 
 of that friendly tail wagging in the dry 
 grass. Ashamed of the stirrings in him, he 
 sought to explain them by reminding him- 
 self that this was probably a valuable 
 animal and that a reward might be offered 
 for his return. In which case Link Ferris 
 
 II 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 might as well profit by the cash windfall 
 as anyone else. 
 
 Taking off his coat, Ferris spread it on 
 the ground. Then, lifting the stricken collie 
 as gently as he could, he deposited him on 
 the coat and rolled its frayed edges about 
 him. After which he picked up the 
 swathed invalid and bore him home. 
 
 During the mile trudge the collie's sixty 
 pounds grew unbearably heavy, to the half- 
 drunk Ferris. More than once he was 
 minded to set down his burden and leave 
 the brute to his fate. 
 
 But always the tardy realization that the 
 journey was more painful to the dog than 
 to himself gave Link a fresh grip on his 
 determination. And at last, — a long and 
 tiring last, — they reached the tumble-down 
 farmhouse where Link Ferris kept bach- 
 elor's hall. 
 
 Laying his patient on the kitchen table, 
 
 12 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 Link lighted a candle and went in search 
 of such rude appliances as his father had 
 been wont to keep in store for any of the 
 farm's animals that might be injured. 
 
 Three times as a lad Link had seen his 
 father set the broken leg of a sheep, and 
 once he had watched the older man perform 
 a like office for a yearhng heifer whose 
 hind leg had become wedged between two 
 brookside stones and had sustained a com- 
 pound fracture. From Civil War hospital 
 experience the father had been a deft bone- 
 setter. And following his recollection of 
 the old man's methods. Link himself had 
 later set the broken leg of one of his lambs. 
 The operation had been a success. He 
 resolved now to duplicate it. 
 
 Slowly and somewhat clumsily he went 
 to work at the injured dog. The collie's 
 brave patience nerved him to greater ten- 
 derness and care. A veterinary would have 
 
 13 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 made neater work of the bonesetting, but 
 hardly could have rendered the job more 
 effective. 
 
 When the task was achieved Link 
 brought his patient a bowl of cold water — 
 which the colhe drank greedily — and some 
 bread and meat scraps — which the feverish 
 patient would not touch. 
 
 As he worked at his bonesetting task, 
 Ferris had more chance to study his new 
 acquisition. The dog was young — probably 
 not more than two years old. The teeth 
 proved that. He wore a thin collie collar 
 with no inscription on its silver band. 
 
 Even to Link's inexperienced eye he was 
 an animal of high breeding and of glorious 
 beauty. Link told himself he would per- 
 haps get as much as ten dollars for the 
 return of so costly a pet. And he won- 
 dered why the golden prospect did not 
 seem more alluring. 
 
 14 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 Three times in the night Link got up to 
 give the collie fresh water and to moisten 
 and readjust the bandages. And, every 
 time, the sight of his rescuer would cause 
 the dog's tail to thump a joyous welcome 
 and would fiU the dark eyes with a loving 
 gratitude which went straight to Ferris's 
 lonely heart. 
 
 In the morning the dog was prevailed 
 upon to lap a saucer of warm milk, and 
 even to nibble at a crust of soaked bread. 
 Link was ashamed of his own keen and 
 growing interest in his find. For the first 
 time he reahzed how bleakly lonesome had 
 been his home life, since the death of his 
 father had left him solitary. 
 
 There was a mysteriously comforting 
 companionship in the dog's presence. Link 
 found himself talking to him from time to 
 time as to a fellow human. And the words 
 
 15 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 did not echo back in eerie hollowness from 
 the walls, as when he had sometimes sought 
 to ease his desolation by talking aloud to 
 himself. 
 
 He was embarrassed by his general ig- 
 norance of dogs, and by his ignorance of 
 this particular dog's name. He sought to 
 learn what the collie had been called; by 
 trying one familiar dog name after another. 
 But, to such stand-by cognomens as Rover, 
 Tige, Fido, Ponto, Shep and the rest, the 
 patient gave no further sign of recognition 
 than a friendly wagging of his plumed tail. 
 And he wagged it no more interestedly for 
 one name than for another. 
 
 So Ferris ceased from the effort, and de- 
 cided to give his pet a brand-new name for 
 such brief space as they should be housemates. 
 After long deliberation he hit upon the 
 name "Chum," as typical of the odd friend- 
 ship that was springing to life between the 
 
 16 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 dog and himself. And he planned to de- 
 vote much time to teaching the colhe this 
 name. 
 
 But, to his surprise, no such tedious pe- 
 riod of instruction was necessary. In less 
 than a single day Chum knew his name — 
 knew it past all doubt. 
 
 Link was amazed at such cleverness. 
 For three solid months, at one time, he had 
 striven to teach his horse and his cows and 
 a few of his sheep to respond to given 
 names. And at the end of the course of 
 patient tutelage he had been morbidly cer- 
 tain that not one of his solemn-eyed pupUs 
 had grasped the lessons. 
 
 It was surprisingly pleasant to drop in 
 at the kitchen door nowadays, in intervals 
 between chores or at the day's end, and be 
 'greeted by that glad ghnt of the eye and 
 the ecstatic pounding of the wavy tail 
 against the floor. It was still pleasanter to 
 
 17 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 see the gaze of wistful adoration that 
 strengthened daily as Chum and his new 
 master grew better and better acquainted. 
 
 Pleasantest of all was it to sit and talk 
 to the collie in the once-tedious evenings, 
 and to know that his every word was ap- 
 preciated and hstened to with eager interest, 
 even if the full gist of the talk itself did not 
 penetrate to the listener's understanding. 
 
 Link Ferris, for the first time in his Iffe, 
 had a dog. Incidentally, for the first time 
 in his life, he had an intimate friend — some- 
 thing of whose love and loyalty he waxed 
 increasingly sure. And he was happy. 
 
 His brighter spirits manifested them- 
 selves in his farm work, transforming 
 drudgery into contentment. And the farm 
 began, in small ways, to show the effects of 
 its owner's new attitude toward labor. 
 
 The day after he found Chum, Link had 
 
 18 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 trudged to Hampton; and, there, had af- 
 fixed to the clapboards of the general store 
 a bit of paper whereon he had scrawled: 
 
 "Found — One white and brown bird 
 dog with leg broken. Owner can have 
 same by pajring a reward." 
 
 On his next huckster trip to Craigswold 
 he pinned a similar sign to the bulletin 
 board of that rarefied resort's post-office. 
 And he waited for results. 
 
 He did more. He bought two successive 
 copies of the county's daily paper and 
 scanned it for word of a missing dog. But 
 in neither copy did he find what he sought. 
 
 True, both editions carried display adver- 
 tisements which offered a seventy-five dollar 
 reward for information leading to the re- 
 turn of a "dark-sable-and-white-collie lost 
 somewhere between Hohokus and Suffern." 
 
 The first time he saw this notice Link was 
 
 19 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 vaguely troubled lest it might refer to 
 Chum. He told himself he hoped it did. 
 For seventy-five dollars just now would be 
 a godsend. And in self -disgust he choked 
 back a most annoying twinge of grief at 
 thought of parting with the dog. 
 
 Two things in the advertisement puzzled 
 him. In the first place, as Chum was long- 
 haired and graceful. Link had mentally 
 classified him as belonging to the same 
 breed as did the setters which accompanied 
 himters on mountain rambles past his farm 
 in the autumns. Being wholly unversed in 
 canine lore, he had, therefore, classified 
 Chum as a "bird dog." The word "collie," 
 if ever he had chanced to hear it before, 
 carried no meaning to him. 
 
 Moreover, he did not know what "sable" 
 meant. He asked Dominie Jansen, whom 
 he met on the way home. And the dominie 
 told him "sable" was another name for 
 
 20 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 "black." Jansen went on to amplify the 
 theme, dictionary-fashion, by quoting a 
 piece of sacred poetry about "the sable 
 wings of night." 
 
 A great load was off Link's heart. 
 Chum, most assm-edly, was not black and 
 white. So the advertisement could not 
 possibly refer to him. The reverend gen- 
 tleman, not being a dog fancier, of course 
 had no means of knowing that "sable," in 
 collie jargon, means practically every shade 
 of color except black or gray or white. 
 
 Link was ashamed of his own deligh^; in 
 finding he need not give up his pet — even 
 for seventy-five dollars. He tried to recall 
 his father's invectives against dogs, and to 
 remind himself that another mouth to feed 
 on the farm must mean still sharper pov- 
 erty and skimping. But logic could not 
 strangle joy, and life took on a new zest 
 for the lonely man. 
 
 21 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 By the time Chum could limp around on 
 the fast-heahng foreleg, he and Link had 
 established a friendship that was a boon to 
 both and a stark astonishment to Ferris. 
 
 Link had always loved animals. He had 
 an inborn "way" with them. Yet his own 
 inteUigence had long since taught him that 
 his "farm critters" responded but dully to 
 his attempts at a more perfect tmder- 
 standing. 
 
 He knew, for example, that the horse he 
 had bred and reared and had taught to 
 come at his call, would doubtless suffer the 
 first passing stranger to mount him and 
 ride him away, despite any call from his 
 lifelong master. He knew that his pres- 
 ence, to the cattle and sheep, meant only 
 food or a shift of quarters; and that an 
 outsider could drive or tend them as readily 
 as could he on whose farm they had been 
 bom. Their possible affection for him was 
 
 22 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 a hazy thing, based solely on what he fed 
 them and on their occasional jmild interest 
 in being petted. 
 
 But with Chum it was all different. The 
 dog learned quickly his new master's moods 
 and met them in kind. The few simple 
 tricks Link sought to teach him were 
 grasped with bewildering ease. There was 
 a human quality of sympathy and compan- 
 ionship which radiated almost visibly from 
 Chvun. His keen collie brain was forever 
 amazing Ferris by its flashes of perception. 
 The dog was a revelation and an endless 
 source of pleasure to the hermit-farmer. 
 
 When Chum was whole of his hurt and 
 when the injured leg had knit so firmly 
 that the last trace of lameness was gone, 
 Link fell to recalling his father's preach- 
 ments as to the havoc wrought by dogs 
 upon sheep. He could not afford to lose 
 the leanest and toughest of his little sheep 
 
 23 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 flock — even as price for the happiness of 
 owning a comrade. Link puzzled sorely 
 over this. 
 
 Then one morning it occurred to him to 
 put the matter up to Chum himself. Hith- 
 erto he had kept the dog around the house, 
 except on their daily walks; and he had 
 always tied him when driving the sheep to 
 or from pasture. This morning he took the 
 collie along when he went out to release the 
 tiny flock from their barnyard fold and 
 send them out to graze. 
 
 Link opened the fold gate, one hand on 
 Chum's collar. Out billowed the sheep in 
 a ragged scramble. Chum quivered with 
 excitement as the woolly catapults surged 
 past him. Eagerly he looked up into his 
 master's face, then back at the tumbling 
 creatures. 
 
 "Chum!" spoke Ferris sharply. "Leave 
 'em be! Get that? Leave 'em he!" 
 
 24 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 He tightened his hold on the collar as he 
 gave the command. Chum ceased to quiver 
 in eagerness and stood still, half puzzled, 
 half grieved by the man's imwonted tone. 
 
 The sheep, at sight and smell of the dog, 
 rushed jostlingly from their pen and scat- 
 tered in every direction, through barnyard 
 and garden and nearer fields. Bleating 
 and stampeding, they ran. Link Ferris 
 blinked after them, and broke into speech. 
 Loudly and luridly he swore. 
 
 This stampede might well mean an hour's 
 nmning to and fro before the scattered 
 flock could be herded once more. An hour 
 of panting and blasphemous pursuit, at the 
 very outset of an overbusy day. And aU 
 because of one worthless dog. 
 
 His father had been right. Link saw 
 that — ^now that it was too late. A dog had 
 no place on a farm. A poor man could not 
 afford the silly luxury of a useless pet. 
 
 26 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 With whistle and call Ferris sought to 
 check the flight of the flock. But, as every 
 farmer knows, there is nothing else on 
 earth quite so unreasonable and idiotic as a 
 scared sheep. The familiar summons did 
 not slacken nor swerve the stampede. 
 
 The fact that this man had been their 
 protector and friend made no difference to 
 the idiotic sheep. They were frightened. 
 And, therefore, the tenuously thin connect- 
 ing line between them and their human 
 master had snapped. For the moment they 
 were merely wild animals, and he was a 
 member of a hostile race — ^almost as much 
 as was the huge dog that had caused their 
 fright. 
 
 A wistful whine from Chum interrupted 
 Link's volley of swearing. The dog had 
 noted his masfter's angry excitement and 
 was seeking to offer sympathy or help. 
 
 But the reminder of Chum's presence did 
 
 26 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 not check Link's wrath at the unconscious 
 cause of the stampede. He loosed his hold 
 on the collar, resolving to take out his rage 
 in an unmerciful beating should the dog 
 seek to chase the fleeing sheep. That would 
 be at least an outlet for the impotent wrath 
 which Ferris sou^t to wreak on someone 
 or something. 
 
 "Gk) get 'em then, if you're so sot on it!" 
 he howled at the collie, waving a windmill 
 arm at the fugitives. "Only I'll whale 
 yoin* measly head off if you do!" 
 
 The invitation and the gesture that went 
 with it seemed to rouse some long-dormant 
 memory in the collie's soul. Like a flash he 
 was off in flying piu-suit of the sheep. 
 Ferris, in the crazy rage which possessed 
 him, hoped Chum might bite at least one 
 of the senseless creatures that were causing 
 him such a waste of precious time and of 
 grudged effort. 
 
 27 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 Wherefore he did not call back the fast- 
 running collie. It would be time enough to 
 whale the daylight out of him — ^yes, and 
 to rescue his possible victims from death — 
 when the dog should have overhauled the 
 woolly pests. So, in dom* fmy. Link 
 watched the pursuit and the flight. 
 
 Then, of a sudden, the black rage in 
 Perris's visage changed to perplexity, and 
 slowly from that to crass wonderment. 
 
 Six of the sheep had remained bunched 
 in their runaway dash, while all the rest 
 had scattered singly. It was after this 
 bleating sextet that Chum was now racing. 
 
 Nor did he stop when he came up with 
 them. Tearing past them he wheeled 
 almost in midair and slackened his pace, 
 running transversely ahead of them and 
 breaking into a clamor of barks. 
 
 The six, seeing their foe menacing them 
 from in front, came to a jumbled and 
 
 28 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 slithering halt, preparing to break their 
 fwmation and to scatter. But Chum would 
 not have it so. 
 
 Still threatening them with his thun- 
 derous bark he made little dashes at one 
 or another of them that tried to break 
 away; and he crowded back the rest. 
 
 As a result, there was but one direction 
 the dazed sheep could take — ^the direction 
 whence they had come. And, uncertainly, 
 shamblingly, they made their way back 
 toward the fold. 
 
 Scarce had they been fairly started in 
 their cowed progress when Chum was off 
 at a tangent, deserting his six charges and 
 bearing down with express train speed on 
 a stray wether that had paused in his escape 
 to nibble at a line of early peas in the 
 truck garden. 
 
 At sight of the approaching collie the 
 sheep flung up its head and began again to 
 
 29 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 run. But the dog was in front of it, which- 
 ever way the panic-stricken animal turned; 
 ■ — in every direction but one. And in that 
 direction fled the fugitive. Nor did it stop 
 in its headlong flight until it was alongside 
 the six which Chum had first "turned." 
 
 Pausing only long enough to round up 
 one of two sheep which were breaking loose 
 from the bimch Chum was off again in 
 headlong chase of still another and another 
 and another stray. 
 
 Link Ferris, in blank incredulity, stood 
 gaping at the pictm-e before him — staring 
 at the tireless swiftness of his dog in turn- 
 ing back and rounding up a scattered flock 
 which Ferris himself could not have 
 bunched in twenty times the space of min- 
 utes. Chum, he noted, did not touch one 
 of the foolish beasts. His bark and his zig- 
 zag dashes served the purpose, without the 
 aid of teeth or of actual contact. 
 
 30 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 Presently, as the dumf ounded man gazed, 
 the last stray was added to the milling, 
 bleating bvmch, and Chum was serenely 
 trotting to and fro, driving back such of 
 the sheep as sought to break loose from 
 the huddle. Terrified and trembling, but 
 mastered, the flock cowered motionless. 
 The work was done. 
 
 As in a dream Link stumbled toward 
 the prisoners. His mind functioning sub- 
 consciously, he took up his interrupted task 
 of driving them to pasture. The moment 
 he succeeded in getting them into motion 
 they broke again. And again, like a furry 
 whirlvdnd. Chum was encircling them; chas- 
 ing the strays into place. He saw, with- 
 out being told, the course his master was 
 taking, and he drove his charges ac- 
 cordingly. 
 
 Thus, in far less time and in better order 
 than ever before, the flock reached the 
 
 31 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 rickety gateway of the stone-strewn sheep 
 pasture and scuttled jostlingly in through 
 it. 
 
 Link shut the gate after them. Then, 
 still in a daze, he turned on the dog. 
 
 "Chum," he said confusedly, "it don't 
 make sense to me, not even yet. I don't 
 get the hang of it. But I know this much; 
 I know you got ten times the sense what 
 I've got. Where you got it an' how you 
 got it the good Lord only knows. But 
 you've got it. I — I was figgerin' on lickin' 
 you 'most to death, a few minutes back. 
 Chum. Honest, I was. I'm clean 'shamed 
 to look you in the face when I think of it. 
 Say I Do me a favor. Chum. If ever I 
 lift hand to lick you, jes' bite me and give 
 me hydrophoby. For I'll sure be deservin' 
 it. Now come on home!" 
 
 He patted the silken head of the jubilant 
 dog as he talked, rumphng the soft ears 
 
 32 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 and stroking the long, blazed muzzle. He 
 was sick at heart at memory of his recent 
 murderous rage at this wonder-comrade of 
 his. 
 
 Chum was exultantly happy. He had 
 had a most exhilarating ten minutes. The 
 j oiliest bit of fun he could remember in all 
 his two years of hfe. The sight of those 
 queer sheep — ^yes, and the scent of them, 
 especially the scent — had done queer things 
 to his brain ; had aroused a million sleeping 
 ancestral memories. 
 
 He had understood perfectly well his 
 master's order that he leave them alone. 
 And he had been disappointed by it. He 
 himself had not known clearly what it was 
 he would have liked to do to them. But 
 he had known he and they ought to have 
 some sort of relationship. And then at the 
 gesture and the snarled command of "Go 
 get them I" some closed door in Chum's 
 
 38 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 mind had swung wide, and, acting on an 
 instinct he himself did not understand, he 
 had hm-led himself into the gay task of 
 rounding up the flock. 
 
 So, for a thousand generations on the 
 Scottish lulls, had Chum's ancestors earned 
 their right to live. And so through suc- 
 cessive generations had they imbued their 
 progeny with that accomplishment until it 
 had become a primal instinct. Even as the 
 unbroken pointer of the best type knows 
 by instinct the rudiments of his work in the 
 field so win many a collie take up sheep 
 herding by ancestral training. 
 
 There had been nothing wonderful in 
 Chmn's exploit. Hundreds of untrained 
 coUies have done the same thing on their 
 first sight of sheep. The craving to chase 
 and slay sheep is a mere perversion of this 
 olden instinct; just as the disorderly "flush- 
 ing" and scattering of bird coveys is a 
 
 34 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 perversion of lihe pointer or setter instinct. 
 Chum, luckily for himself and for his mas- 
 ter's jflock, chanced to run true to form in 
 this matter of heredity, instead of inher- 
 iting his tendency in the form of a taste for 
 sheep mvu-der. 
 
 The first collie, back in prehistoric days, 
 was the first dog with the wit to know his 
 master's sheep apart from all other sheep. 
 Perhaps that is the best, if least scientific, 
 theory of the coUie's origin. 
 
 But to Link Ferris's unsophisticated eyes 
 the achievement was all but supernatural, 
 and it doubled his love for the dog. 
 
 That afternoon, by way of experiment, 
 Ferris took Chum along when he went to 
 drive the sheep back from pasture to the 
 fold. By the time he and the dog were 
 within a hundred yards of the pasture 
 gate Chum began to dance, from sheer 
 anticipation; mincing sidewise on the tips 
 
 3S 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 of his toes in true collie fashion, and vary- 
 ing the dance by little rushes forward. 
 
 Link opened the crazy gate. Waiting 
 for no further encouragement the dog sped 
 into the broad field and among the grazing 
 sheep that were distributed unevenly over 
 the entire area of the lot. 
 
 Ordinarily — ^unless the sheep were ready 
 to come home — ^it was a matter of ten or 
 fifteen minutes each evening for Link to 
 coUect them and start them on their way. 
 To-day, in less than three minutes, Chum 
 had the whole flock herded and trotting 
 through the opening, to the lane outside. 
 
 Nor, this time, did the sheep flee from 
 him in the same panic dread as in the 
 morning. They seemed to have learned — 
 if indeed a s/heep can ever leam anything 
 — that Chum was their driver, not their 
 enemy. 
 
 From the fold Link as usual went to the 
 
 36 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 woodlot where his five head of lean milch 
 cattle were at graze. Three of the cows 
 were waiting at the bars for him, but one 
 heifer and a new-dry Holstein were hidden 
 somewhere in the recesses of the second- 
 growth timber. 
 
 The afternoon was hot; it had been a 
 hot day. Link was tired. He dreaded the 
 labor of exploring ten acres of mider- 
 growth for his two missing cattle. An in- 
 spiration came to him. Pointing to the 
 three stolidly waiting cows at the bars he 
 waved his arm in the general direction of 
 the lot and called on Chimi: 
 "Go find 'em I Bring 'em inl" 
 Almost before the words were spoken 
 Ferris regretted them. He hated to dim 
 the luster of his dog's earlier exploits by 
 giving him a job beyond his skiU. And this 
 time Chima did not flash forward with his 
 former zest. He stood, ears cocked, glanc- 
 
 37 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 ing uncertainly from Link to the three cows 
 abeady waiting. 
 
 Then, as he stiH peered doubtfully, one 
 of the bovine trio took fright at the dog and 
 trotted clumsily away toward the woods. 
 Link gave chase. He had not gone three 
 steps before Chimi caught the idea. Whirl- 
 ing past Ferris he headed off the surprised, 
 indignant cow, and by dint of a flurry of 
 barks and dashes started her back toward 
 the bars. 
 
 Her beU jangled dolefully as she obeyed 
 the noisy urge. And from somewhere 
 among the bushes, two hundred yards away, 
 a second cowbell sounded in answer. At 
 this distant tinkle Chum evidently grasped 
 the meaning of his master's earlier man- 
 date. For he galloped away in the direction 
 of the sound. 
 
 And presently, with much crashing of 
 undergrowth, appeared the rebellious heifer, 
 
 38 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 driven on by Chum. After depositing her, 
 sulky and plunging, at the bars. Chum 
 vanished again — in apparent response to 
 another far-off bell jangle. And in three 
 minutes more he was back at the bars with 
 the fifth cow. 
 
 "Lucky one was a heifer 'an' the other 
 one dry!" commented Link to the collie, 
 after petting him and praising him for the 
 exploit. "I'U have to learn you to drive 
 milch cows easy an' quiet. You can't run 
 'em like you run sheep an' yearlin's. But 
 apart from that, you sure done grand. 
 You can lop off an hour a day of my 
 work if I c'n send you reg'lar for the 
 critters. That ought to be worth the price 
 of your keep, by itself. Now if I c'n learn 
 you how to milk an' maybe how to mow — 
 well, 'twouldn't be a hull lot queerer'n the 
 stunts you done to-day I" 
 
 39 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 It was perhaps a week later that Link 
 Ferris received his quarterly check from 
 the Paterson Vegetable Market. These 
 checks hitherto had been the brightest spots 
 in Link's routine. Not only did the money 
 for his hard-raised farm products mean a 
 replenishing of the always scant larder and 
 an easing of the chronic fiscal strain be- 
 tween himself and the Hampton general- 
 store's proprietor, but sometimes enough 
 spare cash was left over to allow Ferris to 
 get very satisfactorily drunk. 
 
 Since Chum's advent, the old gnawing 
 of loneliness had not goaded Link to the 
 Hampton tavern. As a consequence, he 
 had a dollar or two more on hand than 
 was usual at such times. This wealth was 
 swelled still further by the fact that a 
 boost in vegetable prices had fattened his 
 quarterly check beyond its wonted size. 
 
 All this and his long abstinence seemed 
 
 40 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 to call for a real celebration. And Link 
 looked forward with a thrill of merry 
 anticipation to the coming of night. 
 
 As soon as he could clear away his eve- 
 ning chores and swallow some supper he 
 fared forth to the village. This was going 
 to be one of those nights to date time from. 
 Not a miserable half -jag, stopped in mid- 
 career by lack of funds and of credit — a 
 nipped-in-the-bud debauch, such as so often 
 had sent him home cranky and vmsatisfied 
 and railing against poverty. No, this was 
 going to be the real thing — a record per- 
 formance, even for these pre-prohibition 
 times. 
 
 Ferris fed the collie and shut him into 
 the kitchen, pending his own return from 
 Hampton. If Link were going to become 
 blissfully and helplessly drimk, as he had 
 every hope of being, someone might take 
 advantage of his condition to steal his pre- 
 
 41 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 cious dog. Therefore Chum was best left 
 safe at home. This Link explained very 
 carefuUy to the interestedly hstening collie. 
 And Chum, with head and brush a-droop, 
 walked meekly into the kitchen at his mas- 
 ter's behest. 
 
 Link set off for the village, happy in the 
 feeling that his home was so well guarded 
 and that he would find a loving friend 
 waiting to welcome him on his return. 
 What with ready money and a real friend 
 and the prospect of getting whole-souledly 
 drunk — the world was not such a rotten 
 place to live in after all! 
 
 As a rule, on these occasions, Ferris first 
 went to the Hampton store. There he was 
 wcHit to cash his cheek,i pay his long- 
 standing bill, order his new supplies — and 
 then, with a free heart, sally forth to the 
 Hampton tavern. But to-night, having 
 money in his pocket apart from the check, 
 
 42 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 he decided to pay a preliminary call at the 
 tavern, just by way of warming up, before 
 going on to the store. 
 
 There were few people in the barroom 
 at so early an hour of the evening and on 
 so early an evening of the week. Link 
 nodded affably to one or two men he knew 
 and bade them line up at the bar with 
 him. After the second drink he prepared 
 to leave. To the tavern's proprietor, who 
 was mildly surprised at the brevity of his 
 call, Ferris explained that he was going 
 across to the store to get his check cashed 
 and that he would be back later. 
 
 Whereat the proprietor kindly offered 
 to save Link the journey by cashing the 
 check for him; a suggestion Ferris gladly 
 accepted. He passed the indorsed check 
 across the bar and received for it a com- 
 fortably large wad of wilted greenbacks 
 which he proceeded to intern with tender 
 
 43 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 care in an inside pocket of his vest, where 
 he moored them with a safety-pin. Then he 
 ordered another drink. 
 
 But to this new order there was an in- 
 stant demurrer. Two strangers, who had 
 been drinking at a corner table, bore down 
 upon Link right lovingly; and recalled 
 themselves to his memory as companions of 
 his on a quite forgotten debauch of a year 
 or two back. 
 
 Link did not at all remember either of 
 the two. But then he often failed to recall 
 people he had met on a spree, and he did 
 not like to hurt these cordial revelers' 
 feelings by disclaiming knowledge of them. 
 Especially when they told him merrily that, 
 for this evening at least, his money was 
 made of wood and that he must be their 
 guest. 
 
 Never before had he met with such whole- 
 souled hospitality. One drink followed 
 
 44 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 another with gratifying speed. Once or 
 twice Ferris made half-hearted proffers to 
 do some of the buying. But such hints 
 seemed to hurt his hosts' feelings so cruelly 
 that he forbore at last, and suffered him- 
 self to drink entirely at their expense. 
 
 They were much the nicest men Link 
 had ever met. They flattered him. They 
 laughed uproariously at his every witti- 
 cism. They had a genius for noting when 
 his glass was empty. They listened with 
 astonished admiration to his boastful recital 
 of Chum's cleverness. One of them, who, 
 it seemed, was an expert in dog lore, told 
 him how to teach the colhe to shake hands 
 and to lie down and to "speak." They 
 were magnificent men, in every way. Link 
 was ashamed to have forgotten his earher 
 meetings with such paragons. 
 
 But the call of duty never quite dies into 
 silence. And finally Link remembered he 
 
 45 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 had still his store bill to pay and his sup- 
 phes to order. So he announced that he 
 must go. The store, he knew, closed at 
 nine. He looked up at the barroom clock. 
 But its face was hazy and it seemed to 
 have a great many hands. There was no 
 use trying to learn the hour from so disso- 
 lute a timepiece. 
 
 His two friends persuaded him to have 
 one more drink. Then they volunteered to 
 go across to the store with him. He left 
 the tavern, with one of the two walking on 
 either side of him. He was glad to be in 
 the center of the trio; for, as the night air 
 struck him, he became unaccountably dizzy. 
 His friends' willing arms were a grand 
 support to his wavering legs. 
 
 On the unlighted threshold of the tavern 
 Link stumbled heavily over something — 
 something that had been lying there and 
 that sprang eagerly toward him as he de- 
 
 46 
 
THE DERELICT 
 
 bouched from the doorway. The reason he 
 stumbled over it was that the creature, 
 which had bounded so rapturously toward 
 him, had come to a sharp halt at noting 
 his condition. Thus, Ferris stumbled over 
 it; and would have fallen but for the aid 
 of his friends. 
 
 The single village street was pitch black. 
 Not a light was to be seen. This puzzled 
 Link; who had no means of knowdng that 
 the time was close on midnight. He 
 started toward the store. At least that 
 was the direction he planned to take. But 
 when, at the end of five minutes, he found 
 he was outside the village and on a narrow 
 road that bordered the lake, he saw his 
 friends had mistaken the way. He stopped 
 abruptly and told them so. 
 
 One of them laughed; as if Link had said 
 something funny. The other did something 
 quickly with one foot and one arm. Fer- 
 
 47 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 ris's legs went from under him. The jar 
 of his fall shook from him a fraction of 
 his drunkenness, and it gave him enough 
 sense to realize that the man who had 
 laughed was trying to unfasten the pinned 
 inner pocket of the fallen man's vest. 
 
 Now for years that pocket had been the 
 secret repository of Link Ferris's sparse 
 wealth. The intruder's touch awakened 
 him to a drowsy sense of peril. He thrust 
 aside the fimibling hand and made a her- 
 culean effort to rise. 
 
 At this show of resistance his two com- 
 rades, as by concerted signal, threw them- 
 selves upon him. With a yell of angry 
 fright Link coUapsed to earth under the 
 dual impact. 
 
 4B 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BATTLE 
 
 HE FELT one of the men pinion 
 his waving arms, while the other 
 crouched on his legs and proceeded 
 to impin the money pocket. Ferris strug- 
 gled for an instant in futile fury, trying 
 to shout for help. The call was strangled 
 in his throat. But the help came to him, 
 none the less. 
 
 Scarce three seconds had passed since the 
 attempt to roh him had set Link into 
 action and had wrimg from him that yell 
 of consternation. 
 
 But in answer came a swirling patter of 
 feet on the road, a snarl like a wolf's, a 
 
 49 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 shape that catapulted through the dark. 
 Sixty pounds of fur-swathed dynamic mus- 
 cle smote athwart the shoulders of the man 
 who was unfastening the cash pocket's pin. 
 
 The impact hurled the fellow clean off 
 his crouching balance and sent him sprawl- 
 ing, face downward, his outflimg hands 
 splashing in the margin of the lake. Before 
 he could roU over or so much as stir, a 
 set of white fangs met in his shoulder-flesh. 
 And he testified to his injury by an el- 
 dritch screech of pain and terror that echoed 
 far across the water. 
 
 His companion, rallying from the mo- 
 mentary shock, left Ferris and charged at 
 the prostrate thief's assailant. But Chum 
 met him, with a fierce eagerness, more than 
 half way. 
 
 A true collie — thanks to his strain of 
 wolf blood — fights as does no other dog. 
 What he lacks in stubborn determination 
 
 50 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 he atones for by swiftness and by his 
 vmcanny brain power. 
 
 A bulldog, for example, would have 
 flown to his master's rehef quite as readily 
 as did Chum. But a bulldog would have 
 secured the first convenient hold and would 
 have hung on to that hold, whether it were 
 at his victim's throat or only on the slack 
 of his trousers — until someone should ham- 
 mer him into senselessness. 
 
 Chum — coUie-f ashion — was everywhere 
 at once, using his brain far more than his 
 flying jaws. Finding the grip in his foe's 
 shoulder did not prevent the man from 
 twisting round to grapple him, the collie 
 shifted that grip with lightning speed, and 
 with one of his gleaming eyeteeth slashed 
 his opponent's half-turned cheek from eye 
 to chin. Then he bored straight for the 
 jugular. 
 
 It was at this crisis that he sensed, rather 
 
 61 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 than saw, the other man rushing at him. 
 Chum left his fallen antagonist and whirled 
 about to face the new enemy. As he was 
 still turning, he sprang far to one side, in 
 bare time to elude a swinging kick aimed 
 at his head. 
 
 Then, before the thief could recover the 
 balance endangered by so mighty a kick, 
 the collie had whirled in and sunk his teeth 
 deep in the man's calf. The bitten man 
 let out a roar of pain, and smote wildly at 
 the dog's face with both swinging fists. 
 
 Chum leaped back out of range, and 
 then, with the same bewildering speed, 
 flashed in again and buried his curved fangs 
 in the nearest of the two flailing forearms. 
 
 The first victim of the collie's attack 
 was scrambling to his feet. So was Link 
 Ferris. Sobered enough to recognize his 
 beloved dog, he also saw the new-risen 
 thief catch up a broken fence rail, brandish 
 
 62 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 it aloft and charge upon the coUie, who 
 was still battling merrily with the second 
 man. 
 
 To Link it seemed that nothing could 
 save Chimi from a back-ibreaking blow 
 from the huge club. Instinctively he ran 
 at the wielder of the formidable weapon. 
 Staggering and sick and two-thirds drunk, 
 Ferris, nevertheless, made valiant effort to 
 save the dog that was fighting so gallantly 
 for him. 
 
 His lurching rush carried him across the 
 narrow road and to the lake edge, barely 
 in time to intercept the swinging sweep 
 of the fence rail. It caught him glancingly 
 across the side. And its force carried him 
 clean off his none-too-steady feet. Down 
 went Ferris — down and backward. His 
 body plunged noisily into the water. 
 
 Chiun had wheeled to face the rail's 
 brandisher. But at sight of his master's 
 
 53 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 sudden immersion in the lake, he quitted the 
 fray. At top speed the dog cleared the 
 bank and jumped down into the water in 
 pursuit of Ferris. 
 
 It evidently dawned on both men at once 
 that there had been a good deal of noise, 
 for what was to have been a silent and 
 decorous holdup. Also that a raging colhe 
 is not a pleasant foe. The racket might 
 well draw interference from outside. The 
 dog was overhard to kill, and his bites were 
 murderous. The game had ceased to be 
 worth the candle. By common impulse the 
 pair took to their heels. 
 
 Link Ferris, head down in the cold water, 
 was strangling in his maudlin efforts to 
 right himself. He dug both hands into the 
 lake-bottom mud and strove to gain the 
 surface. But the effort was too much for 
 him. A second frantic heave had better 
 results. And vaguely he knew why. 
 
 54 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 For Chum had managed to get a firm 
 bold on the shoulder of his master's coat — 
 twelve inches under water — and had braced 
 himself with all his wiry strength for a tug 
 which should lift Ferris to the sm-face. 
 
 This added leverage barely made Link's 
 own struggle a success. The half -drowned 
 man regained his footing. Floimdering 
 waist-deep in water, he clambered up the 
 steeply shelving bank to shore. There at 
 the road's edge he lay, gasping and sput- 
 tering and fighting for breath. 
 
 Chum had been pulled under and out of 
 his depth by Link's exertions. Now, com- 
 ing to the surface, he swam to shore and 
 trotted up the bank to the road. Absurdly 
 lank and small, with his soaking coat plas- 
 tered close to his shm body, he stood over 
 his prostrate master. 
 
 The dog's quick glare up and down the 
 road told him his foes were gone. His 
 
 66 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 incredible sense of hearing registered the 
 far-off pad-pad-pad of fast-retreating hu- 
 man feet, and showed him the course the 
 two men were taking. He would have 
 liked to give chase. It had been a good 
 fight — lively and exciting withal — and 
 Chum wished he might carry it into the 
 enemies' own country. 
 
 But his god was lying helpless at his feet 
 and making queer sounds of distress. The 
 dog's place was here. The joy of battle 
 must be foregone. 
 
 Solicitously Chum leaned over Ferris and 
 sought to lick the sufferer's face. As he 
 did so his supersensitive nostrils were smit- 
 ten by an odor which caused the collie to 
 shrink back in visible disgust. The sickly, 
 pungent smell of whisky. on Ferris's labored 
 breath nauseated Chum. He stood, head 
 recoiled, looking down at Link in bewil- 
 derment. 
 
 66 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 There were many things, this night, 
 which Chum did not understand. First of 
 all, he had been grieved and oflPended that 
 Ferris should have locked him in the kitchen 
 instead of taking him along as usual on his 
 evening stroll. It had been lonely in the 
 unlighted kitchen. Link had not ordered 
 the dog to stay there. He had simply shut 
 Chum in and left him. 
 
 So, tiring at last of solitude, the coUie had 
 leaped lightly out of the nearest window. 
 The window had been open. Its thin mos- 
 quito net covering had not served in the 
 least as a deterrent to the departing Chum. 
 
 To pick up his master's trail — and to hold 
 to it even when it merged with a score of 
 others at the edge of the village — ^had been 
 absurdly simple. The trail had led to a 
 house with closed doors. So, after circling 
 the tavern to find if his master had gone out 
 by any other exit, Chum had curled himself 
 
 67 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 patiently on the doorstep and had waited for 
 Link to emerge. 
 
 Several people had come in and out while 
 he lay there. But all of them had shut the 
 door too soon for him to slip inside. 
 
 At last Ferris had appeared, between his 
 two new friends. Chum had been friskily 
 happy to see his long-absent god again. He 
 had sprung forward to greet Link. Then, 
 his odd collie sense had told him that for 
 some reason this staggering and hiccuping 
 creature was not the master whom he knew 
 and loved. This man was strangely different 
 from the Link Ferris whom Chum knew. 
 
 Puzzled, the dog had halted and had 
 stood irresolute. As he stood there, Ferris 
 had stumbled heavily over him, hurting the 
 collie's ribs and his tender flesh; and had 
 meandered on without so much as a word or 
 a look for his pet. 
 
 Chum, still irresolute and bewildered, had 
 
 58 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 followed at a distance the swaying prog- 
 ress of the trio, until Link's yell and the at- 
 tack had brought him in ftu-ious haste to 
 Ferris's rescue. 
 
 Link presently recovered enough of his 
 breath to enable him to move. The duck- 
 ing in icy water had cleared his bemused 
 brain. Approximately sober, he got to his 
 feet and stood swaying and dazed. As he 
 rose, his groping hand closed over some- 
 thing cold and hard that had fallen to the 
 ground beside him. And he recognized it. 
 So he picked it up and stuck it into his 
 pocket. 
 
 It was a pint flask of whisky — one he 
 had received as a farewell gift from his two 
 friends as the three had left the tavern. It 
 had been an easy gift for the men to make. 
 For they were confidently certain of recov- 
 ering it a few minutes later when they should 
 go through their victim's clothes. 
 
 69 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 Dawning intelligence told Link lie had 
 not come through the adventure very badly, 
 after all — thanks to Chum. Ferris well un- 
 derstood now why the thieves had picked 
 acquaintance with him at sight of his money, 
 and why they had gotten him drimk. 
 
 The memory of what he had escaped 
 gave him a new quahn of nausea. The loss 
 of his cash would have meant suspended 
 credit at the store and the leanest three 
 months he had ever known. 
 
 But soon the joy in his triumph wiped out 
 this thought. 
 
 The native North Jersey mountaineer 
 has a peculiar vein of cunning which makes 
 him morhidly eager to get the best of any- 
 one at all — even if the victory brings him 
 nothing worth while. 
 
 Link Ferris had had an evening of lim- 
 itless liquor. He stUl had a pint of whisky 
 to take home. And it had cost him not a 
 
 60 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 cent, except for his first two rounds of 
 drinks. 
 
 He had had his spree. He still had all 
 his check money. And he had a flask of 
 whisky. True, he had been roughly handled. 
 And he had had a ducking in the lake. But 
 those were his sole liabilities. They were 
 insignificant by comparison to his assets. 
 
 He grinned in smug self-gratulation. 
 Then his eye fell on Chum, standing ten 
 feet away, looking uncertainly at him. 
 
 Chum! To Chum he owed it all! He 
 owed the dog his money, perhaps his very 
 life. Yes — as he rehearsed the struggle to 
 get out of the lake — ^he owed the collie his 
 life as well as his victory over the holdup 
 men. To Chum! 
 
 A great wave of love and gratitude 
 surged up in Ferris. He had a sloppily 
 idiotic yearning to throw his arms about the 
 dog's fiu-ry neck and kiss him. But he 
 
 61 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 steadied himself and chirped to the collie 
 to come nearer. Slowly, with queer reluc- 
 tance, Chum obeyed. 
 
 "Listen," mvmibled Link incoherently, 
 "I saved you from dying from a bust leg 
 and hunger the night I fust met you, Chum- 
 mie. An' tonight you squared the biU by 
 saving me from drownin'. But I'm still 
 a whole lot in your debt, friend. I owe 
 you for all the cash in my pocket an' — an' 
 for a pint of the Stuff that Killed Father 
 — an' — an' maybe for a beatin' that might 
 of killed me. Chum, I guess God did a 
 reel day's work when He built you. I — 
 I — Let it go at that. Only I ain't forget- 
 tin'. Nor yet I ain't li'ble to forget. Come 
 on home. I'm a-gittin' the chatters!" 
 
 He had been stroking the oddly unre- 
 sponsive dog's head as he spoke. Now, 
 for the first time, Link realized that the 
 night was cool, that his drenched clothes 
 
 62 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 were like ice on him, and that the cold and 
 the shock reaction were giving him a sharp 
 congestive chill. Walking fast to restore 
 circulation to his numbed body he made off 
 for his distant farmhouse. Chum pattering 
 along at his heels. 
 
 The rapid walk set him into a glow. But 
 by the time he had reached home and had 
 stripped off his wet clothes and swathed 
 himself in a rough blanket, his racked nerves 
 reasserted themselves. He craved a drink 
 — a number of drinks — ^to restore his wonted 
 poise. Lighting the kitchen lamp, he set the 
 whisky bottle on the table and put a thick 
 tumbler alongside it. Chum was lying at 
 his master's feet. In front of Ferris was a 
 pint of good cheer. The lamplight made 
 the kitchen bright and cozy. Link felt a 
 sense of utter well-being pervade him. 
 
 This was home — ^this was the real thing. 
 Three successive and man-size drinks of 
 
 63 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 whisky presently made it seem more and 
 more the real thing. They made all things 
 seem possible, and most things highly desir- 
 able. Link wanted to sing. And after two 
 additional drinks he gratified this taste by 
 lifting his voice in a hiccup -punctuated 
 ditty addressed to one Jenny, whom the 
 singer exhorted to wait tiU the clouds rolled 
 
 by. 
 
 He was following this appeal by a rural 
 lyric which recited in somewhat wearisome 
 tonal monotony the adventures of a Little 
 Black Bull that came Over the Mountain, 
 when he observed that Chum was no longer 
 lying at his feet. Indeed, the dog was in a 
 far corner of the room, pressed close to the 
 closed outer door, and with crest and ruflp 
 a-droop. 
 
 Puzzled by his pet's defection. Link im- 
 periously commanded Chum to return to his 
 former place. The collie, in most unwill- 
 
 64 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 ing obedience, turned about and came slow- 
 ly toward the drinker. 
 
 Every line of Chum's splendid body told 
 of reluctance to approach his master. The 
 deep-set, dark eyes were eloquent of a 
 frightened disgust. He looked at Ferris 
 as at some loathely stranger. The glad 
 light of loyalty, which always had trans- 
 figured his visage when Link called to him, 
 was woefully lacking. Drunk as he was 
 Ferris could not help noticing the change. 
 And he marveled at it. 
 
 "Whasser matter?" he demanded truc- 
 ulently. "What ails yer? Cm here, I'm 
 tellin'you!" 
 
 He stretched out his hand in rough 
 caress to the slowly approaching collie. 
 Chum shrank back from the touch as a 
 child from a dose of castor oil. There was 
 no fear now in his aspect. Only disgust 
 and a poignant imhappiness. 
 
 63 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 And, all suddenly. Link Ferris under- 
 stood. 
 
 He himself did not know how the knowl- 
 edge came to him. A canine psychologist 
 might perhaps have told him that there is 
 always an occult telepathy between the 
 mind of a thoroughbred dog and its master, 
 a power which gives them a glimpse into 
 each other's processes of thought. But there 
 was no such psychologist there to explain 
 the thing. Nor did Link need it explained. 
 It was enough for him that he knew. 
 
 He knew, as by revelation, that his ador- 
 ing dog now shunned him because Link 
 was drunk. 
 
 From the first, Chtmi's look of utter wor- 
 ship and his eagerly happy obedience had 
 been a joy to Link. The subtly complete 
 change in his worshiper's demeanor jarred 
 sharply on the man's raw nerves. He felt 
 vaguely unclean — shamed. 
 
 66 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 The contempt of such of his pious hu- 
 man neighbors as had passed him in the 
 road during his sprees had affected Link 
 not at all. Nor now could he understand the 
 queer feeling of humiliation that swept over 
 him at sight of the horrified repugnance 
 in the eyes of this mere brute beast. It 
 roused him to a gust of hot vexation. 
 
 "Shamed of me, are you?" he grunted 
 fiercely. "A dirty foiu'-legged critter's 
 'shamed of a he-man, hey? Well, we'll lick 
 that out of you, dam' soon!" 
 
 Lurching to his feet, he snatched up a 
 broom handle. He waved it menacingly 
 over the dog. Chum gave back not an inch. 
 Under the threat of a beating he stood his 
 ground, his brave eyes steadfast, and, lurk- 
 ing in their mystic depths, that same glint 
 of sorrowful wonder and disgust. 
 
 Up whirled the broomstick. But when 
 it fell it did not smite athwart the shoul- 
 
 67 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 ders of the sorrowing dog. Instead, it 
 clattered harmlessly to the board floor. And 
 to the floor also slumped Link Ferris, his 
 nerve all gone, his heart soggy with sud- 
 den remorse. 
 
 To his knees thudded the man, close be- 
 side the colhe. From Link's throat were 
 bm-sting great strangled sobs which tor- 
 tured his whole body and made his speech a 
 tangled jumble that was not pretty to hear. 
 
 "Chum I" he wailed brokenly, clutching 
 the dog's huge ruff in Tjoth shaky hands. 
 "Chum, old friend! Gawd forgive mel You 
 saved me from drowndin' an' from goin' 
 broke, this night! You been the only friend 
 that ever cared a hang if I was alive or 
 dead! An' — an' I was goin' to lick you I 
 I was goin' to lambaste you. Because I was 
 a beastlier beast than you be. I was goin' 
 to do it because you was so much better than 
 me that you was made sick by my bein' a 
 
 68 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 hawg. An' I was mad at you fer it. I'm — • 
 oh, I'm shameder than you are! Chtim! 
 Honest to Gawd, I ami Won't you make 
 friends again? Please, Chum!" 
 
 Now, of course, this was a most ridicu- 
 lous and maudlin way to talk. Moreover, 
 no man belongs on his knees beside a dog, 
 even though the man be a sot and the dog 
 a thoroughbred. In his calmer moments 
 Link Ferris would have known this. A 
 high-bred collie, too, has no use for sloppy 
 emotion, but shuns its exhibition well-nigh 
 as disgustedly as he shuns a drunkard. 
 
 Yet, for some illogical reason. Chum did 
 not seek to withdraw his aristocratic self 
 from the shivering clutch of the repentant 
 souse. Instead, the expression of misery 
 and repugnance fled as if by magic from 
 his brooding eyes. Into them in its place 
 leaped a light of keen solicitude. He 
 pressed closer to the swayingly kneeling 
 
 69 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 man, and with upthrust muzzle sought to 
 kiss the blubbering face. 
 
 The whisky reek was as strong as ever. 
 But something in Chum's soul was stronger. 
 He seemed to know that the maudlin 
 Unknown had vanished, and that his dear 
 master was back again — his dear master who 
 was in grievous trouble and who must be 
 comforted. 
 
 Wherefore, the sickening liquor fumes 
 no longer held him aloof from Link. Just 
 as the icy lake had not deterred him from 
 springing into the water after his drown- 
 ing god — although, like most collies. Chum 
 hated to swim. 
 
 Link, through his own nervous collapse, 
 recognized the instant change in Chum's 
 demeanor, and read it aright. It strength- 
 ened the old bond between himself and the 
 dog. It somehow gave him a less scornful 
 opinion of himself. 
 
 70 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 Presently he got to his feet, and with 
 the collie at his side went back to the table, 
 where stood the three-parts-empty flask. 
 His face working, Link opened the window 
 and poured what was left of the whisky out 
 on the ground. There was nothing dra- 
 matic about his action. Rather it was 
 tinged by very visible regret. Turning 
 back to Chum, he said sheepishly: 
 
 "There it goes. An' I ain't sayin' I'm 
 tickled at wastin' such good stuff. But — 
 somehow I guess we've come to a show- 
 down, Chum; you an' me. If I stick to 
 booze, I'm li'ble to see you looking at me 
 that queer way an' sidlin' away from me 
 all the time; till maybe at last you'd get 
 plimib sick of me for keeps, an' light out. 
 An' — I'd rather have you than the booze, 
 since I can't have both of you. Bein' only 
 a dawg and never bavin' tasted good red 
 liquor, you can't know what a big bouquet 
 
 71 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 I'm a-throwin' at you when I say that, 
 neither. I — Oh, let's call it a day and go to 
 sleep." 
 
 Next morning, in the course of nature. 
 Link Ferris worked with a splitting head- 
 ache. He carried it and a bad taste in 
 his mouth, for the best part of the day. 
 
 But it was the last drink headache which 
 marred his labor, all that long and happy 
 summer. His work showed the results of 
 the change. So did the meager hill farm. 
 So did Link's system and his pocket- 
 book. 
 
 As he was a real, live human and not a 
 temperance tract hero, there were times 
 when he girded bitterly at his self-enforced 
 abstinence. There were times, too — ^when 
 he had a touch of malaria and again when 
 the cutworms slaughtered two rows of his 
 early tomatoes — ^when he yearned unspeak- 
 
 72 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 ably for the solace of an evening at the 
 Hampton tavern. 
 
 He had never been a natural drinker. 
 Like many a better man he had drunk less 
 for what he sought to get than for what 
 he sought to forget. And with the depart- 
 ure of loneliness and the new interest in his 
 home, he felt less the need for wet convivi- 
 ality and for drugging his fits of melan- 
 choly. 
 
 The memory of Chum's grieAring repul- 
 sion somehow stuck in Ferris's mind. And 
 it served as a brake, more than once, to his 
 tavernward impulses. Two or three times, 
 also, when Link's babyish gusts of destruc- 
 tive bad temper boiled to the surface at 
 some setback or annoyance, much the same 
 wonderingly distressed look would creep 
 into the collie's glance — a look as of one 
 who is revolted by a dear friend's failure to 
 play up to form. And to his own amused 
 
 73 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 surprise, Ferris found himself trying to 
 curb these outbursts. 
 
 To the average human, a dog is only a 
 dog. To Ferris, this collie of his was the 
 one intimate friend of his life. Unversed 
 in the ways of dogs, he overestimated Chum, 
 of course, and valued his society and his 
 good opinion far more highly than the aver- 
 age man would have done. Thus, perhaps, 
 his desire to stand well in the dog's esteem 
 had in it more that was commendable than 
 ludicrous. Or perhaps not. 
 
 If the strange association did much for 
 Link, it did infinitely more for Chum. He 
 had found a master who had no social in- 
 terests in life beyond his dog, and who 
 covdd and did devote aU his scant leisure 
 horn's to association with that dog. Chmn's 
 sagacity and individuality blossomed under 
 such intensive tutelage, as might that of a 
 
 74 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 clever child who is the sole pupil of its 
 teacher. 
 
 Link did not seek to make a trick dog 
 of his pet. He taught Chum to shake 
 hands, to lie down, to "speak" and one or 
 two more simple accomplishments. It was 
 by talking constantly to the collie, as to a 
 fellow human, that he broadened the dog's 
 intelligence. Chum grew to know and to 
 interpret every inflection of Ferris's voice, 
 every simple word he spoke and every ges- 
 ture of his. 
 
 Apart from mere good fellowship the 
 dog was proving of great use on the farm. 
 Morning and night, Chum drove the sheep 
 and the cattle to their respective pastures 
 and then back to the barnyard at night. At 
 the entrances to the pastures, now, Ferris 
 had rigged up rude gates with "bar catch" 
 fastenings — simple contrivances which 
 closed by gravity and whose bars the dog 
 
 75 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 was readily taught to shove upward with 
 his nose. 
 
 It was thus a matter of only a few days 
 to teach Chum to open or close the light 
 gates. This trick has been taught to count- 
 less coUies, of course, in Great Britain, and 
 to many here. But Link did not know 
 that. He felt hke another Colximbus or 
 Edison, at his own genius in devising such 
 a scheme; and he felt an inordinate pride 
 in Chum for learning the simple exploit 
 iso quickly. 
 
 Of old, Link had fretted at the waste of 
 time in taking out the sheep and cows and 
 in going for them at night. This dual 
 duty was now a thing of the past. Chum 
 did the work for him, and reveled in the 
 excitement of it. Chum also — from watch- 
 ing Link perform the task twice — ^had 
 learned to drive the chickens out of the 
 garden patches whenever any of them 
 
 76 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 chanced to stray thither, and to scurry into 
 the cornfield with harrowing barks of ejec- 
 tion when a flock of crows hovered hungrily 
 above the newly-planted crops. 
 
 All of which was continual amusement 
 to Chum, and a tremendous help to his 
 owner. 
 
 Link, getting over his initial wonder at 
 the dog's progress, began to take these ac- 
 complishments as a matter of course. In- 
 deed, he was sometimes perplexed at the 
 otherwise sagacious dog's limitations of 
 brain. 
 
 For example, Chum loved the fire on the 
 chilly evenings such as creep over the moun- 
 tain region even in midsummer. He would 
 watch Link replenish the blaze with fresh 
 sticks whenever it sank low. 
 
 Yet, left to himself, he would let the fire 
 go out, and he never knew enough to pick 
 up a stick in his mouth and lay it on the em- 
 
 77 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 bers. This lack of reasoning powers in his 
 pet perplexed Ferris. 
 
 Link could not understand why the same 
 wit which sent Chum half a mile, of his own 
 accord, in search of one missing sheep out 
 of the entire flock, should not tell him that 
 a fire is kept alive by the putting of wood 
 on it. 
 
 In search of some better authority on dog 
 intelligence. Link paid his first visit to 
 Hampton's little pubKc library. There, 
 shamefacedly, he asked the boy in charge 
 for some books about dogs. The youth 
 looked idly for a few minutes in a cross- 
 index file. Then he brought forth a tome 
 called "The Double Garden" written by 
 someone who was evidently an Eyetalian 
 or Polack or other foreigner, because he bore 
 the grievously un-American name of "Mae- 
 terlinck." 
 
 "This is all I can find about dogs," ex- 
 
 78 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 plained the boy, passing the linen- jacketed 
 little volume across the counter to Link. 
 "First story in it is an essay on 'Our Friend, 
 the Dog,' the index says. Want it?" 
 
 That evening, by his kitchen lamp, Ferris 
 read laboriously the Belgian philosopher's 
 dog essay. He read it aloud — as he had 
 taken to thinking aloud — for Chum's bene- 
 fit. And there were many parts of the im- 
 mortal essay from which the man gleaned 
 no more sense than did the collie. 
 
 It began with a promising account of 
 a puppy named Pelleas. But midway it 
 branched off into something else. Some- 
 thing Link could not make head nor tail of. 
 Then, on second reading, bits of Maeter- 
 linck's meaning, here and there, seeped into 
 Ferris's bewilderedly groping intellect. 
 
 He learned, among other things, that 
 Man is aU alone on earth ; that most animals 
 don't know he is here, and that the rest of 
 
 79 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 them have no use for him. That even flow- 
 ers and crops will desert him and run again 
 to wildness, if Man turns his back on them 
 for a minute. So will his horse, his cow 
 and his sheep. They graft on him for a 
 living, and they hate or ignore him. 
 
 The dog alone, Link spelled out, has 
 pierced the vast barrier between humans 
 and other .beasts, and has ranged himself, 
 wilhngly and joyously, on the side of Man. 
 For Man's sake the dog will not only starve 
 and suffer and lay down his life, but will 
 betray his fellow quadrupeds. Man is the 
 dog's god. And the dog is the only living 
 mortal that has the privilege of looking upon 
 the face of his deity. 
 
 All of which was doubtless very inter- 
 esting, and part of which thrilled Ferris, 
 but none of which enlightened him as to 
 a dog's uncanny wisdom in certain things 
 and his blank stupidity in others. Next 
 
 80 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 day Link returned the book to the library, 
 no wiser than before, albeit with a higher 
 appreciation of his own good luck in being 
 the god of one splendid dog like Chiim. 
 
 July had drowsed into August, and 
 August was burning its sultry way toward 
 September. Link's quarterly check from 
 the Paterson Market arrived. And Fer- 
 ris went as usual to the Hampton store 
 to get it cashed. This time he stood in less 
 dire need of money's life-saving qualities 
 than of yore. It had been a good sum- 
 mer for Link. The liquor out of his sys- 
 tem and with a new interest in life, he had 
 worked with a snap and vigor which had 
 brought results in hard cash. 
 
 None the less, he was glad for this check. 
 In another month the annual interest on his 
 farm mortgage would fall due. And the 
 meeting of that payment was always a prob- 
 
 81 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 lem. This year he would be less cruelly 
 harassed by it than before. 
 
 Yet, all the more, he desired extra money. 
 For a startlingly original ambition had 
 awakened recently in his heart — namely, to 
 pay off a little of the mortgage's principal 
 along with the interest. 
 
 At first the idea had staggered him. But 
 talking it over with Chum and studying 
 his thunibed-soiled ledger, he had decided 
 there was a bare chance he might be able 
 to do it. 
 
 As he mounted the steps of the store, this 
 evening in late August, he saw, tacked 
 to the doorside clapboards, a truly gor- 
 geous poster. By the light of the flickering 
 lamp over the door, he discerned the vivid 
 scarlet head of a dog in the upper corner 
 of the yellow placard, and much display 
 type below it. 
 
 It was the picture of the dog which 
 
 82 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 checked Link in passing. It was a fancy 
 head — the head of a stately and long muz- 
 zled dog with a ruff and with tulip ears. 
 In short, just such a dog as Chum. Not 
 knowing that Chum was a collie and that 
 poster artists rejoice to depict collies, by 
 reason of the latters' decorative qualities, 
 Ferris was amazed by the coincidence. 
 
 After a long and critical survey of the 
 picture, he was moved to run his eye over 
 the flaring reading matter. 
 
 The poster announced, to all and sun- 
 dry, that on Labor Day a mammoth dog 
 show was to be held in the country club 
 grounds at Craigswold — a show for the 
 benefit of the Red Cross. Entries were to 
 be one dollar for each class. "Thanks to 
 generous contributions, the committee was 
 enabled to offer prizes of imusual beauty 
 and value, in addition to the customary rib- 
 bons." 
 
 83 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 Followed a list of cups and medals. 
 Link scanned them with no great interest, 
 But suddenly his roving gaze came to an as- 
 tonished standstill. At the bottom of the 
 poster, in forty-eight-point bold-face type, 
 ran the following proclamation: 
 
 Col. Cyrus Harden 
 
 OF Craigswou) Manor 
 
 Offers a Cash Award of 
 
 One Hundred Dollars ($100) to the 
 
 Best Dog of Any Breed Exhibited 
 
 One himdred dollars! 
 
 Link reread the glittering sentence until 
 he could have said it backward. It would 
 have been a patent lie had he heard it by 
 word of mouth. But as it was in print, of 
 course it was true. 
 
 One hundred dollars ! And as a prize f pr 
 the finest dog in the show. Not to huy the 
 dog, mind you. Just as a gift to the man 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 who happened to own the hesft dog. It 
 did not seem possible. Yet — 
 
 Link knew by hearsay and by dbserva- 
 tion the ways of the rich colony at Craigs- 
 wold. He knew the Craigswolders spent 
 money like mud, when it so pleased them 
 — although more than one fellow huckster 
 was at timesi sore put to it to collect from 
 them a bill for fresh vegetables. 
 
 Yes, and he knew Col. Cyrus Marden by 
 sight, too. He was a long-faced little man 
 who used to go about dressed in funny knee 
 pants and with a leather bag of misshapen 
 clubs over his shoulder. Link had seen him 
 again and again. He had seen the Colonel's 
 enormous house at Craigswold Manor, too. 
 He had no doubt Marden could afford this 
 gift of a hundred dollars. 
 
 "To the best dog of any breed!" 
 
 Ferris knew nothing about the various 
 breeds of dogs. But he did know that 
 
 86 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 Chum was by far the best and most beau- 
 tiful and the wisest dog ever born. If 
 Harden were offering a himdred dollar 
 prize for the best dog, there was not an- 
 other dog on earth fit to compete with 
 Chum. That was a cinch. 
 
 As for the hundred dollars — why, it 
 would be a godsend on the mortgage pay- 
 ment! Every cent of it could go toward 
 the principal. That meant Ferris could 
 devote the extra few dollars he had already 
 saved for the principal to the buying of 
 fertilizers and several sorely-needed utensils 
 and to the shingling of the house. 
 
 Avid for more news of the offer, he 
 entered the store and hunted up the post- 
 master, who also chanced to be the store's 
 proprietor and the mayor of Hampton and 
 the local peace justice. Of this Pooh-Bah 
 the inquiring Ferris sought for details. 
 
 "Some of the Red Cross ladies from up 
 
 86 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 Craigswold way were here this morning, to 
 have me nail that sign on the store," re- 
 ported the postmaster. "They're making a 
 torn- of all the towns hereabouts. They 
 asked me to try to int'rest folks at Hamp- 
 ton in their show, too, and get them to 
 make entries. They left me a bmich of 
 blanks. Want one?" 
 
 "Yep," said Link. "I guess I'll take 
 one if it don't cost nothin', please." 
 
 He studied the proffered entry blank 
 with totally uncomprehending gaze. The 
 postmaster came to his rehef. 
 
 "Let me show you," he suggested, taking 
 pity on his customer's wrinkled brow and 
 squinting helplessness. "I've had some ex- 
 perience in this f olderol. I took my Aire- 
 dale over to the Ridgewood show last spring 
 and got a third with him. I'm going to 
 take him up to Craigswold on Labor Day, 
 too. What kind of dog is yours?" 
 
 87 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 "The dandiest dawg that ever stood on 
 four legs," answered Link, afire with the 
 zeal of ownership. "Why, that dawg of 
 mine c'n " 
 
 "What breed is he?" asked the postmas- 
 ter, not interested in the dawning rhapsody. 
 
 "Oh— breed?" repeated Link. "Why, I 
 don't rightly know. Some kind of a bird 
 dawg, I guess. Yes. A bird dawg. But 
 he's sure the grandest " 
 
 "Is he the dog you had down here, one 
 day last month?" asked the postmaster, 
 with a gleam of recollection. 
 
 "Yep. That's him," assented Link. 
 "Only dawg I've got. Only dawg I ever 
 had. Only dawg I ever want to have. 
 He's " 
 
 But the postmaster was not attending. 
 His time was limited. So, taking out a 
 fountain pen, he had begun to scribble on 
 the blank. Filhng in Link's name and 
 
 88 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 address, he wrote, in the "breed and sex" 
 spaces, the words, "Scotch collie, sable-and- 
 white, male." 
 
 "Name?" he queried, breaking in on Fer- 
 ris's rambling eulogy. 
 
 "Huh?" asked the surprised Link, add- 
 ing: "Oh, his name, hey? I call him 
 'Chum.' You see, that dawg's more hke a 
 chum to me than " 
 
 "No use asking about his pedigree, I 
 suppose," resumed the postmaster, "I mean 
 who his parents were and " 
 
 "Nope," said Link. "I — I found him. 
 His leg was " 
 
 "Pedigree unknown," wrote the postmas- 
 ter; then, "What classes are you entering 
 him for?" 
 
 "Classes?" repeated Link dully. "Why, I 
 just want to put him into that contest for 
 'best dawg,' you see. He " 
 
 "Hold on!" interposed the postmaster 
 
 89 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 impatiently. "You don't catch the idea. 
 In each breed there are a certain num- 
 ber of classes: 'Puppy,' 'Novice,' 'Limit,' 
 'Open,' and so on. The dogs that get a 
 blue ribbon — ^that's first prize — in these 
 classes all have to appear in what is called 
 the 'Winners' Class.' Then the dog that 
 gets 'Winner's' — the dog that gets first- 
 prize in this 'Winners' Class' — competes for 
 best dog of his breed in the show. After 
 that — as a 'special' — the best in all the dif- 
 ferent breeds are brought into the ring. 
 And the dog that wins in that final class 
 is adjudged the 'best in the show.' He's 
 the dog in this particular show that will 
 get Colonel Marden's himdred-dollar cash 
 prize. See what I mean?" 
 
 "Ye-es," replied Link, after digesting 
 carefully what he had heard. "I guess so. 
 But " 
 
 "Since you've never shown your dog 
 
 90 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 before," went on the postmaster, beginning 
 to warm with professional interest, "y^^ 
 can enter him in the 'Novice Class.' That's 
 generally the easiest. If he loses in that, no 
 harm's done. If he wins he has a chance 
 later in the 'Winners' Class.' I'm mailing 
 my entry to-night to the conmiittee. If 
 you like, I'll send yours along with it. 
 Give me a dollar." 
 
 While Link extracted a greasy dollar bill 
 from his pocket, the postmaster filled in 
 the class space with the word "Novice." 
 
 "Thanks for helpin' me out," said Ferris, 
 grateful for the lift. 
 
 "That's all right," returned the post- 
 master, pocketing the bill and folding the 
 blank, as he prepared to end the interview 
 by moving away. "Be sure to have youi 
 dog at the gate leading into the Craigswold 
 Coimtry Club grounds promptly at ten 
 o'clock on Labor Day. If you don't get a 
 
 91 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 card and a tag sent to you, before then, tell 
 your name to the clerk at the table there, 
 and he'll give you a number. Tie your dog 
 to the stall with that number on it, and be 
 sure to have him ready to go into the ring 
 when his nimiber is called. That's all." 
 
 "Thanks!" said Link, again. "An' now 
 I guess I'll go back home an' commence 
 brightenin' Chum up, a wee peckle, on his 
 tricks. Maybe I'U have time to learn him 
 some new ones, too. I want him to make 
 a hit with them judges, an' everything." 
 
 "Tricks?" scoffed the postmaster, paus- 
 ing as he started to walk away. "Dogs 
 don't need tricks in the show ring. All 
 you have to do is to lead your dog into 
 the ring, and parade him round with the 
 rest of them till the judge tells you to stop. 
 Then he'll make them stand on the show 
 platform while he examines them. The 
 dog's only 'tricks' are to stand and walk at 
 
 92 
 
THE BATTLE 
 
 his best, and to look alert, so the judge can 
 see the shape of his ears and get his ex- 
 pression. Teach your dog to walk around 
 with you, on the leash, without hanging 
 back, and to prick up his ears and stand at 
 attention when you tell him to. That's all 
 he needs to do. The judge wiU do the rest. 
 Have him clean and well brushed, of 
 course." 
 
 "I — I sure feel bitter sorry for them 
 other dawgs at the show!" mumbled Link. 
 "A hundred dollars! Of all the dawgs 
 that ever happened, Chmnmie is that one! 
 Why, there ain't a thing he can't do, from 
 herdin' sheep to winnin' a wad of soft 
 money! An' — ^an' he's all mine" 
 
 98 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE ORDEAI. 
 
 BY DAWN on Labor Day Link Fer- 
 ris was astir. A series of discom- 
 fiting baths and repeated currying 
 with the dandy brush had made Chum's 
 grand coat stand out in shimmering fluifi- 
 ness. A course of carefully-conducted cir- 
 cular promenades on the end of a chain 
 had taught the dog to walk gaily and unre- 
 strainedly in leash. And any of several 
 cryptic words, relating to hypothetical rats, 
 and so forth, were quite enough to send up 
 his ears. 
 
 It was sheer excitement that brought 
 Link broad awake before sunrise on that 
 
 94, 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 day of days. Ferris was infected with the 
 most virulent form of that weird malady 
 known as "dog-showitis." At first he had 
 been tempted solely by the hope of win- 
 ning the hundred-dollar prize. But latterly 
 the urge of victory had gotten into his 
 blood. And he yearned, too, to let the 
 world see what a marvelous dog was his. 
 
 He hurried through the morning chores, 
 then dressed himself in his shabby best and 
 hitched his horse to the antiquated Concord 
 buggy — a vehicle he had been washing for 
 the state occasion almost as vehemently as 
 he had scrubbed Chimi. 
 
 After a gobbled breakfast, Ferris 
 mounted to the seat of the aged buggy, 
 signaled Chum to leap to the battered 
 cushion at his side and set off for Craigs- 
 wold. Long before ten o'clock his horse 
 was safely stabled at the Craigswold livery, 
 and Ferris was leading Chum proudly 
 
 95 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 through the wicket gate leading into the 
 country-cluh grounds. 
 
 All happened as the postmaster had fore- 
 told. The clerk at the wicket asked him 
 his name, fumbled through a ledger and a 
 pile of envelopes and presently handed Fer- 
 ris a numbered tag. 
 
 "Sixty-five," read the clerk for Link's 
 benefit. "That's down at the extreme 
 right. Almost the last bench to the right." 
 
 Into the hallowed precinct Link piloted 
 the much - interested Chum. There he 
 paused for a dazzled instant. The putting 
 green and the fore-lawn in front of the 
 field-stone clubhouse had been covered with 
 a mass of wooden alleyways, each lined 
 with a double row of stalls about two feet 
 from the ground, carpeted with straw and 
 having individual zinc water troug'hs in 
 front of them. In nearly every one of 
 these "benches" was tied a dog. 
 
 96 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 There were more dogs than Link Ferris 
 had seen before in all his quasi-dogless life. 
 And all of them seemed to be barking or 
 yelping. The din was egregious. Along 
 the alleyways, men and women in sport 
 clothes were drifting, in survey of the 
 chained exhibits. In a central space among 
 the hnes of benches was a large square en- 
 closiu'e, roped off except for one aperture. 
 In the middle of this space, which Link 
 rightly guessed to be the judging ring, 
 stood a very low wooden platform. At one 
 side of the ring were a chair and a table, 
 where sat a steward in a Palm Beach suit, 
 fussily tmriing over the leaves of a ledger 
 and assorting a heap of high-packed and 
 vari-colored ribbons. 
 
 Link, mindful of instructions, bore to 
 the right in search of a stall labeled "65." 
 As he went, he noted that the dogs were 
 benched in such a way that each breed 
 
 97 
 
HIS DOC 
 
 had a section to itself. Thus, while he was 
 still some distance away from his desig- 
 nated bench, he saw that he was coming 
 into a section of dogs which, in general 
 aspect, resembled Chum. Above this ag- 
 gregation, as over others, hung a lettered 
 sign. And this especial sign read "Collie 
 Section." 
 
 So Chum was a "collie" — ^whatever that 
 might be. Link took it to be a fancy 
 term for "bird dog." He had seen the word 
 before somewhere. And he remembered 
 now that it had been in the advertisement 
 that offered seventy-five dollars for the 
 return of a lost "sable-and-white collie." 
 Yes, and Dominie Jansen had said, "sable" 
 meant "black." Link felt a glow of relief 
 that the advertisement had not said "a 
 brown-and- white collie." 
 
 Chmn was viewing his new surroundings 
 with much attention, looking up now and 
 
 98 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 then into his master's face as they moved 
 along the rackety line — as though to gain 
 reassm^ance that all was well. 
 
 To a high-strung and sensitive dog a show 
 is a terrific ordeal. But Chum, like the 
 aristocrat he was, bore its preliminaries with 
 debonair calm. 
 
 Arriving at Bench 65 in the collie sec- 
 tion, Link enthroned his dog there, fastening 
 the chain's free end to a ring in the stall's 
 corner. Then, after seeing that the water 
 pan was where Chum could reach it in case 
 he were thirsty and that the straw made a 
 comfortable couch for him, Ferris once 
 more patted the worried dog and told him 
 everything was all right. After which Link 
 proceeded to take a survey of the neigh- 
 boring collies, the sixteen dogs which were 
 to be Chimi's competitors. 
 
 His first appraising glance of the double 
 row of collies caused the furrow between his 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 eyes to vanish and brought a grin of com- 
 placent satisfaction to his thin lips. For 
 he did not see a single entrant that, in his 
 eyes, seemed to have a ghost of a chance 
 against his idolized pet — ^not a dog as hand- 
 some or with half the look of intelligence 
 or with the proudly gay bearing of Chimi- 
 
 Of the sixteen other collies the majority 
 were sables of divers shades. There were 
 three tricolors and two mist-hued merles. 
 Over nearly all the section's occupants a 
 swarm of owners and handlers were just 
 now busy with brush and cloth. For word 
 had come that collies were to be the second 
 breed judged that day. The first breed 
 was to be the Great Danes. As there were 
 but three Danes in the show, their judging 
 would be brief. And it behooved the col- 
 lies' attendants to have their entries ready. 
 
 Link, following the example of those 
 aroimd him, took from his pocket the m^olt- 
 
 100 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 ing dandy brush and set to work once more 
 on Chum's coat. He observed that the rest 
 were brushing their dogs' fur against the 
 grain, to make it fluff up. And he reversed 
 his own former process in imitation of them. 
 He had supposed until now that a collie's 
 hair, like a man's, ought to be slicked down 
 smooth for state occasions. And it troubled 
 him to find that C5hum's coat rebelled 
 against such treatment. Now, under the 
 reverse process, it stood out in wavy 
 freedom. 
 
 At the adjoining stall to the left a de- 
 cidedly pretty girl was watching a groom 
 put the finishing touches to the toilet of her 
 tricolor collie. Link heard her exclaim in 
 protest as the groom removed from the 
 dog's collar a huge cerise bow she -had just 
 afiixed there. 
 
 "Sorry, Miss," Ferris heard the groom 
 explain, "but it's agin rules for a dog to 
 
 101 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 go in the ring with a ribbon on. If the 
 judge thinks he's good enough for a ribbon 
 he'll award him one. But " 
 
 "Oh, he simply can't help awarding oiie 
 to Morven, here!" broke in the girl. "Can 
 he, Stokes?" 
 
 "Hard to say. Miss," answered the groom 
 imperturbably, as he wrought with brush 
 and cloth. "Judges has their own ideas. 
 We'U have to hope for the best for him 
 and not be too sick if he gets gated." 
 
 "Gated?" echoed the girl — an evident 
 newcomer to the realm of showdom. 
 
 "Yes, .Miss," expounded the groom. 
 " 'Gated' means 'shown the gate.' Some 
 judges thins out a class that way, by send- 
 ing the poorest dogs out of the ring first. 
 Then again, some judges " 
 
 "Oh, I'm glad I wore this dress 1" sighed 
 the girl. "It goes so well with Morven's 
 color. Perhaps the judge " 
 
 102 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 "Excuse me, Miss," put in the groom, 
 trying not to laugh, "but the collie judge 
 to-day is Fred Leighton — he bred the great 
 Howgill Rival, you know — and when 
 Leighton is in the ring, he hasn't got eyes 
 for anything but the dogs themselves. 
 Begging your pardon, he wouldn't notice if 
 you was to wear a horse blanket. At that, 
 Leighton's the squarest and the best " 
 
 "Look!" whispered the girl, whose atten- 
 tion had wandered and whose roving gaze 
 had settled on Chum. "Look at that dog 
 in the next bench. Isn't he magnificent?" 
 
 Link swelled with pride at the low- 
 spoken praise. And turning away to hide 
 his satisfaction, he saw that quite a sizable 
 knot of spectators had gathered in front of 
 Chum's bench. They were inspecting the 
 collie with manifest approval. Chum, em- 
 barrassed by the unaccustomed notice, had 
 moved as far as possible from his admirers, 
 
 103 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 and was nuzzling his head into Ferris's hand 
 for refuge. 
 
 "Puppy Class, Male Scotch Collies!" 
 droned a ring attendant, appearing for a 
 moment at the far end of the section. 
 Numbers 60, 61, 62." 
 
 Three youngsters, ranging in age from 
 seven to eleven months, were coaxed down 
 from their straw couches by three excited 
 owners and were convoyed fussily toward 
 the ring. 
 
 "Novice Class next. Miss," Link heard 
 the groom saying to the girl at the adjoin- 
 ing bench. "Got his ring leash ready?" 
 
 "Ring leash!" This was a new one to 
 Ferris. His eyes followed the trio of pup- 
 pies shuffling ringward. He saw that all 
 three were on leather leashes and that their 
 chains had been left in the stalls. Pre- 
 sumably there was a law against chains in 
 the ring. And Link had no leash. 
 
 104 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 For an instant he was in a quandary. 
 Then his brow cleared. True, he had no 
 leash. Yet, if chains, hke bows of ribbon, 
 were barred from the ring, he could man- 
 euver Chum every bit as well with his voice 
 as with any leash. So that problem was 
 solved. 
 
 A minute later, the three pups reap- 
 peared at the end of the section. And 
 behind them came the attendant, intoning: 
 
 "Novice Class, Male Scotch Collies I 
 Numbers 64, 65, 66, 67." 
 
 There was an absurd throbbing in Link 
 Ferris's meridian. His calloused hands 
 shook as he imchained Chxmi and motioned 
 him to leap from the bench to the ground. 
 
 Chum obeyed, but with evident uneasi- 
 ness. His odd surroundings were getting 
 on the collie's nerves. Link bent over him, 
 under pretense of giving him a farewell 
 rub with the brush. 
 
 106 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 "It's all right, Chummie!" he crooned 
 soothingly. "It's all right! I'm here. An' 
 nobody's goin' to bother you none. You're 
 a-helpin' me win that himdred. An' you're 
 lettin' these gold-shirt folks see what a 
 dam' gorgeous dawg you be! Come along, 
 or friend!" 
 
 Under the comfort of his god's voice, 
 Chum's nervousness fled. Safe in his 
 sublime trust that his master would let no 
 harm befall him, the collie trotted toward 
 the ring at Ferris' s heels. 
 
 Three other novice dogs were already in 
 Ihe ring when Link arrived at the narrow 
 opening. The steward was sitting at the 
 table as before. At the corner of the ring, 
 alongside the platform, stood a man in 
 tweeds, unlighted pipe in mouth, half -shut 
 shrewd eyes studying the dogs as they filed 
 in through the gap in the ropes. The in- 
 scrutable eyes flickered ever so little at sight 
 
 106 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 of Chum, but at once resumed their former 
 disinterested gaze. 
 
 "Walk close!" whispered Link as the 
 parade started. 
 
 Chimi, hearing a command he had long 
 since learned, ranged himself at Ferris's 
 side and paced majestically in the proces- 
 sion of four. Two of the other novice dogs 
 were straining at their leashes; the third 
 was hanging back and pawing frantically 
 to break away. Chum, unleashed, guided 
 only by the voice, drew every eye to him 
 by his rare beauty and his lofty self- 
 possession. 
 
 But he was not allowed to finish the 
 parade. Stepping up to Ferris, Judge 
 Leighton tapped him on the arm. 
 
 "Take your dog over to that corner," he 
 ordered, "and keep him there." 
 
 Link fought back a yearning to punch 
 the judge, and surlily he obeyed the man- 
 
 107 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 date. Into his memory jumped the things 
 the groom had said about a dog being 
 "gated." If that judge thought for one 
 second that any of those mutts could hold 
 a candle to Chum — , Again he yearned 
 to enforce with his two willing fists his 
 opinion of the judge. 
 
 But, as he well knew, to start a fight in 
 this plutocratic assemblage would mean a 
 jail term. And in such case, what would 
 befall the deserted Chum? For the dog's 
 sake he restrained himself, and he began to 
 edge surreptitiously toward the ring exit, 
 with a view to sliding out unperceived with 
 his splendid, underrated dog. 
 
 But Ferris did not reach the gate im- 
 checked. 
 
 Judge Leighton had ended the parade 
 and had stood the three dogs, one by one 
 and then two at a time, on the platform 
 while he studied them. Then he had crossed 
 
 108 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 to the table and picked up the judging book 
 and fovu" ribbons — one blue, one red, one 
 yellow and one white. Three of these rib- 
 bons he handed to the three contestants' 
 handlers. 
 
 Then he stepped across the ring to where 
 Ferris was edging his way toward the exit; 
 and handed Link the remaining ribbon. It 
 was dark blue, with gilt lettering. 
 
 Leighton did not so much as subject Chum 
 to the handling and close inspection he had 
 lavished on the three others. One expert 
 glance had told the judge that the dark- 
 sable collie, led by this loutish countryman, 
 was better fitted to clean up prizes at 
 Madison Square Garden than to appear in 
 a society dog show in the North Jersey 
 hinterland, 
 
 Leighton had viewed Chimi, as a bored 
 musician, listening to the piano-antics of 
 defective children, might have regarded the 
 
 109 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 playing of a disguised Paderewski. Where- 
 fore, he had waved the dog to one side while 
 he judged the lesser entrants, and then had 
 given him the merited first-prize ribbon. 
 
 Link, in a daze of bliss, stalked back to 
 the bench; with Chum capering along at 
 his side. The queer sixth sense of a collie 
 told Chum his god was dehriously happy, 
 and that Chum himself had somehow had a 
 share in making him so. Hence the dog's 
 former gloomy pacing changed to a series 
 of ecstatic hbtle dance steps, and he kept 
 thrusting his cold muzzle into the cup of 
 Ferris's palm. 
 
 Again Bench 65 was surrounded by an 
 admiring clump of spectators. Chima and 
 Link vied each other in their icy aloofness 
 toward these admirers. But with a differ- 
 ence. 
 
 Chum was unaffectedly bothered by so 
 much imwelcome attention from strangers, 
 no 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 Ferris, on the other hand, reveled in the 
 knowledge that his beloved pet was the 
 center of more adulation than was any other 
 dog in all the section. 
 
 Class after class went to be judged. 
 Link was sorry he had not spent more 
 money and entered Chum in every class. 
 The initial victory had gone to his head. 
 He had not known he could be so serenely 
 happy. After a while, he started up at the 
 attendant's droning announcement of, 
 
 "Winners' Class, Male Scotch Collies! 
 Numbers 62, 65, 68, 70, 731" 
 
 Again Link and Chum set out for the 
 ring. Link's glee had merged into an all- 
 consuming nervousness, comparable only to 
 a maiden hunter's "buck ague." Chum, 
 once more sensing Ferris's state of mind, 
 lost his own glad buoyancy and paced sol- 
 emnly alongside, peering worriedly up into 
 Link's face at every few steps. 
 
 Ill 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 All five entrants filed into the ring and 
 began their parade. Leighton, in view of 
 the importance of this crowning event, did 
 not single out any one dog, as before, to 
 stand to one side ; nor did he gate any. He 
 gave owners and spectators their full due, 
 by a thorough inspection of all five con- 
 testants. But as a result of his examina- 
 tion, he ended the suspense by handing. 
 Link Ferris a purple rosette, whereon was 
 blazoned in gilt the legend, "Winners." 
 
 A salvo of handclaps greeted the emi- 
 nently just decision. And Chimi left the 
 ring, to find a score of gratulatory hands 
 stretched forth to pat him. Quite a little 
 crowd escorted him back to his bench. 
 
 A dozen people picked acquaintance with 
 Link. They asked him all sorts of ques- 
 tions as to his dog. Link made monosyl- 
 labic and noncommittal rephes to all of 
 
 112 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 these — even when the great Col. Cyrus 
 Marden himself deigned to come over to 
 the collie section and stare at Chum, ac- 
 companying his scrutiny with a volley of 
 patronizing inquiries. 
 
 From the bystanders Link learned some- 
 thing of real interesrt — ^namely, that one of 
 the "specials" was a big silver cup, to be 
 awarded to "best coUie of either sex"; 
 and that after the females should have been 
 judged, the winning female and Chum 
 must appear in the ring together to com- 
 pete for this trophy. 
 
 Sure enough, in less than thirty minutes 
 Chum was summoned to the ring. There, 
 awaiting him, was a dainty and tempera- 
 mental merle, of the Tazewell strain. Ex- 
 quisite and high-bred as was this female 
 competitor, Judge Leighton wasted little 
 time on the examination before giving Fer- 
 ris a tricolored ribbon, whose possessicn 
 
 113 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 entitled him to one of the shimmering silver 
 mugs in the near-by trophy case. 
 
 After receiving full assurance that the 
 big cup should be his at the close of the 
 show, Link returned to Chum's bench in 
 ecstasy and sat down beside his tired dog, 
 with one arm thrown lovingly round the 
 collie's ruff. Chum nesrt;led against his tri- 
 umphant master, as Link fondled his bunch 
 of ribbons and went over, mentally, every 
 move of his triumphal morning. 
 
 The milling and changing groups of 
 spectators in front of Bench 65 did not 
 dwindle. Indeed, as the morning went on, 
 they increased. People kept coming back 
 to the bench and bringing others with them. 
 Some of these people whispered together. 
 Some merely stared and went away. Some 
 asked Ferris carefully worded questions, to 
 which the shyly happy mountaineer replied 
 with sheepish grunts. 
 
 114 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 The long period of judging came at last 
 to an end. And the "Best Dog in Show" 
 special was called. 
 
 Into the ring Ferris escorted Chum, amid 
 a multitude of fellow winners, representing 
 one male or female of every breed exhib- 
 ited. Leighton and another judge stood in 
 the ring's center, and around them billowed 
 the heterogeneous array. The two went at 
 their Gaisgantuan task with an expert swift- 
 ness. Mercilessly, dog after dog was 
 weeded out and gated. At last. Chum and 
 two others were all remaining of the many 
 which ha;d thronged the ring. The spec- 
 tators were banked, five deep and breath- 
 less, roimd the ropes. 
 
 The two judges went into brief executive 
 session in one corner. Then Leighton 
 crossed to Link, for the fourth time that 
 day, and gave him the gaudy rosette which 
 proclaimed Chum "best dog in the show." 
 
 116 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 A roar of applause went up. Link felt 
 dizzy and numb. Then, with a gasp of 
 rapture, he stooped and gathered the bored 
 Chum in his long arms, in a bearlike, 
 ecstatic hug. 
 
 "We done it, Chmnmiel" he chortled. 
 "We done it!" 
 
 Still in a daze, he followed the steward 
 to the trophy case, where he received not 
 only the shining silver cup, but a "sovereign 
 purse," wherein were ensconced ten ten- 
 dollar gold pieces. 
 
 It was all a dream — a wonder dream 
 from which presently he must awaken. 
 Link was certain of that. But while the 
 golden dream lasted, he knew the nameless 
 joys of paradise. 
 
 Chum close at his side, he made his way 
 
 through the congratulating crowd toward 
 
 the outer gate of the cotmtry club grounds. 
 
 He had almost reached the wicket when 
 
 116 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 someone touched him, with vmnecessary 
 firmness, on the shoulder. 
 
 Not rehshing the familiarity. Link turned 
 a scowling visage on the interrupter of his 
 triumphal homeward progress. At his 
 elbow stood a stockily-built man, dressed 
 with severe plainness. 
 
 "You're Lincoln Ferris?" queried the 
 Stranger, more as if stating aggressively a 
 fact than making an inquiry. 
 
 "Yep," said Link, cross at this annoying 
 break-in upon his trance of happiness. 
 "What d'j' want?" he added. 
 
 "Please step back to the clubhouse a 
 minute with me," returned the stranger, 
 civilly enough, but with the same bossy 
 firnmess in his tone that had jarred Ferris 
 in his touch. "One or two people want to 
 speak to you. Bring along your dog." 
 
 Link glowered. He fancied he knew 
 what was in store. Some of the ultra- 
 117 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 select had gathered in the holy interior of 
 the clubhouse and wanted a private view 
 of Chum, unsullied by the noisy presence of 
 the crowd outside. They would talk pat- 
 ronizingly to Link, and perhaps even try 
 to coax him into selhng Chum. The 
 thought decided Ferris. 
 
 "I'm goin' home!" he said roughly. 
 
 "You're coming with me," contradicted 
 the man in that same quiet voice, but shp- 
 ping his muscular arm into Link's. 
 
 With his other hand he shifted the lapel 
 of his coat, displaying a police badge on its 
 reverse. Still avoiding any outward ap- 
 pearance of force, he turned about, with his 
 arm locked in Ferris' s and started toward 
 the clubhouse. 
 
 "Here!" expostulated poor Link, with all 
 a true mountaineer's horror of the police. 
 "What's all this? I ain't broke no law! 
 I ■" 
 
 118 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 An Ugly growl from Chum punctuated 
 his scared plea. Noting the terror in his 
 master's tone and the grip of the stranger 
 on Link's arm. Chum had spun roimd to 
 face the two. 
 
 The collie's eyes were fixed grimly upon 
 the plain-clothes man's temptingly thick 
 throat. One corner of Chvim's upper lip 
 was curled back, displaying a businesslike 
 if snowy fang. His head was lowered. 
 Deep in his furry throat a succession of 
 legato growls were bom. 
 
 The plain-clothes man knew much about 
 dogs. He knew, for example, that when a 
 dog holds his head high and barks there is 
 no special danger to be feared from him. 
 But he also knew that when a dog lowers 
 his head and growls, showing his eyetooth, 
 !ie means business. 
 
 And the man shrank from the menace. 
 
 119 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 One hand crept back instinctively toward 
 his hip pocket. 
 
 Link saw the purely involuntary gesture, 
 and he shook in his boots. It was thus a 
 Hampton constable had once reached back 
 when a sStray cur snapped at him. And 
 that constable had completed the movement; 
 by drawing a pistol and shooting the cur. 
 Perhaps this non-imiformed stranger meant 
 to do the same thing. 
 
 "Hold on I" begged Link, intervening 
 between the man and the dog. "I'll go 
 along with you peaceful. Quit, Chum I 
 It's all right I" 
 
 The dog still looked undecided. He did 
 not like this new note in his god's voice. 
 iBut he obeyed the injunction, and fell into 
 step at Link's side as usual. Ferris suf- 
 fered himself to be piloted, unresisting, 
 through the tattered remnant of the crowd 
 and up the clubhouse steps. 
 
 120 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 There his conductor led him through the 
 sacred portals and down a wide hallway to 
 the door of a committee room. Throwing 
 open the door, he ushered in his captive and 
 the dog, entering behind them and reclosing 
 the heavy door. 
 
 In the room, roimd a table, sat several 
 persons — all men except one. The excep- 
 tion was the girl whose collie had had the 
 bench next to Ghimi's. At the table head, 
 looking very magisterial indeed, sat Colonel 
 Marden. Beside him lounged a larger and 
 older man in a plaid sport suit. 
 
 Link's escort ranged his prisoners at the 
 foot of the table; Chum standing tight 
 against Ferris's knee, as if to guard him 
 from possible harm. Link stood glowering 
 in suUen perplexity at the Colonel. Mar- 
 den cleared his voice pompously, then spoke. 
 
 "Ferris," he began with much impres- 
 siveness, "I am a magistrate of this county 
 
 121 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 — as you perhaps know. You may con- 
 sider yourself before the Bar of Justice, and 
 reply to my questions accordingly." 
 
 Awed by this thundered preamble, Fer- 
 ris made shift to mutter: 
 
 "I ain't broke no laws. What d'j' want 
 of me, anyhow?" 
 
 "First of all," proceeded Harden, "where 
 did you get that dog?" 
 
 "Chum here?" said Ferris. "Why, I come 
 acrost him, early last spring, on the patch 
 of state road, jes' outside of Hampton. He 
 was a-layin' in a ditch, with his leg bust. 
 Throwed off 'n a auto, I figgered it. I took 
 him home an' " 
 
 He paused, as the sport-suited man next 
 to Marden nodded excitedly to the girl and 
 then whispered to the Colonel. 
 
 "You took him home?" pursued Marden. 
 "Couldn't you see he was a valuable dog?" 
 
 "I c'd see he was a sufferin' an' dyin' 
 
 12S 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 dawg," retorted Link. "I c'd see he was a 
 goner, 'less I took him home an' 'tended 
 him. If you're aimin' at findin' out why I 
 went on keepin' him after that, I done so 
 because no one claimed him. I put up 
 notices 'bout him. I put one up at the 
 post-office here, too. I " 
 
 "He did!" interrupted the girl. "That's 
 true! I saw it. Only — the notice said it 
 was a bird dog. That's why we didn't 
 foUow it up. He " 
 
 "Miss Gault," suggested Marden in lofty 
 reproof, "suppose you leave the interroga- 
 tory to me, if you please? Yes, I recollect 
 that notice. My attention was called to it 
 at the time. But," again addressing Link, 
 "why did you call 'Glenmuir Cavalier' a 
 'bird dog'? Was it to throw us off the 
 track or " 
 
 "Don't know no What's-His-Name Cav'- 
 Merl" snapped Ferris. "This dawg's name 
 
 123 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 is Chum. Like you c'n see in my entry 
 blank, what's layin' on the table in front 
 of you. I adv'tised Chum as a bird dawg 
 because I s'posed he was a bird dawg. I 
 ain't a sharp on dawgs. He's the fust one 
 ever I had. If he ain't a bird dawg, 'tain't 
 my fault. He looks more like one than like 
 'tother breeds I'd seen. So I called him 
 one." 
 
 "There is no need to raise yoin- voice at 
 me!" rebuked the colonel. "I am disposed 
 to accept your explanation. But if you 
 read the local papers you must have 
 seen " 
 
 "I did read 'em," said Ferris. "I read 
 'em steady for a month or more, to see was 
 there was adv'tisement fer a lost dawg. 
 Nary an adv'tisement did I see — excep' one 
 fer a 'sable' coEie. 'Sable' means 'black.' 
 I know, because our dominie told me so. 
 I asked him, when I see that piece in the 
 
 124i 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 paper. Chum ain't black, nor nowheres 
 near black. So I knowed it couldn't be 
 him. What d'j' want of me, anyhow?" he 
 demanded once more. 
 
 "Again, I am disposed to credit your 
 explanation," boomed the colonel, frown- 
 ing down a ripple of giggles that had its 
 rise in Miss Gault. "And I am disposed to 
 acquit you of consciously dishonest intent. 
 I am glad to do so. Here is the situation: 
 Early last spring, Mr. Gault," indicating 
 the sport-suit wearer at his left, "bought 
 from the famous Glenmuir Collie Kennels, 
 on the Hudson, an unusually fine young 
 collie — a dog for which connoisseurs pre- 
 dicted a great future in the show ring. He 
 purchased it as a gift for his daughter. Miss 
 Marion Gault." 
 
 He inclined his head slightly toward the 
 girl; then proceeded: 
 
 "As Mr. Glenmuir was disbanding his 
 
 125 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 kennd, Mr. Gault was able to secure the 
 dog — Glenmuir Cavalier. He started for 
 Craigswold, with the dog on the rear seat 
 of the car. At first he kept a hand on the 
 dog's collar, but as the colMe made no 
 V attempt to escape, he soon turned aroimd 
 — ^he was in the front seat — and paid no 
 more attention to him. Just outside of 
 Suffern, he looked back — ^to find Cavalier 
 had disappeared. He advertised, and made 
 all possible efforts to locate the dog. But 
 he could get no clew to him, until to-day. 
 Seeing this dog of yours in the show ring, 
 he recognized him at once." 
 
 The pompously booming voice, with its 
 stilted diction, ceased. All eyes were upon 
 Link Ferris. The mountaineer, stung to 
 hfe by the silence and the multiple gaze, 
 came out of his trance of shock. 
 
 "Then — then," he stuttered, forcing the 
 words frcan a throat sanded by sudden 
 
 126 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 dread, "then Chum rightly b'longs to this 
 man?" 
 
 "Quite so!" assented Harden, in some 
 relief. "I am glad you grasp the point so 
 readily. Mr. Gault has talked the matter 
 over with me, and he is taking a remark- 
 ably broad and generous view of the case — 
 if I may say so. He is not only willing 
 that you should keep the cup and the cash 
 prize which you have won to-day, but he is 
 also ready to pay to you the seventy-five 
 dollar reward he offered for the return of 
 Glenmuir Cavalier. I repeat, tihis strikes 
 me as most gener " 
 
 "NO!" yelled Link, a spasm of foreseen 
 lonehness sweeping over him. "NO! ! He 
 can't have him! Nobody can! Why — 
 Chum's my dawg! I've learned him to 
 fetch cows an' shake hands an' — an' every- 
 thing! An' he drug me out'n the lake, 
 when I was a-drowndin'! An' he done a 
 
 127 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 heap more'n that fer me ! He's drug me up 
 to my feet, out'n wuthlessness, too; an' he's 
 learned me ihat livin' is wuth while! He's 
 my — my — he's my dawg!" he finished 
 lamely, his scared eyes sweeping the circle 
 of faces in panic appeal. 
 
 "That will do, Ferris!" coldly exhorted 
 the colonel. "We wish no scenes here. You 
 will take this seventy-five dollar check which 
 Mr. Gault has so kindly made out for you, 
 and you will go." 
 
 "Leavin' Chum behind?" babbled Ferris, 
 aghast. "Not leavin' Chum behind? Please 
 not!" 
 
 He pulled himself together with an effort 
 that drove his nails bitingly into his palms 
 and left his face gray. He saw the useless- 
 ness of pleading with these people of pol- 
 ished iron, who could not understand his 
 fearful loss. For the sake of Chum — for 
 the sake of the self-respecting man he him- 
 
 128 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 self had become — 'he would not let himself 
 go to pieces. Forcing his shaken voice to a 
 dry steadiness, he addressed the imeasily 
 squirming Gault. 
 
 "What d'j' you pay for Chum when you 
 bought him off 'n that Hudson River feller 
 — that Glenmuir chap?" he demanded. 
 
 "Why, as a matter of fact," responded 
 Gault, "as Colonel Harden has told you, I 
 couldn't have hoped to get such a promising 
 collie at any price it" " 
 
 "What d'j' you pay for him?" insisted 
 Link, his voice harsh and unconsciously 
 domineering as a vague new hope dawned 
 on his troubled mind. 
 
 "I paid six hundred dollars," answered 
 Gault shortly, in annoyance at the boor's 
 manner. 
 
 "Good!" approved Luik, "That gives us 
 suthin' to go on. I'll pay you six hundred 
 dollars fer him back. This htmdred dollars 
 
 129 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 in gold an' this yer silver cup an' seven 
 dollars more I got with me — to bind the 
 bargain. An' a second mortgage on my 
 farm fer the rest. Fer as much of the rest," 
 he amended, "as I ain't got ready cash for." 
 
 In his stark earnestness. Link's rough 
 voice sounded more hectoring and unpleas- 
 ant than before. Gauljt, unused to such talk 
 from the alleged "peasantry," resolved to 
 cut short the haggling. 
 
 "Sell for six himdred a dog that's cleaned 
 up 'best in the show?' " he rasped. "No, 
 thank you. Leighton says Cavalier wiU go 
 far. One man, ten minutes ago, oifered me 
 a thousand for him." 
 
 "A thousan'?" repeated Ferris, scared at 
 the magnitude of the sima — then, rallying, 
 he asked: 
 
 "What will you let me have him fer, 
 tfhen? Set a price, can't you?" 
 
 "The dog is not for sale," curtly replied 
 
 130 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 Gault, busying himself with the lighting of 
 a cigarette. 
 
 "Take Mr. Gault's check and go," com- 
 manded Marden, thrusting the slip of paper 
 at Link. "I think there is nothing more to 
 say. I have an appointment at " 
 
 He hesitated. Regardless of the others' 
 presence, Ferris dropped to one knee be- 
 side the uncomprehending dog. With his 
 arm about Chum's neck, he bent close to the 
 colhe's ear and whispered : 
 
 "Good-by, Chummie! It's good-by, far 
 keeps, too. Don't you get to thinkin' I've 
 gone an' deserted you, nor got tired of you, 
 nor ilothin'. Chum. Because I'd a dam' 
 sight ruther leave one of my two legs here 
 than to leave you. I — I guess only Gawd 
 rightly knows all you done fer me, Chum. 
 But I ain't a-goin' to ferget none of it. 
 Lord, but it's goin' to be pretty turrible, to 
 home, without you!" 
 
 131 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 He got to his feet, winking back a mist 
 from his red eyes, and turning blindly 
 toward the door. 
 
 "Here!" boomed Marden after him. 
 "You've forgotten your check." 
 
 "I don't aim to take no measly money fer 
 givin' up the only friend I got!" snarled 
 Link over his shoulder. "Keep it — fer a 
 tip!" 
 
 It was a good exit line. Blit it was 
 spoiled. Because, as Ferris reached the 
 door and groped for its knob. Chum was 
 beside him — glad to get out of this uncon- 
 genial assembly and to be alone with the 
 master who seemed so imhappy and so 
 direly in need of consolation. Link stif- 
 fened to his full height. With one hand 
 lovingly laid on the collie's silken head, he 
 mumbled: 
 
 "No, Chum, you can't come along. Back, 
 boy! Stay here!" 
 
 132 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 Lowering at Gault, he added: 
 
 "He ain't never been hit, nor yet swore 
 at. An' he don't need to be. Treat him 
 nice, like he's used to bein' treated. An' 
 don't get sore on him if he mopes fer me, 
 jes' at fust. Because he's sure to. Dogs 
 ain't like folks. They got hearts. Folks 
 has only got souls. I guess dogs has the 
 best of it, at that." 
 
 Ferris swung open the door and stum- 
 bled out, not trusting himself for a back- 
 ward glance at the wistfully grieved dog 
 he had left behind. 
 
 Lurchingly he made off, across the lawn 
 and out through the wicket. He was numb 
 and sick. He moved mechanically and with 
 no conscious power of thought or of loco- 
 motion. 
 
 Out in the highroad, a (homing instinct 
 guided his leaden feet in the direction of 
 Hampton. And he plodded dazedly the 
 
 133 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 interminable four miles that separated him 
 from his desolate farm. 
 
 As he turned in at his own gate, he was 
 aware of a poignant dread that pierced his 
 numbness. And he knew it for a dread of 
 entering the house and of finding no one to 
 welcome him. Setting his teeth he went 
 forward, imlocked the door and stamped 
 into the silent kitchen. 
 
 Upon the table he dumped the paper- 
 swathed cup he had been carrying un- 
 noticed under his arm. Beside it he threw 
 the little purse fuU of gold pieces and the 
 wad of prize ribbons. Stepping back, his 
 foot struck something. He looked down 
 and saw it was a gay-colored rubber ball 
 he had bought, months ago, for Chum — ^the 
 dog's favorite plaything. 
 
 His face twisting. Link snatched up the 
 ball and went out onto the stepskto throw^ 
 it far out of sight; that it might no more 
 
 134 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 remind him of the pet who had so often 
 coaxed him to toss it for retrieval. 
 
 Ferris hurled the ball far out into the 
 garden. As the missile left his hand an 
 exultant bark reechoed through the silence 
 of the sunset. Chum, who had been trot- 
 ting demurely up the walk, sprang glee- 
 fully in pursuit of the ball, and presently 
 came galloping back to the dazedly incred- 
 ulous Link, with the many-colored sphere 
 of rubber between his jaws. 
 
 Chum had had no trouble at all in catch- 
 ing his master's trail and following it home. 
 He would have overtaken the slow-slouch- 
 ing Ferris, had he been able to slip out of 
 the clubhouse sooner. And now it pleased 
 him to be welcomed by this evident invita- 
 tion to a game of ball. 
 
 Link gave a gulping cry and buried both 
 hands in the colhe's ruff, staring down at 
 the dancing dog in an agony of rapture, 
 
 135 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 Then, all at once, his muscles tensed, and his 
 newly flushed face went green-white again. 
 
 "I — I guess we got to play it square, 
 Chum!" he muttered aloud, with something 
 like a groan. "I was blattin' to 'em, up 
 there, how you'd made a white man of me. 
 An' a reg'lar white man don't keep what 
 ain't his own prop'ty. Come along, Chum- 
 mie!" 
 
 His jaw very tense, his back painfully 
 stiff. Link strode heavily down the lane and 
 out into the highroad. Chum, always eager 
 for a walk with his god, frisked about him 
 in delight. 
 
 He had traversed the bulk of the dis- 
 tance to Craigswold, the dog beside him, 
 when he remembered that he had left his 
 horse and buggy at the livery stable there 
 in the morning. Well, that would save his 
 aching feet a four-mile walk home. In the 
 meantime 
 
 136 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 He and Chum stepped to the roadside to 
 avoid a fast-traveling little motor car which 
 was bearing down on them from the direc- 
 tion of Craigswold. 
 
 The car did not pass them. Instead, it 
 came to a gear-racking halt close beside 
 Ferris. Link, glancing up in dull lack of 
 interest, beheld Gault and the latter's 
 daughter staring down at him. 
 
 "Chum came home," said Ferris, scowling 
 at them. "He trailed me. Don't lick him 
 fer it! He's only a dog, an' he didn't know 
 no better. I was bringin' him back to you." 
 
 The girl looked sharply at her father. 
 Gault fidgeted uneasily, as he had done 
 once or twice that afternoon in the club- 
 house. And he avoided his daughter's gaze. 
 So she turned her level eyes on Link. 
 
 "Mr. Ferris," she said very quietly, "do 
 you mean to say, when this dog came back 
 to you, you were actually going to return 
 
 137 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 him to us, instead of hiding him somewhere 
 till the search was over?" 
 
 "I'm here, ain't I?" countered Ferris 
 defiantly. 
 
 "But why?" she insisted. "Why?" 
 
 "Because I'm a fool, I s'pose," he 
 growled. "I guess Chum wouldn't care 
 much 'bout livin' with a thief. Take him 
 up there with you on the seat. Don't let 
 him fall out. An' " — his voice scaling a 
 half octave in its pain — "keep him to home 
 after this. I ain't no measly angel. I can't 
 swear I'd have the grit to fetch him back 
 another time." 
 
 He stopped, to note a curious phenome- 
 non. There were actually tears in the girl's 
 big grave eyes. Link wondered why. Then 
 she said: 
 
 "Cavalier isn't my father's dog. He is 
 mine. My father gave him to me when he 
 bought him, last spring. Colonel Marden 
 
 138 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 seemed to have forgotten that to-day. And 
 I didn't want to start a squabble by re- 
 minding him of it. After all, it's my 
 father's affair, and mine. Nobody else's. 
 My father got me another collie last spring 
 to take Cavalier's place. A collie I'm ever 
 so fond of. So I don't need Cavalier. I 
 don't want him. I tried to find you to tell 
 you so. But you had gone. So I got my 
 father to drive me to your place. We'd 
 have started sooner, but Cavalier got away. 
 And we waited to look for him — ^to bring 
 him along." 
 
 "Bring him along?" mutteringly echoed 
 the blank-brained Link. "What fer?" 
 
 "Why," laughed the girl, "because your 
 house is where he belongs and where he is 
 going to live. Just as he has been living all 
 summer." 
 
 Ferris caught his breath in a choked 
 wheeze of imbelieving ecstasy. 
 
 139 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 "Gawdl" he breathed. "Gawd!" 
 
 Then, he stammered brokenly: 
 
 "They — ^they don't seem no right words 
 to — to thank you in. Ma'am. But maybe 
 you imd'stand what I'd want to say if I 
 could?" 
 
 "Yes," she said gently. "I think I un- 
 derstand. I understood from the minute I 
 saw you and the dog together. That's 
 why I decided I didn't want him. That's 
 why I " 
 
 "An' you'll get that thousand dollars!" 
 cried Link, his fingers buried rapturously in 
 Chum's fur. "Ev'ry cent of it. I " 
 
 "I think," interrupted the girl, winking 
 very fast. "I think I've got what I wanted, 
 already. My father doesn't want the 
 money either. Do you, Dad?" 
 
 "Oh, for heaven's sake, stop rubbing it 
 in!" fumed Gault. "Come on home! It's 
 getting cold. I ought to thank the Lord 
 
 140 
 
THE ORDEAL 
 
 for not having you anywhere near me in 
 Wall Street, girl! You'd send me under 
 the hammer in a week." 
 
 He kicked the accelerator, and the little 
 car whizzed off in the twilight. 
 
 "Chum," observed Ferris, gaping after 
 it. "Chum, I guess the good Lord built 
 that gal the same day He built you. If He 
 did — well, He siu-e done one grand day's 
 workl" 
 
 141 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 LUCK had come at last to the Ferris 
 farm. Link's cash went into im- 
 provements on the place, instead of 
 going into the deteriorating of his inner 
 man. And he worked the better. A sulky 
 man is ever prone to be an inefficient man. 
 And Link no longer sulked. 
 
 All this — combined with a wholesale 
 boom in ^ local agriculture, and especially in 
 truck gardening — had wrought wonders in 
 Link's farm and in Link's bank account. 
 Within three years of Ferris's meeting with 
 Chum the place's last mortgage was wiped 
 out and a score of needed repairs and im- 
 
 142 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 provements were installed. Also the man 
 had a small but steadily growing sum to his 
 credit in a Paterson savings bank. 
 
 Life on the farm was mighty pleasant, 
 nowadays. Work was hard, of course, but 
 it was bringing results that made it more 
 than worth while. Ferris and his dog were 
 living on the fat of the land. And they 
 were happy. 
 
 Then came the interruption that had 
 been inevitable from the very first. 
 
 A taciturn and eternally dead-broke 
 man, in a rural region, need not fear in- 
 trusion on his privacy. Convivial folk 
 make detours round him, as if he were a 
 mud puddle. Thriftier and more respect- 
 able neighbors eye him askance or eye him 
 not at all. 
 
 But when a meed of permanent success 
 comes to such a man he need no longer be 
 lonely unless he so wills. Which is not 
 
 143 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 cynicism, but common sense. The convivial 
 element will still fight shy of him. But he 
 is welcomed into the circle of the re- 
 spectable. 
 
 So it was with Link Ferris. Of old he 
 had been known as a shiftless and hard- 
 drinking mountaineer with a sour farm that 
 was plastered with mortgages. Now, he 
 had cleared off his mortgages and had cleaned 
 up his farm; and he and his home exuded an 
 increasing prosperity. 
 
 People, meeting him in the nearby village 
 of Hampton or at church, began to treat 
 him with a consideration that the long-aloof 
 farmer found bewildering. 
 
 Yet he liked it rather than not; being 
 at heart a gregarious soul. And with gruff 
 friendliness he met the advances of well-to- 
 do neighbors who in old days had scarce 
 favored him with a nod. 
 
 The gradual change from the isolated life 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 of former years did not make any sort of a 
 hit with Chum. The collie had been well 
 content to wander through the day's work 
 at his master's heels; to bring in the sheep 
 and the cattle from pasture; to guard the 
 farm from intruders — ^human or otherwise. 
 
 In the evenings it had been sweet to 
 lounge at Link's feet, on the little white 
 porch, in the summer dusk; or to lie in 
 drowsy content in front of the glowing 
 kitchen stove on icy nights when the gale 
 screeched through the naked boughs of the 
 dooryard trees and the snow scratched 
 hungrily at the window panes. 
 
 Now, the dog's sensitive brain was aware 
 of a subtle alteration. He did not object 
 very much to the occasional visits at the 
 house of other farmers and townsfolk dur- 
 ing the erstwhile quiet evenings, although 
 he had been happier in the years of peace- 
 ful seclusion. 
 
 145 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 But he grieved at his master's increas- 
 ingly frequent absences from home. Now- 
 adays, once or twice a week, Link was 
 wont to dress himself in his best as soon 
 as the day's work was done, and fare forth 
 to Hampton for the evening. 
 
 Sometimes he let Chum go with him in 
 these outings. Oftener of late he had said, 
 as he started out: 
 
 "Not to-night, Chimimie. Stay here." 
 
 Obediently the big dog would lay him- 
 self down with a sigh on the porch edge; 
 his head between his white little forepaws; 
 his sorrowful brown eyes following the 
 progress of his master doAvn the lane to 
 the highroad. 
 
 But he grieved, as only a sensitive high- 
 bred dog can grieve — a dog who asks 
 nothing better of life than permission to 
 live and to die at the side of the man he 
 has chosen as his god; to follow that god 
 
 146 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 out into rain or chill ; to starve with him, if 
 need be; to suffer at his hands — in short, 
 to do or to be anything except to be sepa- 
 rated from him. 
 
 Link Ferris had gotten into the habit of 
 leaving Chum alone at home, oftener and 
 oftener of late, as his own evening absences 
 from the farm grew more and more fre- 
 quent. 
 
 He left Chimi at home because She did 
 not like dogs. 
 
 "She" was Dorcas Chatham, the daughter 
 of Hampton's postmaster and general store- 
 keeper. 
 
 Old Man Chatham in former days would 
 have welcomed Cal Whitson, the official 
 village souse, to his home as readily as he 
 would have admitted the ne'er-do-well Link 
 Ferris to that sanctuary. But of late he 
 had noted the growing improvement in 
 Link's fortunes, as evidenced by his larger 
 147 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 store trade, his invariable cash payments and 
 the frequent money orders which went in his 
 name to the Paterson savings bank. 
 
 Wherefore, when Dorcas met Link at a 
 church sociable and again on a straw ride 
 and asked him to come and see her some 
 time, her sire made no objection. Indeed 
 he welcomed the bashful caller with some- 
 thing like an approach to cordiahty. 
 
 Dorcas was a calm-eyed, efficient damsel, 
 more than a little pretty, and with much 
 repose of manner. Link Ferris, from the 
 first, eyed her with a certain awe. When 
 a mystic growing attraction was added to 
 this and when it in turn merged into love, 
 the sense of awe was not lost. Rather it 
 was strengthened. 
 
 In all his thirty-one lean and lonely 
 years Link had never before fallen in love. 
 At the age when most youths are sighing 
 over some wonder girl, he had been too 
 
 148 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 busy fighting off bankruptcy and starvation 
 to have time or thought for such things. 
 
 Wherefore, when love at last smote him 
 it smote him hard. And it found him woe- 
 fully unprepared for the battle. 
 
 He knew nothing of women. He did 
 not know, for example, what the average 
 youth finds out in his teens — that grave 
 eyes and silent aloofness and lofty self-will 
 and icy pietism in a maiden do not always 
 signify that she is a saint and that she 
 must be worshiped as such. Ferris had 
 no one to tell him that far oftener these 
 signs point merely to stupid narrowness and 
 to lack of ideas. 
 
 Dorcas was clever at housework. She 
 was quietly self-assured. She was good to 
 look upon. She was not like any of the few 
 girls Link had met. Wherefore he built 
 for her a sacred shrine in his innermost 
 heart; and he knelt before her image there. 
 
 149 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 If Ferris found her different from the 
 other Hampton girls, Dorcas found him 
 equally different from the local swains she 
 knew. She recognized his hidden strength. 
 The maternal element in her nature sym- 
 pathized with his loneliness and with the 
 marks it hadJeft upon his soul. 
 
 For the rest — he was neither a village 
 cut-up hke Con Skerly, nor a solemn mass 
 of conceit like Royal Crews; nor patroniz- 
 ing like young Lawyer Wetherell; nor 
 vaguely repulsive hke old Cap'n Baldy 
 Todd, who came furtively a-courting her. 
 Link was different. And she liked him. 
 She liked him more and more. 
 
 Once her parents took Dorcas and her 
 five-year-old sister, Olive, on a Sunday 
 afternoon ramble, which led eventually to 
 the Ferris farm. Link welcomed the 
 chance callers gladly, and showed them over 
 the place- Dorcas's housewifely eye re- 
 
 150 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 joiced in the well-kept house, even while 
 she frowned inwardly at its thousand signs 
 of bachelor inefficiency. The stock and 
 tne crops, too, spoke of solid industry. 
 
 But she shrank back in sudden revolt 
 as a huge tawny collie came bounding 
 toward her from the fold where he had just 
 marshaled the sheep for the night. The 
 dog was beautiful. And he meant her no 
 harm. He even tried shyly to make friends 
 with the tall and grave-eyed guest. Dorcas 
 saw all that. Yet she shrank from him 
 with instinctive fear — in spite of it. 
 
 As a child she had been bitten — and 
 bitten badly — ^by a nondescript mongrel 
 that had been chased into the Chatham 
 backyard by a crowd of stone-throwing 
 boys, and which she had sought to oust with 
 a stick from its hiding place under the 
 steps. Since then Dorcas had had an un- 
 conquerable fear and dislike of dogs. The 
 
 161 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 feeling was unconquerable because she had 
 made no effort to conquer it. She had 
 henceforth judged all dogs by the one 
 whose teeth marks had left a lifelong scar 
 on her white forearm. 
 
 She had the good breeding not to let 
 Ferris see her distaste for his pet that he 
 was just then exhibiting so proudly to the 
 guests. Her shrinking was imperceptible, 
 even to a lover's solicitous eye. But Chimi 
 noted it. And with a collie's odd sixth 
 sense he knew this intruder did not like 
 him. 
 
 Not that her aversion troubled Chum at 
 all; but it puzzled him. People as a rule 
 were effusively eager to make friends with 
 Chum. And — being ultraconservative, like 
 the best type of collie — he found their 
 handling and other attentions annoying. 
 He had taken a liking to Dorcas, at sight. 
 But since she did not return this liking 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 Chum was well content to keep away from 
 her. 
 
 He was the more content, because five- 
 year-old Ohve had flung herself, with loud 
 squeals of rapture, bodily on the dog; and 
 had clasped her fat little arms adoringly 
 round his massive furry throat in an ecstasy 
 of delight. 
 
 Chimi had never before been brought 
 into such close contact with a child. And 
 Link watdhed with some shght perturbation 
 the baby's onslaught. But in a moment 
 Ferris's mind was at rest. 
 
 At first touch of the baby's fingers the 
 colhe had become once and for all Ohve's 
 slave. He fairly reveled in the discom- 
 fortingly tight caress. The tug of the little 
 hands in his sensitive neck fur was bhss to 
 him. Wiggling all over with happiness he 
 sought to lick the chubby face pressed so 
 tight against his ruff. From that instant 
 
 158 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 Chum had a divided allegiance. His human 
 god was Ferris. But this fluffy pink-and- 
 white youngster was a mighty close second 
 in his list of deities. 
 
 Dorcas looked on, trembling with fear; 
 as her little sister romped with the adoring 
 dog. And she heaved a sigh of reUef when 
 at last they were clear of the farm without 
 mishap to the baby. For Olive had been 
 dearer to Dorcas, from birth, than anyone 
 or anything else on earth. To the baby 
 sister alone Dorcas ceased to be the grave- 
 eyed and self -assured Lady of Quality, and 
 became a meek and worshiping devotee. 
 
 When Link Ferris at last mustered 
 courage to ask Dorcas Chatham to marry 
 him his form of proposal would have been 
 ruled out of any novel or play. It con- 
 sisted chiefly of a mouthful of half- 
 swallowed, half-exploded words, spoken all 
 in one panic breath, to the accompaniment 
 
 164 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 of a mortal fear that shook him to the 
 marrow. 
 
 Any other words, thus mouthed and gar- 
 gled, would have required a full college of 
 languages to translate them. But the 
 speech was along a hne perfectly familiar 
 to every woman since Eve. And Dorcas 
 understood. She would have understood 
 had Link voiced his proposal in the Choc- 
 taw dialect instead of a slmringly mumbled 
 travesty on English. 
 
 The man's stark earnestness of entreaty 
 sent a queer flutter to the very depths of 
 her cahn soul. But the flutter failed to 
 reach or to titillate the steady eyes. Nor 
 did it creep into the level and self-possessed 
 voice, as Dorcas made quiet answer: 
 
 "Yes. I like you better than any other 
 man I know. And I'll marry you, if 
 you're perfectly sure you care for me that 
 way." 
 
 1S6 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 No, it was not the sort of reply Juliet 
 made to the same question. It is more than 
 doubtful that Cleopatra answered thus, 
 when Antony offered to throw away the 
 world for her sake. But it was a wholly 
 correct and self-respecting response. And 
 Dorcas had been rehearsing it for nearly 
 a week. 
 
 Moreover, words are of use, merely as 
 they affect their hearers. And all the 
 passion poetry of men and of angels could 
 not have thrilled Link Ferris as did Dor- 
 cas's correct and demure assent to his fren- 
 ziedly gabbled plea. It went through the 
 lovesick man's brain and heart like the 
 breath of God. 
 
 And thus the couple became engaged. 
 
 With only a slight diminishing of his 
 
 earlier fear did Link seek out Old Man 
 
 Chatham to obtain his consent to the match. 
 
 Dizzy with joy and relief he listened to that 
 
 156 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 village worthy's ungracious assent — also se- 
 cretly rehearsed for some days. 
 
 For the best part of a month thereafter 
 Link Ferris floated through a universe of 
 roseate lights and soft music. 
 
 Then came the jar of awakening. 
 
 It was one Saturday evening, a week or 
 so before the date set for the wedding. 
 Dorcas broached a theme which had been 
 much in her mind since the beginning of 
 the engagement. She approached it very 
 tactfuUy indeed, leading up to it in true 
 feminine fashion by means of a cunningly 
 devised series of levels which would have 
 been the despair of a mining engineer. 
 Having paved the way she remarked care- 
 lessly : 
 
 "John Iglehart was at the store to-day, 
 father says. He's crazy about that big coUie 
 of yours." 
 
 Instantly Link was full of glad interest. 
 
 167 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 It had been a sorrow to him that Dorcas 
 did not like dogs. She had explained her 
 dishke — purely on general principles — early 
 in their acqixaintance, and had told him of 
 its origin. Link was certain she would 
 come to love Chirai, on intimate acquaint- 
 ance. In the interim he did not seek to 
 force her liking by bringing the collie to the 
 Chatham house when he called. 
 
 Link did not believe in crossing a bridge 
 until he came to it. There would be plenty 
 of time for Dorcas to make friends with 
 Chum in the long and happy days to come. 
 Yet, now, he rejoiced that she herself 
 should have been the first to broach the 
 subject. 
 
 "Father says John is wild about Chimi," 
 went on the girl unconcernedly; adding, 
 "By the way, John asked father to tell you 
 he'd be glad to pay you $100 for the dog. 
 It's a splendid offer, isn't it! Think of 
 
 168 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 all the things we can get for the house 
 with $100, Link I Why, it seems almost 
 providential, doesn't it? Father says John 
 is in earnest about it too. He " 
 
 "In earnest, hey I" snapped Ferris, find- 
 ing his voice after an instant of utter 
 amazement. "In earnest! Well, that's real 
 grand of him, ain't it! I'd be in earnest, 
 too, if I was to bid ten cents for the best 
 farm in Passaic County. But the feller 
 who owned the farm wouldn't be in 
 earnest. He'd be taking it as a fine joke. 
 Like I do, when Johnny Iglehart has the 
 nerve to offer $100 for a dog that wouldn't 
 be worth a cent less'n $600 — even if he 
 was for sale. Why, that collie of 
 mme 
 
 "If he is worth $600," suggested Dorcas 
 icily, "you'd better not lose any time be- 
 fore you find someone who will pay that 
 for him. He's no use to us. And $600 is 
 
 1S9 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 too much money to carry on four legs. 
 He " 
 
 "No use to us?" echoed Link. "Why, 
 Chimi's worth the pay of a hired man to 
 me, besides all the fondness I've got for 
 him! He handles the sheep, and he " 
 
 "So you've told me," interposed Dorcas 
 with no show of interest, "I remember the 
 first few times you came to see me you 
 didn't talk of anything else, hardly, except 
 that dog. Everybody says the same thing. 
 It's a joke all through Hampton, the silly 
 way you're forever singing his praises." 
 
 "Why shouldn't I?" demanded Link 
 sturdily. "There's not a dandier, better 
 pal anywhere, than what Chum's been to 
 me. He " 
 
 "Yes, yes," assented Dorcas, "I know. 
 I don't doubt it. But, after all, he's only a 
 dog, you know. And if you can get a good 
 price for him, as you say, then the only 
 
 160 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 thing to do is to sell him. In hard times 
 like these " 
 
 "Times ain't hard," denied Link tersely. 
 "And Chum ain't for sale. That's all there 
 is to it." 
 
 If one of her father's sleek cart horses 
 had suddenly walked out of its stall with 
 a shouted demand that it be allowed to do 
 the driving, henceforth, and that its owners 
 do the hauling, Dorcas Chatham could not 
 have been much more surprised than at 
 this imlooked-for speech from her humble 
 suitor. 
 
 Up to now. Link Ferris had treated the 
 girl as though he were unworthy to breathe 
 the same air as herself. He had been 
 pathetically eager to concede any and every 
 mooted point to her, with a servile abase- 
 ment which had roused her contempt, even 
 while it had gratified her sense of power. 
 
 She had approached with tact the sub- 
 
 161 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 ject of Chum's disposal. But she had done 
 so with a view to the saving of Link's 
 feehngs, not with the faintest idea, that her 
 love-bemused slave could venture to oppose 
 her. She knew his fondness for the dog and 
 she had not wished to bring matters to an 
 issue, if tact would serve as well. 
 
 To pimish her serf and to crush rebellion 
 once and for all, as well as to be avenged 
 for her wasted diplomacy, Dorcas cast aside 
 her kindher intent and drove straight to the 
 point. Her calm temper was ruffled, and 
 she spoke with a new heat: 
 
 "There is something you and I may as 
 well settle, here and now. Link," she said. 
 "It will save bickerings and misunderstand- 
 ings, later on. I've told you how I hate 
 dogs. They are savage and treacherous 
 and " 
 
 "Chimi ain't I" declared Link stoutly. 
 "Why, that dog " 
 
 162 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 "I hate dogs," she went on, "and I'm 
 horribly afraid of them. I won't live in the 
 same house with one. I don't want to hurt 
 your feelings, Link, but you'll have to get 
 rid of that great brown brute before you 
 marry me. That is positive. So please 
 let's say no more about it." 
 
 The man was staring at her with under 
 jaw ajar. Her sharp air of finality grated 
 on his every nerve. Her ultimatum con- 
 cerning Chimi left him dumfounded. But 
 he forced himself to rally to the defense. 
 
 This glorious sweetheart of his did not 
 understand dogs. He had hoped to teach 
 her later to like and appreciate them. But 
 apparently she must be taught at once that 
 Chum could not be sold and that the coUie 
 must remain an honored member of the 
 Ferris household. Marshaling his facts and 
 his words, he said: 
 
 "I never told you about the time I was 
 
 168 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 coming back home one night from the tav- 
 ern here at Hampton, after I'd just cashed 
 my pay check from the Pat'son market. 
 I've never blabbed much about it, because 
 I was drunk. Yes, it was back in them 
 days. Just after I'd got Chimi. A couple 
 of fellers had got me drunk. And they set 
 on me in a lonesome patch of the road by 
 the lake; and they had me down and was 
 taking the money away from me, when 
 Chmn sailed into them and druv them off. 
 He had foUered me, without me knowing. 
 In the scrimmage I got tumbled headfirst 
 into the lake. I was too drunk to get out, 
 and my head was stuck in the mud, 'way 
 under water. I'd 'a' drowned if Chum 
 hadn't of puUed me out with his teeth in the 
 shoulder of my coat. And that's the dog 
 you're wanting me to sell?" 
 
 "You aren't likely to need such help 
 again, I hope," countered the girl loftily, 
 
 164< 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 "now that you have stopped drinking and 
 made a man of yourself. So Chum won't 
 be needed for " 
 
 "I stopped drinking," answered Link, 
 "because I got to seeing how much more of 
 a beast I was than the fine clean dog that 
 was hving with me. He made me feel 
 'shamed of myself. And he was such good 
 comp'ny round the house that I didn't get 
 lonesome enough to sneak down to the tav- 
 ern all the time. It wasn't me that 'made a 
 man of myself.' It was Chimi made a man 
 of me. Maybe that sounds foolish to you. 
 But " 
 
 "It does," said Dorcas serenely. "Very 
 foolish indeed. You don't seem to realize 
 that a dog is only an animal. If you can 
 get a nice home for the collie — such as John 
 Iglehart will give him " 
 
 "IglehartI" raged Link, momentarily los- 
 ing hold over himself. "If that mangy, 
 
 165 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 wall-eyed slob comes slinking round my 
 farm again, making friends with Chum, I'll 
 sick the dog onto him; and have him run 
 Iglehart all the way to his own shack! 
 He's — ! There! I didn't mean to cut 
 loose like that!" he broke off at Dorcas's 
 shudder of dismay. "Only it riles me some- 
 thing terrible to have him trying to get 
 Chum away from me." 
 
 "There is no occasion to go losing yoiu" 
 temper and shouting," reproved the girl. 
 "Nothing is to be gained that way. Besides, 
 that isn't the point. The point is this, since 
 you force me to say it: You must get rid 
 of that dog. And you must do it before 
 you marry me. I won't set foot in your 
 house until your dog is gone — and gone for 
 good. I am sorry to speak so, but it had 
 to be said." 
 
 She paused to give her slave a chance to 
 wilt. But Link only sat, blank-faced, star- 
 
 166 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 ing at her. His mind was in a muddle. All 
 his narrow world was upside down. He 
 couldn't make his brain grasp in full the 
 situation. 
 
 All he could visuahze for the instant was 
 a shadowy mental image of Chum's expec- 
 tant face; the tuHp ears pricked forward, 
 expectant; the jaws "laughing;" the deep- 
 set brown eyes abrim with gay affection and 
 deathless loyalty for the man who was now 
 asked to get rid of him. It didn't make 
 sense. Half under his breath Link Ferris 
 began to talk — or rather to ramble. 
 
 "There was one of the books over to the 
 lib'ry," he heard himself meandering on, 
 "with a queer story in it. I got to reading 
 it through, one night last winter. It was 
 about a feller named Ted'rigo.' A wop of 
 some kind, I guess. He got so hard up he 
 didn't have anything left but a pet falcon. 
 Whatever a falcon may be. Whatever it 
 
 167 
 
HJS DOG 
 
 was, it must 'a' been good to eat. But he set 
 a heap of store by it. Him and it was 
 chums. Same as me and Chum are. Then 
 along come a lady he was in love with. And 
 she stopped to his house for dinner. There 
 wasn't anything in the house fit for her to 
 eat. So he fed her the falcon. Killed the 
 pet that was his chum, so's he could feed 
 the dame he was stuck on. I thought, when 
 I read it, that that feller was more kinds 
 of a swine than I'd have time to tell you. 
 But he wasn't any worse'n I'd be if I was 
 to " 
 
 "I'm sorry you care so little for me," in- 
 tervened Dorcas, her voice very sweet and 
 very cold, and her slender nose whitening a 
 little at the corners of the nostrils. "Of 
 course if you prefer a miserable dog to me, 
 there's nothing more to be said. I " 
 
 "No!" almost yelled the miserable man. 
 "You've got me all wrong, dearie. Honest, 
 
 16S 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 you have. Can't you understand? Your 
 little finger means a heap more to me than 
 ev'rything else there is — except the rest of 
 you " 
 
 "And your dog," she supplemented. 
 
 "No!" he denied fiercely. "You got no 
 right to say that! But Chimi's served me 
 faithful. And I can't kick him out like he 
 
 was a 
 
 "Now you are getting angry again!" she 
 accused, pale and furious. "I don't care 
 to he howled at. The case stands like this: 
 You must choose whether to get rid of that 
 dog or to lose me. Take your choice. 
 If " 
 
 "I read in a story book about a feller 
 that had a thing like that put up to him," 
 said poor Link, unable to believe she was in 
 earnest. "His girl said: 'You gotta choose 
 between me and tobacco.' And he said: 
 'I'll choose tobacco. Not that I value to- 
 
 169 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 bacco so all-fired much,' he says, 'but 
 because a girl, who'd, make a man take such 
 a choice, ain't worth giving up tobacco for/ 
 You see, dearie, it's this way " 
 
 "Youll have that dog out of your house 
 and out of your possession, inside of twenty- 
 four hours," she decreed, the white anger of 
 a grave-eyed woman making her cold voice 
 vibrate, "or you will drop my acquaint- 
 ance. That is final. And it's definite. The 
 engagement is over — ^until I hear that your 
 dog is killed or given away or sold. Good 
 night I" 
 
 She left the room in vindictive haste. So 
 overwhelmingly angry was she that she 
 closed the door softly behind her, instead of 
 slamming it. Through all his swirl of mis- 
 ery Link had sense enough to note this 
 final symptom and wonder bitterly at it. 
 
 On his way out of the house he was 
 hailed by a high-pitched baby voice from 
 
 170 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 somewhere above him. Olive had crawled 
 out of bed, and in her white flannel pajamas 
 she was leaning over the upper balustrade. 
 
 "Linkl" she called down to the wretched 
 man at the front door. "When you and 
 Dorcas gets married together, I'm comin' 
 to live wiv you I Then I can play wiv Chimi- 
 mie all I want to I" 
 
 Link bolted out to the street in the 
 midsft of her announcement. And, so occu- 
 pied was he in trying to swallow a lump 
 in his own throat, he failed to hear the 
 sound of stifled sobbing from behind a 
 locked door somewhere in the upper reaches 
 of the house. 
 
 As the night wore on, the sleepless girl 
 sought to comfort herself in the thought 
 that Link had not definitely refused her 
 terms. A night's reflection and an attitude 
 of imbending aloofness on her own part 
 might well bring him to a surrender. 
 
 171 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 Perhaps it was something in Link Fer- 
 ris's dejected gait, as he turned into his own 
 lane that night — ^perhaps it was the instinct 
 which' tells a collie when a loved human is 
 unhappy — but Chum was at once aware of 
 his master's woe. The dog, at first sound 
 of Link's approaching steps, bounded from 
 his vigil place on the porch and frisked 
 joyously through the darkness to meet him. 
 He sent forth a trumpeting bark of wel- 
 come as he ran. 
 
 Then — fifty feet from the oncoming man 
 — the big collie halted and stood for an 
 instant with ears cocked and eyes troubled. 
 After which he resumed his advance; but 
 at a solenm trot and with downcast mien. 
 As he reached Link, the collie whined softly 
 under his breath, gazing wistfully up into 
 Ferris's face and then thrusting his cold 
 nose lovingly into one of the man's loose- 
 hanging hands. 
 
 172 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 Link had winced visibly at sound of the 
 jubilantly welcoming bark. Now, noting 
 the sudden change in the collie's demeanor, 
 he stooped and caught the silken head 
 between his hands. The gesture was rough, 
 almost painful. Yet Chum knew it was a 
 caress. And his drooping plume of a tail 
 began to wag in response. 
 
 "Oh, Chumt' exclaimed the man with 
 something akin to a groan. "You know all 
 about it, don't you, old friend? You know 
 I'm the miser'blest man in North Jersey. 
 You know it without me having to say a 
 word. And you're doing your level best to 
 comfort me. Just like you always do. You 
 never get cranky; and you never say I 
 gotta choose betwixt this and that; and you 
 never get sore at me. You're just my chum. 
 And you're fool enough to think I'm all 
 right. Yet she says I gotta get rid of 
 you!" 
 
 173 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 The dog pressed closer to him, still 
 whining softly and licking the roughly 
 caressing hands. 
 
 "What'm I going to do, Chummie?" de- 
 manded Link brokenly. "What'm I going 
 to do about it? I s'pose any other feller'd 
 call me a fool — ^Uke she thinks I am — and 
 tell me to sell you. If you was some dogs, 
 that'd be all right. But not with you. 
 Chum. Not with you. You'd mope and 
 grieve for me, and you'd be wond'ring why 
 I'd deserted you after all these years. And 
 you'd get to pining and maybe go sick. 
 And the feller that bought you wouldn't 
 understand. And most likely he'd whale 
 you for not being more chipper-like. And 
 you haven't ever been hit. I'd — I'd a blame' 
 sight sooner shoot you, than to let anyone 
 else have you, to abuse you and let you be 
 unhappy for me. Chum. A blame' sight 
 rather." 
 
 174 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 Side by side they moved on into the dark- 
 ened house. There, with the dog curled at 
 his feet. Link Ferris lay broad awake vmtil 
 sunrise. 
 
 Early the next afternoon Dorcas decided 
 she stood in need of brisk, outdoor exercise. 
 Olive came running down the path after 
 her, eagerly demanding to be taken along. 
 Dorcas with much sternness bade her go 
 
 back. She wanted to be alone, unless 
 
 But she refused to admit to herself that 
 there was any "vmless." 
 
 Olive, grievously disappointed, stood on 
 the steps, watching her big sister set off up 
 the road. She saw Dorcas take the right- 
 hand tin-n at the fork. The baby's face 
 cleared. Now she knew in which direction 
 Dorcas was going. That fork led to the 
 Glen. And the Glen was a favorite Simday 
 afternoon ramble for Link and Chum. 
 Olive knew 'that, because she and Dorcas 
 
 176 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 more than once had walked thither to meet 
 them. 
 
 Olive was pleasantly forgetful of her 
 parents' positive command that she refrain 
 from walking alone on the motor-infested 
 Smiday roads. She set off at a fast jog 
 trot over the near-by hill, on whose other 
 side ran the Glen road. 
 
 Link Ferris, with Chum at his heels, was 
 tramping moodily toward the Glen. As he 
 turned into the road he paused in his sullen 
 walk. There, strolling xmconcernedly, some 
 yards in front of him, was a taU girl in 
 white. Her back was toward him. Yet he 
 would have recognized her at a hundred 
 times the distance. Chum knew her, too, for 
 he wagged his tail and started at a faster 
 trot to overtake her. 
 
 "Back!" called Link. 
 
 Purposely he spoke as low as possible. 
 But the dog heard and obeyed. The girl, too, 
 
 176 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 Started a little, and made as if to turn. Just 
 then ensued a wUd crackling in the thjck 
 roadside bushes which lined the hillside from 
 highway to crest. And a white-clad little 
 bunch of humanity came galloping jubi- 
 lantly out into the road, midway between 
 Dorcas and Link. 
 
 At the road edge Olive's stubby toe 
 caught in a noose of blackberry vine. As 
 the youngster was running full tilt, her own 
 impetus sent her rolling over and over into 
 the center of the dusty turnpike. 
 
 Before she could get to her feet or even 
 stop rolling, a touring car came round the 
 bend, ten yards away — a car that was 
 traveling at a speed of something like 
 forty-five miles- an hour, and whose four 
 occupants were singing at the top of their 
 lungs. 
 
 L/ink Ferris had scarce time to tense his 
 muscles for a futile spring — Doycas's scream 
 
 177 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 of helpless terror was still unborn — ^when the 
 car was upon the prostrate child. 
 
 And in the same fraction of a second a 
 furry catapult launched itself across the 
 wide road at a speed that made it look hke 
 a tawny blur. 
 
 Chum's mad leap carried him to the baby 
 just as the car's fender hung above her. A 
 slashing grip of his teeth in the shoulder of 
 her white dress and a lightning heave of his 
 mighty neck and shoulders^ — ^and the little 
 form was hurtling through the air and into 
 the weed-filled wayside ditch. 
 
 In practically the same instant Chum's 
 body whizzed into the air again. But this 
 time by no impetus of its own. The high- 
 powered car's fender had struck it fair, and 
 had tossed it into the ditch as though the 
 dog had been a heap of rags. 
 
 There — huddled and lifeless — sprawled 
 the beautiful collie. The car put on an 
 
 178 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 extra spurt of speed and disappeared round 
 tke next turn. 
 
 Olive was on her feet before Dorcas's fly- 
 ing steps could reach her. Unhurt but 
 vastly indignant, the baby opened her mouth 
 to make way for a series of howls. Then, 
 her eye falling on the inert dog, she ran 
 over to Chum and began to cry out to him 
 to come to life again. 
 
 "No use of that, kid!" interposed Link, 
 kneeling beside the collie he loved and 
 smoothing the soiled and rumpled fur. "It's 
 easier to drop out of life than what it is to 
 come back to it again. Well," he went on 
 harshly, turning to the weeping Dorcas, 
 "the question has answered itself, you see. 
 No need now to tell me to get rid of him. 
 He's saved me the bother. Like he was 
 always saving me bother. That being 
 Chum's way." 
 
 Something in his .throat impeded his 
 
 179 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 fierce speech. And he bent over the dog 
 again, his rough hands smoothing the piti- 
 fully stiU body with loving tenderness. Dor- 
 cas, weeping hysterically, fell on her knees 
 beside Chum and put her arms about the 
 huddled shape. She seemed to be trying to 
 say something, her lips close to one of the 
 furry little ears. 
 
 "'No use!" broke in Ferris, his voice as 
 grating as a file's. "He can't hear you now. 
 No good to tell him you hate dogs; or that 
 you're glad you've saw the last of him. 
 Even if he was alive, he wouldn't understand 
 that. He'd never been spoke to that way." 
 
 "Don't! Oh, don't!" sobbed the girl. 
 "Oh, I'm so " 
 
 "If you're crying for Chum," went on the 
 grating voice, "there's no need to. He was 
 only just a dog. He didn't know any better 
 but to get his life smashed out'n him, so 
 somebody else could go on living. All he 
 
 180 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 asked was to be with me and work for me 
 and love me. After you said he couldn't 
 keep on doing that, there ain't any good in 
 your crying for him. It must be nice — if 
 you'll only stop crying long enough to think 
 of it — ^to know he's out of your way. And 
 Tm out of it too!" he went on in a gust of 
 fury. "S'pose you two just toddle on, now, 
 and leave me to take him home, I got the 
 right to that, anyhow." 
 
 He stooped to pick up the dog; and he 
 winked with much rapidity to hold back an 
 annoying mist which came between him and 
 Chum. His mouth corners, too, were twitch- 
 ing in a way that shamed him. He had a 
 babyish yearning to bury his face in his dead 
 friend's fur, and cry. 
 
 "Don't!" Dorcas was wailing. "Oh, you 
 can't punish me any worse than I'm " 
 
 Her sob-broken voice scaled high and 
 swelled out into a cry of stark astonishment. 
 
 181 
 
HIS DOG 
 
 Slowly Chum was lifting his splendid 
 head and blinking stupidly about him! 
 
 The fender had smitten the collie just 
 below the shoulder, in a mass of fur-armored 
 muscles. In falhng into the wayside ditch 
 his skull had come into sharp contact with a 
 rock. Knocked senseless by the concussion, 
 he had lain as dead, for the best part of 
 five minutes. After which he had come 
 slowly to his senses — ^bewildered, bruised and 
 sore, but otherwise no worse for the accident. 
 
 He came to himself to find a weeping 
 woman clutching him stranglingly round 
 the neck, while she tried to kiss his dust- 
 smeared head. 
 
 Chum did not care at all for this treat- 
 ment, especially from a comparative stran- 
 ger. But he saw his adored master looking 
 so idiotically happy — over that or something 
 else — ^that the dog forbore to protest. 
 
 "If you reely wanted him put out of l^e 
 
 182 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 way so bad — " began Link, when he could 
 trust himself to speak. 
 
 He got no further. Dorcas Chatham 
 turned on him in genuine savageness. The 
 big eyes were no longer grave and patron- 
 izing. The air of aloofness had fallen from 
 the girl like a discarded garment. 
 
 "Link!" she blazed. "Link Ferris! If 
 you ever dare speak about getting rid of — 
 of my dog, — I'U — I'll never speak to you 
 again, as long as — as long as we're married!" 
 
 THE END 
 
 183 
 

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