Arnon Flint had not volunteered to take the money-satchel to the bank.
Indeed, he had tried hard to crawl out of the errand.
A tennis-hour, with a swim to follow, had beckoned right alluringly to
him. There was no fun in missing all this and taking a hot
trolley-ride into town just for the honour of acting as bearer, to the
bank, of the church bazaar’s satchelful of change and small bills.
Arnon said so, with engaging frankness, at lunch that noon, when his
mother told him of the task that had been deputed to him. Whereat his
father looked up gloweringy; from his task of plate-clearing, and
added his quota to the argument:
“As long as you eat my bread, you’ll obey my orders, and your
mother’s, too. I don’t want to hear any grumbling. You’ll take that
money to the bank, and you’ll get a receipt for it. And you’ll look
sharp to get there before three, too. Let it go at that!”
For perhaps thirty seconds, Arnon wisely “let it go at that.” Then
human endurance broke down before equally human indignation.
“You talk a lot about my eating your bread,” sniffed the boy. “But it
isn’t my fault I eat it. If you’d let me take a job, instead of making
me get ready to go to that measly old college, I’d have been eating my
own bread by this time.”
“You’d be wasting another man’s time and money instead of mine,”
retorted his father. “And you’d be back on my hands inside of a week.
No, thanks. You’re going to college--if ever you have sense enough to
pass your entrance exams. College may make a man of you. Nothing else
will. In the meantime, you’ll do something for your keep, besides
sulking. For instance, you’ll take the bazaar’s ninety-eight dollars
to the bank, this afternoon. And you’ll do it without any more
whining.”
As he stood, jammed with eight other people upon the interurban
trolley-car’s back platform that afternoon, Arnon morosely went over
in his mind this lunch-table dialogue. He fell to chewing on the
unpalatable mess of grievances that had led up to the scene. And he
was hot and sick with resentment.
* * * * *
Some conscienceless liar once said that schooldays are the happiest
time in life. That same liar would make Ananias or Munchausen look
like the original Truthful James. In many ways, the school-years of a
growing boy are worse than a term in prison.
They are perhaps a delight to the model youth. But to the average lad
they hold more torture than any grown man could endure. It is only the
miraculous elastic power of youth that makes them bearable. It is the
distorting and falsifying magic of retrospect that gives them their
only charm.
A grown man, let us say, is in disgrace. If worst comes to worst, he
can vanish; and he can start life, afresh, somewhere else, with a
clean slate.
Let a boy fall into disgrace at school or at home. What road of escape
is open to him? Not one. He is much more at the mercy of parent and
teacher than any convict is at his warden’s mercy. There are strict
laws governing the treatment of prisoners by their keepers. But,
within normal bounds, no law holds back a teacher or a parent--or
both--from making a boy’s life a continuous Hades.
Add to all this the fact that every one of youth’s countless
misfortunes is a hopeless black tragedy in its victim’s eyes, and
perhaps you will understand why boyhood is not a ceaseless delight. If
any man of thirty-six were subjected to the tyranny, the terrors, the
bitter dependence, the unescapable and heavy penalties for petty
faults that encompass the average half-grown boy, he would go insane
in a night. There is no appeal, no way out, for the boy who is in a
scrape. For a man, in such trouble, there are fifty exits.
Small wonder that so many lads yearn for a chance to make their own
way in the world, and that they shrink in loathing from the proposed
college course which will keep them in penniless slavery during four
more endless years!
They have not yet the wit to understand that the so-called Higher
Education is often a pompously windy fetish; whose chief advantage
consists in the fact that it enables its possessors to look down on
its non-possessors.
This philosophy is faulty, of course. It is also non-essential to the
story; except that it throws a light on Arnon Flint’s mental processes
as he stood there, the hated money-satchel at his feet, trying to keep
his balance on the crowded rear platform of the trolley-car.
People were forever boarding or leaving the car. A dozen times, Arnon
was shoved from one spot to another as his fellow-standees milled and
jostled about him. Always, with his toe, he managed to push the
satchel to his new standing place. He could not stoop to pick it up.
The platform was too crowded. He could not even stoop down far enough
to keep his eye on the bag. But he kept in constant touch with it by
means of his boot-toe.
At the ball-ground gate, on the outskirts of the town, three-fourths
of the passengers debarked. As the car started on, its rear platform
was empty except for Arnon and the conductor and a sawdusty man in
overalls.
Breathing was easier now. So was standing. A few blocks farther on, a
woman got out, leaving a seat vacant on the rear bench. Arnon spied
the seat and prepared to take it. As a preliminary, he bent to pick up
the satchel from between his toes.
“Drop that, sonny!” exhorted the sawdusty man in overalls.
At the same moment Arnon was aware that his fingers had met around a
canvas strap and not around the satchel’s leathern handle. He peered
down, in dull amaze.
Between his feet was a carpenter’s kit. The money-bag was nowhere in
sight.
The thing he had been guarding with his toes was this kit. Someone had
long since taken away the satchel. It is an old trick, this “lifting”
of a bag from the floor of a crowded vehicle. But to youth no
misfortunes are old. All of them have the horrible charm of novelty.
The satchel was gone. And it had not been taken by mistake. For the
sawdusty man’s kit was the sole bit of luggage on the platform.
The satchel was gone. And with it was gone the ninety-eight dollars
collected, the night before, at the church bazaar--the charity money
that had been entrusted to Arnon Flint to take to bank--the money
which, just then, represented Arnon Flint’s honour.
Now, as any sane reader will know, the one simple and natural thing
for the boy to do was to notify the police and thence to go home and
tell his parents what had happened. His father was moderately
well-to-do, and readily could have made up the deficit.
Yes, that would have been the one normal thing for Arnon to do:--to go
home and confess. And--his first name being neither Rollo nor
Percival--it is the very thing he did not do.
From across the eternal chasm which divides boyhood from middle age,
the lad’s right course seems absurdly simple. But to no boy, and to no
one who recalls the mental agony of boyhood disgraces, will it appear
so. As wisely ask an unsuspected sinner to write out a list of his
misdeeds and to mail them to his wife and to the police.
Arnon had a lively imagination. He had no trouble at all in picturing
the scene of his home-coming with such tidings as were his. He, who
had begged to go to work,--whose father had fifty times told him he
had not enough level-headedness or sense of responsibility to hold a
job for one week,--he must go home and admit his father was right.
He--whose weekly spending money was just seventy-five cents--must
confess he had lost ninety-eight dollars. The magnitude of the sum
gripped him with panic force. A few minutes ago he had regarded the
bag’s contents as merely a heavy mass of small change. Now he knew it
for Wealth.
The knowledge that he had committed no sin did not buoy him up in the
very least. A consciousness of innocence is an excellent anchor, no
doubt. But what good is an anchor after the ship has sunk?
Blindly illogical fright seized the boy as he thought of reporting the
loss of such a fortune--and of the present penalty and the
interminable naggings to follow. The Unknown has a host of terrors
lurking at its heels. But, once or twice in a lifetime, these are
outweighed by the more tangible terrors of the Known. Which accounts
for suicides.
Beyond, lay the Unknown. Behind, lay the Known. Arnon Flint, in a rush
of consequence-fear, chose the Unknown.
In his pocket was the best part of three dollars, the sum still left
from his month’s allowance received that morning. He stayed on the
trolley-car until it reached the railroad station. Then he entered the
station and bought a ticket for Silk City--one hundred and twenty
miles to westward. Three and a half hours later, he stepped down upon
the Union Station platform in Silk City.
* * * * *
His plan was made. There was always work for willing hands. Arnon knew
there was. He knew it because he had read it--yawningly but
repeatedly--in _The Boys’ Uplift Magazine_, a dreary juvenile monthly
for which his father had subscribed in Arnon’s name.
Arnon intended to get a fair-paying job, work hard, live frugally and
save that lost ninety-eight dollars as quickly as possible. When he
should have saved it, he would send it home to make up the
church-bazaar deficit. At the same time, he could lay pipes for his
own immune home-coming. The plan was perfectly feasible. In the
meanwhile, Arnon had eighteen cents in his pocket.
Now, it would be most laudable at this point to say that Arnon’s
search for work was at once rewarded by a good job and that his
industry and talents won him swift promotion; until at last he was
Silk City’s merchant king. _The Boys’ Uplift Magazine_ would probably
be eager to print such a yarn. But the temptation must be fought down.
This is merely the true account of one unlucky boy’s life in a strange
city. So, back again to our story.
Eighteen cents is a wabbly foundation for a fortune. Arnon had enough
sense to waste none of it in buying a night’s lodging. The weather was
hot. He had had plenty of experience in camping. So, after buying a
big bag of broken soda-crackers and a wedge of dryish cheese for eight
cents, he began to scout for a camp-site. An hour’s wandering brought
him to the very place for his needs.
Silk City was a “boom-burg.” Thus, its east end chanced still to be
unfinished. Indeed, this section was all but untouched by the hand of
man. Arnon left behind him the business blocks, the tangle of
residence streets, the scattered tenements and hovels; and came at
last to a dreary stretch of Common whither even the hopeful
development-company promoter had not yet ventured.
A corner of the Common, nearest the junction of two unpaved
cross-streets, had been used as a dumping ground. Here Arnon Flint
found his “house.” This was an overturned piano box, one of whose
sides was caved in. It was a heavy, cumbrous rickety thing. Yet, by
use of all his care and strength, Arnon managed to roll and drag and
shove it into a shallow sand-pit, a hundred yards from the street.
Here he righted the box, planted its base as deeply as possible in the
scooped-out sand at the pit’s bottom and went back to the dump in
search of boards to reinforce its crack-strewn roof, and for jute and
straw to serve as a bed.
By sunset he had rigged up a fairly watertight abode, six feet long by
four wide and five in height, with a soft, if bumpy, carpeting of
straw and jute. And, as he proved by further scouting, the shack was
invisible from the street.
Then he tramped to a leaking hydrant, a quarter-mile distant, washed
and scoured a small and a large can (both battered but leakless) he
had found on the dump; and carried home his night’s supply of clean
water. After which he sat down in the doorway of his piano-box shack
and prepared his evening meal.
Dusk was creeping over the day. Back at home, just now, the family
were sitting down to a repast of fricasseed chicken and dumplings and
pie and all sorts of things.
Still, crackers and cheese and fresh water are not to be despised as
an evening meal--particularly when they are spiced with adventure and
reinforced by the hunger of a hustling day.
So it was not the frugality of his meal that made the fare so hard
for Arnon to eat. At first he did not know just what caused the lump
in his throat and what made even the tiniest morsel of food impossible
to swallow. Being only a normal boy, he had never so much as heard of
psychology. Nor was there any psychologist there to prate of
“reaction” and “nerve exhaustion” and of any of the dozen kindred
causes which made the lad feel as he did. One of these causes alone
did Arnon understand. And this one--to which he would not confess--was
bitter, lonely homesickness.
He had cut himself loose from everything and everybody. He was an
exile and on the threshold of a new world. For all he knew, he might
also be a fugitive from justice. For, when the money’s loss should be
discovered, the bazaar people would probably think him a defaulter and
set the police after him.
Three hours earlier Arnon had felt himself a true blend of martyr and
explorer. Now he was all at once aware that he was just a lonesome and
heavy-hearted boy who had no one to love him and whose only home was a
smelly packing box. The lump in Arnon’s throat began to swell to
unbelievable size. And the eyes wherewith he gazed up over the
pit-edge at the dying day, grew foolishly misted.
This would never do!
Angrily he cleared his throat and winked very fast indeed. Then he
forced himself to day-dreams of the splendid job he was going to win
on the morrow and of the brevity of the time that must pass before he
should save up ninety-eight dollars and be able to go home. But the
effort was a pitiful failure. The lump nearly strangled him. And the
mist would not behave itself and keep out of his silly eyes.
Just then came the diversion that saved him from the eternal shame of
crying. The dusky skyline at the edge of the shallow pit was broken
suddenly by a small dark silhouette. The boy winked away his rising
tears once more, and stared. There at the top, looking inquisitively
down, head on one side, stood a dog--not much of a dog, perhaps, for
looks or for contour or for size, but still a dog; certainly not a
wolf or a lion, as the lad’s worn-out nerves had at first made him
think.
Presently a second dog came alongside the first. Together they blinked
down at the lonely youngster. Arnon returned their gaze with keen
interest. There was still light enough for him to gain a clear view of
his two guests.
The first dog was a black-and-tan. At least, he was more black-and-tan
than anything else. He held one forefoot gingerly in air, as though he
were lame. And his left ear had evidently been chewed off, as to tip.
The second dog was a pale grey--formerly white--and had longish hair.
He was of the general build and specifications of a Dandy Dinmont. He
and the black-and-tan were about of a height. Both were collarless,
wolf-thin and of a totally disreputable aspect.
Every city has scores of such strays--forlorn mongrels that eke out a
rickety living on the dumps and in garbage cans until they fall prey
to dogcatcher or police or vivisector, or until a gang of pursuing
boys frighten them into a blind panic and thereby start a new mad-dog
scare,--a scare which wins a credit-mark for the fearless bluecoat
whose pistol is emptied into the harmless and terrified little
fugitive.
Yes, to a dog-fancier’s eye, Arnon Flint’s visitors were merely a
brace of fleasome mongrels. To Arnon, though, they meant all the
difference between abject loneliness and loving companionship.
Timidly the boy chirped to the dogs. Up went their ears. He groped for
a chipped soda-cracker, broke it in half and held out the two pieces
to them. At his gesture, the dogs instinctively shrank back--a result
of the piteous experience which had taught them that a movement of the
human arm is far more likely to mean a flung stone than a proffered
dainty.
But it had been a barren day on the dumps. And the sight and smell of
food were mighty temptations. Also, the boy was talking to them in a
wondrous friendly way. And--whether they can understand words or
not--dogs can read the human voice as can few humans themselves.
In Arnon’s call the two strays recognised not only friendship, but
appeal. They recognised the tones of a fellow-stray. Here was no
little devil, coaxing them into range in order to tie a tin can or a
firecracker to their stumpy tails. This lad was as much a waif as was
either of them. And he craved chumship, even as did they.
Slowly, hesitatingly, mincingly, the puppies slid down the pit-bank
into the hollow. Nervously, yet greedily, they nipped the offered
fragments of the big soda-cracker. Ravenously they ate. Then, as their
fears lessened, they fawned upon the human for more food. Arnon, as
they chewed the cracker-bits, ran his fingers gently along their ears
and backs, scratching their heads; all the while talking to them. At
first they flinched a little from the unwonted caress. But soon they
courted it.
The boy, of a sudden, found himself not only happy, but ravenously
hungry. He and his two pets finished the crackers and cheese with a
zest. Then all three curled up close together in the straw and went to
sleep.
At sunrise Arnon awoke. Both the dogs were already astir. As he raised
his head and sat looking bewilderedly about, they ran frisking up to
him.
And thus began the life of the three chums--in the sand-pit’s
piano-box shack. It was a wonderful life for all of them. For Arnon,
the dogs’ presence was a veritable godsend.
The boy set forth early that first morning, to look for a job.
Naturally, he did not find one. Not only do business houses cut down
their working force in summer, instead of adding to it; but a boy with
no references has, at best, a hard time in landing a steady
position,--especially if he stammers and grows red when he is asked
where he lives and the name of his father.
No, in spite of _The Boys’ Uplift Magazine_, no kindly merchant was so
impressed by Arnon’s manliness and good manners as to offer to teach
him the business from the bottom up, with a view of making him, later
on, a partner.
Arnon, after a half-day’s futile job-hunt, began to see how matters
stood. He was sore inclined to give up the fight and to tramp all the
way back to his parents’ home. But at once he remembered he could not.
He had responsibilities,--responsibilities he could not shirk. At the
shack his two dog-chums were waiting for his return. He could not take
them a hundred and twenty miles, afoot. He had no means of feeding
them on the way, even if no farm dogs should kill them or rural
poundmasters seize them. No, they relied on him. And he had no right
to fail them. He must stick.
* * * * *
That afternoon, by three hours of hanging around the Union Station, he
cleared up twenty cents, carrying suit-cases and opening motorcar
doors. He stopped at a tenement-district grocery, on his way back to
the sand-pit, and continued his journey with a very respectable armful
of provisions.
As he neared the Common, Arnon quickened not only his steps but his
heartbeats. Suppose he were wrong in his estimate of his two new
friends. Suppose they were only of the cadging, garbage-snooping type,
and had deserted the shack the moment his back had been turned! The
thought sickened him. It was for his dogs, not for himself, he had
been working that day.
He reached the sand-pit edge and halted. At the same instant two furry
little whirlwinds burst forth from the shack, whizzed up the steep
sandy bank and, with barks of ecstasy, hurled themselves bodily upon
the returning bread-winner.
What sweeter home-coming could a heartsick and tired exile ask? Arnon
dropped his parcels, fell on his knees and gathered his loyal little
comrades into one expansive, squirming, yapping embrace. Through his
delight at their welcome ran a thrill of joy in his own correct
judgment of dog nature.
After which the entire party adjourned to the shack for supper. A
glorious meal it was. During its progress, the black-and-tan revealed
himself as a personage of rare education by sitting up on his
hind-legs to beg for food-morsels and by rolling over, twice, in
gratitude at receiving such gifts. The Dandy Dinmont had fewer
accomplishments. But he showed himself a dog of great natural gifts by
mastering, at the third attempt, the art of catching in his mouth a
piece of cracker placed on the tip of his nose.
Arnon was quite certain that never before had two such remarkable
animals come into any one boy’s life. They not only learned tricks
with the bewildering quickness that a mongrel always possesses and a
thoroughbred so seldom acquires, but they speedily learned to look on
their new master as a god and to worship him as such. Arnon named the
hairy dog “Dandy” and the black-and-tan “Buck”--chiefly because the
names seemed to fit like gloves.
Morning after morning, Arnon tramped Silk City, looking in vain for a
steady job. Every afternoon he spent at the Union Station, rustling
the hand-baggage of passengers and opening automobile doors for them;
for which service he averaged from fifteen to forty cents a day. On
the lean days he and his chums breakfasted and supped on crackers and
cheese. On days of larger wealth they banqueted regally on bread and
butter and tinned meats and ginger snaps.
For an hour, morning and night, the three romped and frolicked
together and added to the marvelous list of tricks they had studied.
All night, through summer heat or summer rain, they slept in the
piano-box shack, cuddled into one loving triple heap. Oh, but it was a
jolly life for them all!
As to the future--the winter, for instance--Arnon had no thought nor
care. You see, he was only a youngster. So how could he be expected to
have greater forethought than have the army of grown men who live up
to every penny of their yearly income, with no constructive worry
concerning joblessness or old age?
* * * * *
For a long, happy month, life was sweet; in the tumble-down pineboard
shack. Arnon had occasional twinges of homesickness, and he had more
than occasional twinges of conscience at his failure to begin saving
the missing ninety-eight dollars. But, on the whole, he was having the
time of his life. This was true adventure, this outcast summer routine
of his. And it was a truer comradeship, too, than any he had known.
On the Fourth of July he celebrated by adorning each of his chums with
a red-white-and-blue bow, culled from a length of bedraggled tricolour
ribbon he had found in a gutter. On his own birthday, a week later, he
spent thirty-five cents upon a truly regal spread, in honour of the
event. After the sumptuous meal he treated an invisible audience to
the full programme of his dogs’ tricks. It was a gala night at the
shack.
Next afternoon Arnon came home a half-hour later than usual, having
had to carry a suit-case to a new neighbourhood, and having made a
wrong turn on his way back to the Common. As he neared the sand-pit,
he whistled. Then he paused to watch for the usual scurrying race of
his chums up the pit-bank to meet him. But no frantic joy-barks or
multiple patter of feet followed upon his whistle.
At a jump, Arnon was down in the pit. The dogs were not there.
It was twilight before his search of the region was ended. This was
its end: Stammeringly he asked a passing patrolman whether he had seen
two little dogs--one black, one light grey--trotting anywhere along
the beat. And the policeman made curt answer:
“Nope. I didn’t see ’em. But the dog-catchers was roundin’ up a bunch
of mutts in this ward, ’s aft’noon. Better ask at the pound. It’s
down at the foot of Water Street.”
“Down at the foot of Water Street” was two miles away. Arnon Flint
made the trip in eighteen minutes--only to find the pound-pier was
closed for the night.
At grey dawn next morning after ten hours of sleeplessness, Arnon was
at the pier again, waiting for its landward gate to swing open for the
day. After an endless delay, one of the poundmaster’s men arrived.
Arnon followed him along the pier to the enormous grated pen and the
adjoining office at the far end of the dock. In the cage were more
dogs than Arnon had ever before seen together in all his life.
“_Mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound, and curs of low degree._”
They were crowded into the big barred inclosure--a pitiful assemblage.
Some dogs were howling, some were barking, some were fox-trotting
feverishly back and forth, from corner to corner, pressing close
against the bars. Others, mystically aware of their coming fate, lay,
trembling convulsively from time to time; heads between forepaws, eyes
abrim with dumb grief.
At the pier’s outer edge, just beyond the barred pen, an iron cage
swung over the river. It hung from a derrick. Daily, this cage was
filled with the dogs that had been longest at the pound. Then it was
dipped under water for five minutes, in full sight of the doomed
survivors in the pen.
* * * * *
A dog-pound is not pleasant to look upon. It is little pleasanter to
think upon. It is one of the needful evils of every large town--an
evil that is needful to public health and to public safety, so say the
city fathers. It is also needful because--though people talk much
about birth-control among humans (where it cannot be enforced)--no one
bothers about birth-control among dogs--where it can very easily be
enforced.
Litters of dogs are allowed to grow up. The dogs are portioned among
people who grow tired of them or who move away. The erstwhile pets are
turned out to run the streets and to starve or to pick up a scavenger
living. The grim dog-pound does the rest.
The luckless waifs are done to death by water or by gas or in the
legalised hell of vivisection. May the all-pitying God of the Little
People have mercy upon them! For, most assuredly, mankind will not.
* * * * *
Arnon stared into the thronged pen. At first, in the dim light, he
could make out nothing. Then, through lips that would not steady
themselves, he gave the old familiar whistle. Instantly there was a
scuttling and scampering from amid the ruck of dogs. Two series of
wildly eager barks cut the looser volume of howls. And Dandy and Buck
came racing up to the bars that separated them from their adored
master.
A minute later, a very set-mouthed and white-faced Arnon Flint stalked
into the poundmaster’s office. Forcing his voice raspingly through the
emotion that sanded his throat, he demanded of the man in charge:
“How much does it cost to get a dog out of the pound? I’ve--I’ve got a
couple of them in there.”
The fat man at the desk looked up, wholly without interest.
Heart-broken children, coming to plead for the return of their
law-snatched pets, were no novelty at all to him. Pound-keepers have
no silly sentiment. If they had, they would not be pound-keepers, but
normal humans.
“Dollar apiece,” he grunted. “That pays their license fee.”
He turned back to his newspaper and promptly forgot the existence of
the shaky and ash-faced boy. Arnon ventured one more question.
“How long,” he quavered, “how long do you keep them here,
before--before you----”
“Depends on how many there are,” snapped the man, this time without
looking up. “In summer we dowse about twenty a day.”
That was all. Arnon stood gaping uncertainly, for a moment. Then he
lurched out of the office and back to where his chums pawed at the
bars, waiting for him to take them home.
Some time later, an attendant dumped a bucketful of food-scraps into
the centre of the pen. Immediately the larger and fiercer dogs fell
upon the food, crowding or scaring the smaller curs away from it. It
was all wolfed down by the bullies of the pen before their weaker or
more timid brethren had had a mouthful.
The boy recalled now that he had crammed most of last night’s untasted
supper into his pockets, to serve him as breakfast during his search
for his chums. Quickly he emptied his pockets; apportioning the
contents between Buck and Dandy, and harshly ordering off such larger
dogs as came snooping around for a share in the meal.
At last he went away. There was no time to waste, if he was to earn
that two dollars for his dogs’ ransom.
Two dollars! Why, the largest sum he had ever earned in one day at
Silk City was forty-five cents! And oftener he had not earned half
that amount. Yet the money must be gotten somehow--and soon. Then
there was another handicap: Out of his earnings he must buy food for
Buck and Dandy during their imprisonment, if he did not want them to
starve. Incidentally, he himself must have food--though he wanted
none--in order to keep strong enough to work.
All day he haunted the Union Station. At sunset he was back at the
pound, with a bagful of meat-scraps for his chums. He sat beside the
bars, talking to them and putting them through their tricks until the
pier closed. Then he ran all the way to the theatre district, in the
hope of earning a few cents more by opening the doors of motorcars and
carriages.
At the end of three days of self-starving and of day-and-night work,
he had collected ninety-four cents. This was all he had been able to
save after buying food for his pets and a daily cracker or two for
himself. And he had sought work in every waking hour, except such
times as he set aside for visiting the pound.
At dawn on the fourth day he found a dollar bill in the street. An
early-morning traveller gave him twenty-five cents more for carrying a
heavy suit-case a mile to the station.
The moment the fee was paid, Arnon dashed off for the pound. He had
not only the two-dollar ransom, but fourteen cents left over wherewith
to buy the materials for a reunion feast at the shack. His dizzy
weakness and hunger were clean forgot in the mad joy of victory.
Panting, unsteady on his legs, he rushed down the pier. Before going
into the office he paused at the pen to tell his glorious news to the
two prisoners. But his shrill whistle brought no response. He bent
down, shading his eyes; and stared into the pen. Neither Buck nor
Dandy was there. The souse of the derrick-cage as it smote the water,
and the simultaneous crazed screams of its twenty passengers, reached
his ears. And he understood.
No longer did Arnon try to fight back the babyish tears. He fell face
downward on the pier and gave way to hysterical weeping.
His chums! His dear, wonderful chums! The little loyal dogs that had
loved him and had comforted him so prettily in his stark aloneness and
that had been so perfectly trustful in his power to save them!
A man’s hand gripped Arnon’s heaving shoulder and sought to raise him
to his feet. The touch turned his desolate grief into a rage that was
all but murderous. This pound-keeper, by one word, could have saved
Dandy and Buck. And instead, he had drowned them.
With a beast snarl, the half-delirious boy was on his feet.
“You _swine_!” he screeched, as he whirled towards the man. “When I’m
big enough, I’m coming back to smash every bone in your fat body! And
I’m going to----”
His words caught in his throat with a click. This was not the fat
pound-office man. It was Arnon Flint’s father. The boy gaped dazedly.
Yes, it was his father. But Arnon cared not one whit for that. His
father could send him to jail for theft or could whale him with a
horsewhip or do anything rotten he chose. It didn’t matter. All that
mattered was that Buck and Dandy were dead.
He glowered up into the man’s face, ready for anything that might
befall. Then his glower turned to a look of perplexity. His father did
not glower back. Instead, Mr. Flint’s face was unspeakably tender.
“Oh, my little boy!” he was saying, brokenly. “Dad’s own crazy,
_gallant_ little boy! You’re worn to a shadow! We’ve looked everywhere
for you. It wasn’t till yesterday our detectives struck the trail. And
I came right on.”
“I didn’t steal the money,” said Arnon, dully, “the bazaar money. I
lost it on the trolley-car. I tried to get a job to make it up to the
church, but----”
“I know, I know,” broke in his father, in that same unbelievably
tender and quivering voice, “Don’t think any more about it. I’ve paid
it. Why, dear lad, no one ever supposed you stole it. We knew you
couldn’t. Will you come back home with me, Son? Mother is pretty
nearly as thin as you are, from worry over you.”
“I’ll come, if you like,” agreed Arnon, listlessly. “It doesn’t matter
much, now, either way. I might as well be there as anywhere.”
“Good!” approved his father. “We can just make the ten o’clock train,
if we hurry. I’ve got a taxi waiting at the other end of the pier.”
Side by side, father and son walked away from the pound. The boy’s
eyes were downcast. His face was haggard. His heart was dead. From
time to time, as they walked, the man stole a covert glance at him,
and his own face contracted as in sharp pain.
“Here’s the taxi,” said Mr. Flint at last. “Open the door, will you?
You’re nearer to it than I am.”
Mechanically, Arnon turned the handle. As he pulled the taxi door
ajar, two furry catapults from within the vehicle launched themselves,
rapturously and yelpingly, upon him.
“You see,” explained Mr. Flint, to his unhearing son, “I had quite a
talk with the poundmaster before you got here, this morning. He’s been
noticing you, it seems. And he told me a rather pathetic little story.
When I heard it I decided to make an investment in livestock. I was
putting these two puppies into the taxi when you hobbled past me on
your way to the pound. I----”
“_Buck!_” Arnon was sobbing, in a frenzy of bliss. “Buck! _Dandy!_”
At sound of their names, the dogs wriggled free from Arnon’s
embrace--just for the uproarious fun of hurling themselves once more
upon him.
“Hurry up, Son!” suggested Mr. Flint, clearing his throat noisily.
“Get aboard--you and the pups. We’ll miss that train!”
“Not on your sweet life, we won’t miss it!” exulted Arnon, scrambling
into the taxi with his pets. “We’ve _got_ to catch it. You see, I--I
want my chums to--to meet Mother; just as soon as they can. They’re
dead sure to like her.”