Michael Trent stood knee-deep in a grey-white drift that eddied and
surged about him in tumultuous, soft waves, almost threatening to
engulf him.
The grey-white drift filled the tiny field in whose centre Trent was
standing. Its ragged edges were spilling in irregular driblets into
the adjoining fields and the road, scattering thence athwart the
nearer countryside.
To descend to bare fact, Michael Trent was in the middle of a milling
and unruly flock of merino sheep; and he was, incidentally, in more or
less of a fix.
Of these sheep, seventy had belonged to his farm for months. And he
had just added to them two additional flocks, new-bought, of thirty
and of twenty-five each; making a grand total of one hundred and
twenty-five.
This morning he had undertaken to pasture the three groups together in
a single paddock-field while he should assort from the full flock a
detachment of forty which he planned to drive to Boone Lake the
following morning for the rural metropolis’ monthly market day.
It had seemed a simple thing, this opening of the gates from two
fields and driving into a third field the occupants of the other two.
So simple had it appeared that Trent had not even enlisted the
services of his beautiful collie Buff in the petty task.
Buff had been sent, a half-hour earlier, to drive the farm’s little
bunch of cattle to the “forest pasture,” a mile to the east; and he
was not yet back. Trent had not bothered to wait for the collie’s
return before herding the three flocks of sheep into one. He had
merely opened the gates leading into the central field where were
pastured his original flock, and had driven the newer occupants of
those two fields into the middle one.
Then trouble had set in--as trouble is forever waiting to do, where
sheep are concerned.
One of the two new flocks had stampeded at sight and scent of the
strange flocks, and of the still more strange man. The stampeding
flock had ploughed straight into and through the thick of the others,
jostling and shoving them roughly, and communicating to them the
stampede impulse.
That had been quite enough, and all at once there were a hundred and
twenty-five crazy sheep surging around Trent and radiating away in
every direction. Their fear-driven bodies had found a weak panel in
the hurdle fence that bordered the road. Down flapped the hurdle, and
through the gap the nearest sheep began to dribble. The remainder were
in great and ever-increasing danger of injury from the mad plungings
of their companions.
Another accidental shove had loosed the half-fastened latch on the
centre field’s gate, which Trent had neglected to clamp when he came
into the paddock; and another leakage seeped out through that opening.
Helpless, wrathful, Trent waded through the turmoil, trying in vain to
restore quiet, and to make his way to one or both of the apertures
before a wholesale stampede should empty the field through gate or
hurdle, bruising and perhaps killing some of the weaker sheep against
the sides of the gap.
In his extremity, the farmer put his fingers to his lips and sent
forth a whistle agonisingly piercing and shrill. Then he turned back
to his futile labours of calming the stampede. Because he turned back
thus, he missed a sight really worth seeing.
Over the brow of a ridge, across the winding high road, flashed a
tawny and white shape that was silhouetted for an instant on the
pulsing sky-line--the shape of a large collie running as no dog but a
collie or a greyhound can run. Close to earth, in his sweeping stride,
Buff was coming at full speed in response to the far-heard whistle.
As he breasted the ridge-crest, the dog took in the scene below him in
a single glance. He saw the milling and straggling sheep, and his
distracted master in the centre of the panic throng. Thus, he did not
wait, as usual, for the signals Trent had taught him in “working”
sheep. Instead, he went into action on his own account.
Through the waves of greyish-white a tawny and wedge-shaped head clove
its way at express-train speed. With seeming aimlessness, Buff swirled
through the mass, sheering now to right, now to left, now wheeling,
now halting with a menace of thundered barks. Yet not one move was
thrown away, not one step was without definite purpose.
As by miracle, the charging sheep began to shape up, in the field’s
centre; and while they were still following this centrifugal impulse,
Buff was gone from among them. Out into the high road he flew, not
waiting to find either of the openings; but taking the tall hurdles in
his stride.
And in another second or so he had caught up with the rearmost of the
stragglers, had passed it and flashed on toward the more distant
strays. Before the sheep in the paddock had shaken off their
Buff-given impulse to crowd to the centre of the enclosure, the collie
had rounded up the scampering and bleating strays and was driving
them in a reluctant huddle through the gateway and in among their
fellows once more.
Then, without resting, he swung shut the gate--an easy trick long
since taught to him, as to many another working collie--and was
guarding with his body the gap made by the overset hurdle.
Trent ran up, fixed the hurdle in place, and then turned to pet and
praise his exultant dog.
“Buff,” he declared, taking the collie’s fluffy head between his two
gnarled hands, “you’re worth ten times your weight in hired men, and
you’re the best side-partner and chum a lonely chap ever had!”
Buff grinned, licked his master’s hand in quick friendliness, then lay
down at Trent’s feet for an instant’s rest. And, for the thousandth
time in the past three years the man noted something in the collie’s
pose that baffled him.
For, though Buff was lying upright and not on his side, both hind legs
were stretched straight out behind him. Normally no collie lies thus,
nor does any other canine that is not the possessor of a strong strain
of bulldog. It was Buff’s favourite posture. And Buff had every point
of a pure-bred collie--indeed, of the highest type of “show collie.”
The man’s bewilderment was roused, thus, from time to time, by the
dog’s various bulldog traits, such as lying with hindlegs out behind
him, or of holding a grip with the grim stubbornness of a pit terrier
rather than with the fiery dash of a true collie, or of diving for the
heels of driven cattle instead of for nose and ear.
Waiting only for a moment, while Buff was breathing himself after his
hard run across country, and his harder rounding up of the flock,
Trent chirped to the collie, and prepared to shut the two new
consignments of merinos back in their respective pens. The mingling of
the three flocks had been a mistake. Until their forthcoming drive to
market, the three bunches would fare better among their own
acquaintances than among strange sheep.
But the task was no easy one. To a casual eye all the milling sheep
looked just alike. Trent could distinguish by his personal red mark
his original flock. But the two sets of strangers were unmarked.
Wherefore his chirp to Buff.
The moment the collie was made to see what was required of him, he was
in the thick of the jostling turmoil again, flashing in and out like a
streak of tawny fire, seeming to have no objective, but to be
scampering without any special purpose.
Yet within fifty seconds he had headed a scared sheep through the
gateway into the right-hand paddock where stood his master. Then
another and yet another sheep, then a huddled half-dozen of them
cantered bleatingly into the paddock. While Trent looked on in wonder,
Buff proceeded to segregate, until the entire twenty-five that
belonged in this particular field were back within its boundaries.
Trent shifted to the opposite paddock, whence he had turned the second
flock of thirty into the central enclosure. And here Buff repeated his
unerring performance.
Though Trent was filled with amazed admiration at his pet’s
discernment, yet he recognised there was nothing miraculous in it.
Buff had herded both these new flocks into the paddocks at least three
times before, on their way from pasture, during the few days Trent had
owned them. He had become familiar with their scents and their
separate identities, after the uncanny fashion of the best sort of
working collie.
As the job ended, and Trent started homeward, with Buff trotting
chummily beside him, a slender black saddle-horse came single-footing
around the bend of the road between the paddocks and the farmhouse.
Astride the black, sat a figure as slender and highbred as the mount’s
own.
The rider was a girl of perhaps twenty, clad in crash and booted. At
sight of the man and the collie she waved her crop gaily at them, and
put her horse to a lope by a shift of the snaffle-rein.
Trent’s bronzed face went red with surprised pleasure at the
equestrian vision bearing down on him. Buff, after a single doubtful
glance, recognised horse and rider, and set off at a run to welcome
them.
“Why, I didn’t know you were at home yet, Ruth!” exclaimed Trent,
reaching up to take the gauntleted little hand extended to greet him.
“Your father said you’d be in the city another month. I saw him at the
store last evening, and he said----”
“Yes,” she interrupted, “I know. He hadn’t got my telegram, then. Aunt
Hester had to go out West to take care of her son--my cousin, Dick
Clinton, you remember? He has a ranch in Idaho. She had a letter from
him yesterday morning, saying he’d broken his leg. So she packed up,
right away; and took the night train, West. And I came home.”
“Oh!” said Trent, in an effort at sympathy. “And you had to cut your
visit in half? What a shame!”
“No,” she denied guiltily, “it wasn’t a shame. It was a blessing. I
oughtn’t to say so, but it was. She did everything to give me a good
time. And I enjoyed it, too, ever so much. But all the while I was
homesick for these dear hills. And I’m so glad to get back to them!
It’s queer,” she added, “how I’ve grown to love this Boone Lake
region; when dad and I have lived here barely eighteen months.”
“Eighteen months and nine days,” gravely corrected Trent. “I remember.
I had gone to town that evening to get the mail. And when I passed by
the old Brander house I saw lights in it. At the post-office they told
me a New York man and his daughter--‘some people named Hammerton’--had
moved in, that day, and that they’d come here for Mr. Hammerton’s
health. It wasn’t more than a week--just six days, to be exact--after
that, when your father stopped here to ask me about the commission
people I was dealing with in the city. He spent the morning, and he
asked me to come and see him. It was the next evening I called. That
was when I met you. So----”
“Do you keep a diary?” she asked, in an amusement that seemed tinged
with embarrassment. “Or have you a genius for remembering dates?”
“And,” pursued Trent, “it was just sixteen days after that when we
went horseback riding the first time. It--it may be a bit of silly
superstition,” he went on reluctantly, “but I’ve always dated the
start of this farm toward real success from the time you people moved
to Boone Lake. Ever since then I’ve prospered. Another six months
will find me in shape to install the last lot of up-to-date machinery
and to take over that eighty-acre tract of Holden’s that I’ve got the
option on. Then I can begin to call my soul my own and live like real
people. And, the first day I can do that, I am going to put my whole
fortune and my life, too, to the biggest test in the world. A test I
hadn’t any right to put it to while I was staggering along on the edge
of bankruptcy and with the future all so hazy. In six months I’ll be
able to ask a question that will show me whether all my luck is Dead
Sea fruit or--or the greatest thing that ever happened.”
He talked on, ramblingly, with an effort at unconcern; avoiding her
eyes. But his gaze was on her little gloved hand as it lay athwart the
horse’s mane. And he saw it tremble and clench. Trent was half glad,
half frightened that she had caught the drift of his blundering words.
Before he could continue, Buff created a diversion by routing a large
and terrified rabbit out of a fence corner and charging down the road
toward them in noisy pursuit of his prey. Bunny fled in blind panic
straight between the nervous horse’s forefeet. The mount snorted and
reared. As Ruth skilfully mastered the plunging steed, Trent caught
the bridle, close to the bit, and at the same time whistled Buff to
heel. Unwillingly, but instantly, the collie abandoned his delightful
chase and trotted obediently back to his master.
“Don’t scold him!” begged Ruth. “It wasn’t his fault!”
“I’m not going to scold him!” laughed Trent, ruffling the dog’s ears.
“It’s many a long month since Buff needed a scolding. He didn’t drive
the rabbit this way. The rabbit drove itself, before Buff could choose
the direction. He----”
“Buff is splendid protection for you, isn’t he?” she broke in, a tinge
of nervousness in her soft voice.
“Why, personally, I don’t stand in any great need of protection,” he
smiled. “I’m not exactly a timid little flower. But he protects the
farm and the house and the livestock as efficiently as a machine-gun
company could. He’s a born watchdog.”
Buff, realising he was under discussion, sat down in the road between
the man and the girl. He was wriggling with self-consciousness and
fanning the dust into a little whirlwind with the lightning sweeps of
his plumy tail; as he grinned expectantly from one to the other of the
speakers. But the collie’s grin found no answer on Ruth Hammerton’s
flower-tinted face. The girl’s eyes had grown grave, and there was a
tinge of uneasiness in them.
“I hope you’re right,” she began, hesitantly, “in saying you don’t
need any protection. And probably I’m foolish. But that’s why I rode
out here this morning.”
“To protect me?” he asked quizzically, yet perplexed at her new
bearing.
“To risk your thinking me impertinent,” she evaded, “by mixing into
something that doesn’t concern me.”
“Anything that concerns me,” he said as she hesitated again, “concerns
you, too; so far as you’ll let it. What’s the matter?”
She drew a long breath, knit her dark brows, and plunged into the
distasteful mission that had brought her to the Trent farm.
“In the first place,” she began, “do you know two men named Con Hegan
and Billy Gates?”
In stark surprise Trent stared up at her.
“Why, yes!” he made answer. “Of course I do. I have good reason to
know them. I’ve told you the story. I told it to your father, too,
before I accepted his invitation to come and see him. They were the
two men I found in my kitchen when I----”
“Yes, yes,” she interposed hastily, as though trying to shield him
from memories that must be painful. “I know. Of course, I remember.
But--but you never told me their names. I’m certain you didn’t. Or
they’d have been familiar to me when I heard them this morning.”
“This morning?” echoed Trent, puzzled. “I don’t----”
“I was at the store, doing the marketing,” she explained. “Some men
were loafing on the steps, just outside the window. And one of them
said, ‘A fellow from down Logan-way told me just now that Con Hegan
and Billy Gates are due to be turned loose to-morrow.’ And one of the
other men said, ‘Then Trent had better hire a special cop and take out
another life insurance policy. Both of ’em swore they’d get him, if
they was to go to the chair for it. And that’s one kind of an oath
neither of ’em’s liable to break. I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes
just now!’ That was all I could hear. But it worried me. I didn’t
associate the names with those men you had told me about. Perhaps
because the phrase ‘turned loose’ didn’t mean anything to me. But I
came out here to tell you, just the same. It wasn’t so much what the
fellow on the store steps said, as the scared way he said it, that
frightened me. Oh, is there any real danger of----”
“Nonsense!” laughed Trent. “There’s no danger at all. And you’re not
to give the matter another minute of your precious thought. But it was
bully of you to come out here to warn me--to care enough to----”
“You’re making light of it, just to make me stop worrying!” she
accused. “I know you are! Won’t you please notify the police about
their threat? Won’t you go armed? Won’t you lock your house ever so
carefully and keep indoors after dark? And----”
“And wear warm flannels next to my skin, all summer?” supplemented
Trent, with vast solemnity. “And carry an umbrella and wear rubbers if
the day is at all stormy? And----”
“Stop!” she commanded, a hint of tears in her troubled young voice.
“You’re making fun of me!”
“Heaven forbid!” he disclaimed, piously.
“You are!” she accused. “And you’re doing it to lead me to think you
aren’t in any danger; so that I won’t worry. But there _is_ danger!
And I know it. I’m positive of it, now that you’ve told me who those
men really are. Oh, can’t you----”
“Listen!” he begged. “You’re getting all wrought up over nothing,
Ruth. It’s wonderful to have you bother your head over my safety. But
I’m not going to let you do it. Here’s the idea: Hegan and Gates
belonged to the ‘Riverside Gang,’ over in South Boone. The gang was
cleared out some years ago. Some of its members went to jail. The
police had nothing definite on those two; so they let them alone. They
picked up a living by their wits, as semi-stationary tramps and they
kept their petty thefts from being found out. Then, when they’d sent
me to prison--they’d had it in for me ever since the time I caught
them near my hen-roost and ordered them off my land, to the
accompaniment of a stray kick or so--they went into the business on a
larger scale, using my house as a place to store their plunder and to
hide out in, when the neighbours might be suspecting them of a share
in the robberies. When Buff and I collared them they went all to
pieces and confessed everything. Just as I told you, before. Now, I
leave it to you if two such pitifully cowardly sneak thieves are
likely to risk another jail sentence by trying to harm me. It’s
ridiculous. Just the same, I’m as much your debtor for warning me, as
if the danger were real.”
Ruth had dismounted, during the talk. Now, turning to the horse, she
prepared to get into the saddle once more. But first she bent down and
laid her soft cheek against the delighted Buff’s head. Under cover of
the collie’s glad whimper of friendliness she whispered very low:
“Take care of him, Buff! Oh, take care of him--for _me_.”
Then, with assumed lightness, she said, as Trent lifted her to the
saddle:
“Probably you’re right. But it didn’t do any harm to warn you. I’m
sorry if I’ve seemed foolish. Good-bye!”
The little black horse cantered away. Michael Trent and Buff stood in
the middle of the road watching the girl out of sight. Then Trent
turned slowly to his chum.
“Buff, old man,” said he, “we made a good bluff of it just now, you
and I. All the same, it’s up to us both to keep our eyes open for a
while. Hegan and Gates were soaked with cheap whisky and sodden and
jumpy after a week’s carouse, when the chief of police ‘sweated’ them.
And he sure did ‘sweat’ them good and hard. It smashed their nerve.
Because they were in prime shape to have it smashed. And that’s how he
got them to go all to pieces and confess. That and the goods he found
on them. And, besides, he told each of them separately that the other
one had squealed; and made them sore on each other that way.
“But that wasn’t like either Gates or Hegan to give in. When they were
normal, they were as tough a pair of birds as I care to see. They’ve
had nearly three years to sober up in and get back their nerve by hard
work and plain food and no drink, Buff. And unless I’ve got them both
sized up all wrong, they’ve been spending most of that three years in
planning how to get back at the man who spoiled their game and
thrashed them and got them put away.
“They’ve had plenty of time to store up venom, Buff. And plenty of
venom to store up. Yes, and a good alibi, too, to clear them if
anything happens to me. Buff, we aren’t going to be fools enough to
worry. But we’ll keep awake, just the same. And, Lord, but wasn’t it
glorious of her to care enough about me to come ’way out here and warn
me! Buff, she knew what I meant, too, when I told her about having the
right pretty soon to ‘ask a question.’ I wonder if I’m pig-headed not
to have asked it long ago instead of waiting till I had something
besides my measly self to offer?”
During his mumbled address to the wistfully listening dog he had been
moving homeward. Now, standing on his neat porch, the man looked about
him, over his well-kept farm and its trim buildings; with a little
throb of pride as he contrasted it with the way the home had looked on
his return from prison three years earlier. The world, all at once,
seemed to him a wonderful place to live in, and life seemed
unbelievably sweet. His glance strayed down the long, yellow road
toward the old Brander place, and his lean face softened with a glow
that transfigured it.
Early the following morning Michael Trent set off down the same yellow
road toward Boone Lake for the monthly market day. But the patch of
road directly in front of him was no longer yellow. It was filled
with jogging and tossing billows of greyish-white.
Forty sheep, consigned to the market, were moving in close formation
in front of their staff-swinging master. For one reason alone did they
keep this close formation or, indeed, keep to the narrow road at all.
That one reason was Buff. The collie, with calm generalship, was
herding and driving them. And he was doing it to such perfection as to
make Trent’s rearguard task a sinecure.
For more than thirty months now Buff had been the lonely Trent’s
closest chum and almost his only companion. With true collie
efficiency, the dog had learned his hard and confusing farm lessons
from the master, who never lost his temper with him and who never
dealt unjustly by him. The bond between the two had sharpened and
increased Buff’s naturally “human” tendencies, and had brought out in
him the great soul and uncanny brain wherewith nature had endowed him.
A one-man dog, he idolised Trent and served him with joyous zeal.
Trent and Buff guided their woolly charges through the single winding
street of Boone Lake, now beginning to fill with market day traffic,
and on to the fenced-in market square. There they herded the forty
silly sheep in one corner of the livestock enclosure, a rod or two
distant from a second and much larger flock.
The owner of this second flock--a drover named Bayne--had no dog to
reinforce his shepherding. Instead, three of his hired men were busily
running and shouting along the wabbly borders of the hemmed-in flock.
Trent observed that they were not keeping their sheep in the best
order, and that they seemed to be wilfully exciting instead of calming
the big flock. At this he wondered, even as he had wondered when these
same shepherds had been equally awkward at two former market
days--days whereon Trent himself had had no sheep to sell.
He had heard rumours--odd, unconfirmed gossip--about this Bayne’s
methods. And, when he was not watching the antics of the three clumsy
shepherds, he observed Bayne’s craggy and shifty-eyed face with covert
interest.
A half-hour later, as a third huddle of sheep were driven into the
enclosure, there was a new commotion among Bayne’s flock.
All three shepherds dashed into the jostling mass as in an effort to
calm the pestered beasts. Instead, the noisy move stampeded the entire
flock. They scattered broadcast through the entire enclosure.
The new arrival saw the panic. He jumped ahead of his own bunch of
sheep as they were filing in, and drove them precipitately out of the
square, standing at the opening to see that none of Bayne’s stampeding
flock should follow. Thus, by rare presence of mind--and perhaps
having also had experience with Bayne--he avoided any chance of his
sheep mingling with the runaways.
Michael Trent was less fortunate. Full tilt into the very midst of his
orderly flock charged some fifty of Bayne’s stampeders, a shepherd at
their heels yelling to them to stop. The shepherd’s voice and
excitement had merely the effect of urging them on. Trent, watching,
wondered wrathfully why so stupid a man should be placed in charge of
any market consignment.
Ragged and lean were the newcomers, of mixed blood and in bad
condition; as was the way with Bayne’s livestock. They were not to be
compared to Trent’s fine merinos, either in blood or in
condition--assuredly not in value.
Into and through the Trent flock swarmed the invaders. In ten seconds
the two flocks were inextricably intertangled. In vain did Buff seek
to restore order. He could do nothing against three men--four now, for
Bayne had joined the bedlam--whose yells and crazy rushes frustrated
his every movement. The dog looked up in angry bewilderment at Trent,
mutely begging for advice as to how the snarl might be straightened
out.
But Trent did not see the appealing glance. His mind and eyes were too
completely taken up in staring at Bayne and the latter’s three men.
For in a flash the quartet had changed from impotently roaring and
running idiots, to swiftly certain and efficient shepherds. With
splendid skill and speed they were quelling the stampede, separating
the two flocks and driving their own sheep to their allotted corner of
the enclosure. Their command of the situation was something to admire.
Presently the Bayne flock was in its place, orderly and safe, with two
shepherds in front of it to prevent further panic flight. Trent
glanced back at his own flock, attracted to them by a sudden stir
among the forty.
Buff, leaving his master, had plunged into the flock and was busily at
work, but for what purpose Trent could not guess. Then, almost at
once, he was out of the compact flock again, driving in front of him
six sheep, which he detached from the remaining thirty-four, and sent
helter skelter out into the middle of the square.
Still wondering if his wise dog had lost his wits, Trent chanced to
take special note of the six sheep as they hurtled past him. And his
face went blank. The six were dirty, thin, undersized, sparse of
wool. They were as different from his own plump flock as a scavenger
horse from a Derby winner.
Before Trent could speak or move, Buff had deserted the six ragged
specimens, leaving them bleating forlornly in the centre of the
square.
And he had bounded straight at Bayne’s close-huddled flock. At one
leap he was on the backs of the sheep which formed the outer wall of
the mass. He did not even waste time to plough through their
tight-held front rank.
Over their backs he ran; and on until he vanished into the milling sea
of wool.
Then, while Bayne and his three shepherds still shouted in
uncomprehending dismay, the dog appeared again on one edge of the
flock. Moving slowly, by reason of the press around and ahead of him,
he emerged from the bunch, driving two sheep. Fat they were and of
heavy wool, undoubted merinos both. Across the narrow space Buff
headed them and drove them into his master’s flock. Then, on the
instant, he was in the Bayne flock again, running once more over the
scared backs of many sheep and dropping to earth in the middle of the
throng.
A second time he emerged from the huddle, again with two fat and
woolly merinos ahead of him. Eluding Bayne, who rushed down on him
with staff upraised, Buff galloped the two into his master’s corner,
and was back again, without pausing, in front of Bayne’s flock.
But this time his self-imposed job was no sinecure. Bayne and the
three shepherds had shaken off their amaze and were ready for him.
Shouting and threatening they advanced on the eager dog.
Trent, leaving his sheep in care of an official of the market, sprang
to Buff’s aid. But the dog did not wait for him. Instead, the collie
made a growling dash at Bayne’s booted legs.
Bayne jumped aside to guard his endangered shanks, and smote at the
attacking collie with his staff. The blow did not land;--Buff was no
longer there. Eluding the swung cudgel with wolfish agility, he darted
into the gap in the line--the gap made by Bayne’s sideways jump--and
was at the fiercely guarded flock once more.
As Buff reappeared, after an interval, with another pair of sheep
herded ahead of him, Bayne and the shepherds were waiting for him. But
so was Trent. A shepherd made a lunging rush at the two salvaged
sheep. Bayne aimed a murderous blow at the dog.
Trent, with ludicrous ease, tripped the awkwardly charging shepherd
and sent him asprawl on the ground. Trent’s staff met the descending
stick of Bayne, and the latter’s weapon was shattered by the impact.
In practically the same gesture, Trent leaped between his dog and the
two remaining shepherds, menacing them with staff and voice, and
holding them in check while the collie cantered the rescued sheep back
into Trent’s flock.
Bayne, swearing and mouthing, strode in pursuit. He was met by a
crouching collie, who faced him with an expression that looked like a
smile and which was not a smile.
Bayne hesitated, whirling on the tranquil Trent.
“Your cur’s stolen six of my sheep!” he thundered in righteous
indignation. “I’ll----”
“No, you won’t, Mr. Bayne,” gently contradicted Trent, his pleasant
voice slow and drawling. “Stop a second and cool off, and you’ll let
the matter drop. You’ll let it go as a mistake of your men’s in
separating the two flocks. Men often make mistakes, you know. Buff
never does. There are six sheep straying over yonder--six thin,
cross-bred sheep. Not merinos. They are yours.”
“I tell you--” spluttered Bayne, though visibly uneasy at Trent’s
manner and at the crowd that was collecting three deep around them.
“No,” intervened Trent. “Don’t tell me, Mr. Bayne; don’t bother to. I
see it was a mistake. Just as you are beginning to see it. There’s no
sin in a mistake. Though there’s always sure to be a mistake in a
sin. My sheep are safe. So are yours. Let the matter drop. I’ve seen
stampedes of your flocks before. And I’ve heard of them, too. This
time no harm’s done. That’s all, I think.”
“I’ll get a court order for my sheep your cur run off!” flared Bayne
in a last rally; and he turned to his shepherds, commanding:
“Here, boys, go and get them sheep he run into that bunch. Get ’em!”
“Speaking of court orders,” said Trent, still in the same cool, slow
tones of indifference and interposing his own lithe body beside the
bristling Buff’s to the hesitant advance of the shepherds--“speaking
of court orders, Mr. Bayne, when you get yours, be sure to tell the
judge that I’m ready to show him the secret mark on each and every one
of my sheep, to prove they’re mine. Now, if your men care to keep on
edging toward my flock, Buff and I will try to entertain them as best
we can till the police come up.”
Bayne glowered horribly into the smilingly level eyes that met his
glare so tranquilly. Then, with a grunt, he turned back to his own
corner, the three shepherds trailing after him.
Behind his calm exterior Michael Trent drew a long breath of relief.
These forty sheep of his were culled from the two new flocks he had so
recently purchased. None of them bore a mark. The only “secret mark”
on them was Buff’s unerring knowledge of their identity. Trent stooped
and petted the collie lovingly on the head and stroked the massive
ruff.
“That’s how Mr. Bayne makes money, old man,” he whispered. “One of his
several hundred ways. We couldn’t have proved he didn’t have six fat
merinos in that mangy bunch of sheep. And his shepherds would have
sworn to them. Figure out the price-difference between six of our best
sheep and six of Bayne’s scarecrows, and you’ll know to a penny how
much cash you’ve saved me to-day, Buff.”
The collie did not get the sense of one word in five. But he realised
he had somehow made Trent very proud of him and that he was being
praised. So for a moment he forgot to be stately and aloof. He wagged
his tail wildly and caught Trent’s caressing hand between his mighty
jaws in well-simulated savageness, pretending to bite it ferociously,
while not exerting the pressure of a fraction of an ounce. Which was
one of Buff’s many modes of showing affection for the pleasant-voiced
man who was his master and his god.
Dusk had fallen when Trent and Buff turned in at the gate of the
silent farmhouse. The day had been prosperous. The merinos had brought
a well-nigh record price--the whole forty having been bought by an
up-country stock farm man. Thus, Trent’s investment in them had turned
into an unexpectedly quick and large profit.
Also, he had been congratulated by a dozen fellow sheep raisers on his
victory over Bayne. He had banked his market cheque--the Boone Lake
Bank remaining open until seven in the evening on market days--and had
spent a blissful half-hour on the Hammerton porch with Ruth on the way
home. Now, comfortably tired and buoyed by an equally comfortable
sense of well-being, he lounged up the short path leading from the
road to his house. As he reached the fence gate he had bidden Buff
fetch the cows from their upland pasturage and drive them to the barn.
He himself went around to the side door, for the milk pails that were
kept in the kitchen during the day.
He unlocked and opened the door and stepped in. As he did so a bag was
thrown over his head, and the upper part of his body--a bag whose
bottom was soaked in something that smelt like crushed apples. A rope
was flung about his arms at the same moment and its noose ran tight.
Vainly, Trent stamped and writhed to free himself. His wiry strength
was pinioned and cramped by the noose and the impeding bag. More of
the apple-smelling liquid was dashed into his face through the sack’s
loose meshes. Then, as he still struggled and choked, something
crashed down upon his skull.
Buff trotted obediently across the road toward the hill pasture. Like
his master, Buff had had a happy and busy day. He had been praised
much and petted much by Trent, and had had a truly marvellous dinner
at the Boone Lake Hotel. He was complacently at peace with the world.
Then all at once he was not at peace with anything. For, far behind
him, he heard the noise of scuffling feet and of a loud, choking gasp.
And his weird sixth sense told him his master was in trouble.
Wheeling, he set off for the house at a tearing run. Excited as he
was, he was aware of a strange and vaguely remembered foot-scent as he
whirled in through the gate and up the path. His faint memory of the
scent was hostile. He could not remember why.
At a bound he reached the open kitchen door. Trent was lying inert and
crumpled on the floor. Two men were bending over him. And, as he
charged, Buff caught their scent.
Like a rabid wolf he hurled himself upon the nearest of the men. His
teeth closed in Hegan’s shoulder with the bone-crushing grip of his
pit terrier ancestors. At the same moment Gates drew a pistol and
fired point blank at the leaping dog.
Buff’s muscles collapsed. He slumped to the floor and lay lifelessly
across the body of his master.
“What’d you shoot for, you chucklehead!” panted Hegan, nursing his
rent shoulder. “Want to bring all Boone Lake down on us?”
“Only way to get him!” retorted Gates. “He’d ‘a’ chewed us both into
Hamburg steak if I hadn’t.”
Quickly and deftly the two worked. First assuring themselves that no
one had heard the shot, they went through the house and through
Trent’s clothes. Then, their loot gathered, they carried it to the
barn and stowed it in Trent’s new car. After which, under cover of
darkness and carrying Trent between them, they loaded their victim
into the tonneau, covering him with a blanket. Then, while Hegan
groaningly and laboriously cleaned away the tell-tale blood spots and
other marks of struggle, Gates scowled down at the motionless huddle
of tawny soft fur.
“Got to lug him along with us, too, I s’pose?” he grunted. “Can’t
leave him here.”
“Get a stone,” commanded Hegan--“a big one. Tie it around his neck.
Then drop him down the well.”
Gates groped around the steps until he found one of the old-time door
stones, and in another minute or so this was firmly affixed to Buff’s
collar by a stout rope. As Gates picked up the heavy dog and carried
him puffingly to the well the telephone bell rung.
Tossing dog and stone over the well curb, Gates bolted for the house
in sudden fright. Hegan had already gone into the hall, and was
lifting the instrument from its table.
“Hallo!” he grunted in a stifled voice as he motioned Gates to
silence.
His face cleared, and he made answer to the query at the far end:
“Yep, this is Michael Trent. Yes? No, I won’t be here. Nope. I’m just
starting off on a motor trip up country. I may go a couple of thousand
miles before I get back. Maybe I won’t ever come back. I’m dead sick
of this hole. Yep. Good-bye.”
He hung up the receiver.
“Corking good alibi!” he chuckled gleefully. “Some feller that Trent
sold some sheep to to-day. Don’t seem to know Trent well. Didn’t
suspicion the voice. Now, when Trent and his car are missing,
nobody’ll ask nosey questions. Come along!”
They hurried to the barn, backed the laden car out, and drove away
into the night.
Not for some minutes did Buff recover consciousness from the bullet
graze that had rapped his skull so hard as to stun him and to gash the
silken fur above his eye.
He woke in decided discomfort; his head was still in dire pain, and he
was fastened securely in one spot.
When Michael Trent had had his farm drinking water tested, a year
earlier, he had learned that the well showed strong traces of stable
drainage. Wherefore, the well had been filled up, to within two yards
of the surface, and a new well had been dug on higher ground behind
the house.
Thus it was that Buff woke to find himself sprawling on a pile of
rubble, with a short rope attaching him to a large stone.
Indignantly the collie set to work gnawing the rope in two. This
accomplished, he got dizzily to his feet. A rush and a scramble, and
he was up the stone-lined wall of the well and on firm ground above.
Straight to the house he ran, his teeth gleaming, his ruff abristle.
At the kitchen door he halted. The door was shut; he could not get in.
But his scent told him Trent was no longer there. His scent told him
more--much more. It confirmed his memory of his master’s two
assailants, and stamped their odour for ever in his mind. Their steps
led him to the barn whither they had carried Trent. The senseless
man’s clothing had brushed the lintel of the barn door as they had
lifted him into the car. Buff looked wildly about him, sniffing the
air, his tense brain telling him much.
Then a red light began to smoulder in his deep-set eyes. Out into the
high road he dashed, not running now like a collie, but like a timber
wolf. As he ran he paused but once, and then he waited only long
enough to throw his head aloft and shatter the night silences with a
howl as hideous and discordant as it was ear-splitting.
A mile away a drowsy farmer dropped his weekly paper with a shiver.
“If I was back on the frontier,” he mused to his startled wife, “I’d
say that was a mad wolf a-howlin’--and I’d say the hunt was up!”