in New York, is the foremost canine classic of America and, in late
years, of the whole world.
A month before that year’s Westminster Show, Lucius Frayne received a
letter which made the wontedly saturnine sportsman laugh till the tears
spattered down his nose. The joke was too good to keep to himself. So he
shouted for Roke, and bade the kennel man share the fun of it with him.
He read aloud, cacklingly, to the listening Roke:
Mr. Lucius Frayne,
My dear Sir:
Last year, out to the Midwestburg show, here, you sold me a fine puppy
of your Ch. Lochinvar King. And as soon as I could raise the price you
sent him on here to me. I would of written to you when I got him, to
thank you and to say how pleased I was with him and how all my friends
praised him. But I figured you’re a busy man and you haven’t got any
waste time to spend in reading letters about how good your dogs are.
Because you know it already. And so I didn’t write to you. But I am
writing to you now. Because this is business.
You know what a grand pup Bobby was when you sent him to me? Well to my
way of thinking he has developed even better than he gave promise to.
And some of my friends say the same. To my way of thinking he is the
grandest collie in North America or anywhere else to-day. He is sure one
grand dog. He turned out every bit as good as you said he would. He’s
better now than he was at five months.
I want to thank you for letting me have such a dog, Mr. Frayne. Just as
you said, he is of Champion timber. Now this brings me to the business I
spoke about.
Granther used to tell me how the gentry on the other side would bet with
each other on their dogs at the shows. Six months ago my Aunt Marjorie
died and she willed me nine hundred dollars ($900). It is in bank
waiting for a good investment for it. Now here is an investment that
seems to me a mighty safe one. Me knowing Bobby as I do. A fine sporting
investment. And I hope it may please you as well. I am entering Bobby
for Westminster. I read in _Dog News_ that you are expecting to enter
Champion Lochinvar King there, with others of your string. So here is my
proposition.
I propose you enter King for “Open, Sable-and-White” and “Open, Any
Colour,” these being the only regular classes a sable champion is
eligible for. I will enter Bobby in the same classes, instead of
“Novice” as I was going to. And I will wager you six hundred dollars
($600) even, that the judge will place Bobby above King. I am making
this offer knowing how fine King is but thinking my dog is even better.
For Bobby has really improved since a pup. My wife thinks so too.
If this offer pleases you, will you deposit a certified check of six
hundred dollars ($600) with the editor of _Dog News_? He is a square man
as every one knows and he will see fair play. He has promised me he will
hold the stakes. I am ready to deposit my certified check for six
hundred dollars ($600) at once. I would like to bet the whole nine
hundred dollars ($900). Knowing it a safe investment. Knowing Bobby like
I do. But my wife doesn’t want me to bet it at all and so we are
compromising on six hundred dollars ($600).
Please let me hear from you on this, Mr. Frayne. And I thank you again
for how you treated me as regards Bobby. I hope to repay you at
Westminster by letting you see him for yourself.
Your ob’t servant,
James A. Mackellar.
Yes, it was a long letter. Yet Frayne skipped no word of it. And Roke
listened, as to heavenly music.
“Talk about Lochinvar luck!” chortled Frayne as he finished. “The worst
pup we ever bred; and we sold him for one-fifty! And now he is due to
fetch us another six hundred, in dividends. He—”
“You’re going to cover his bet?” queried Roke. “Good! I was afraid maybe
you’d feel kind of sorry for the poor cuss, and—”
“Unless I break both wrists, in the next hour,” announced Frayne, “that
certified check will start for the _Dog News_ office by noon. It’s the
same old wheeze: A dub has picked up a smattering of dog talk; he thinks
he knows it all. He buys a bum pup with a thundering pedigree. The
pedigree makes him think the pup is a humdinger. He brags about it to
his folks. They think anything that costs so much must be the best ever,
no matter how it looks. And he gets to believing he’s got a world
beater. Then—”
“But, boss,” put in Roke with happy unction, “just shut your eyes and
try to remember how that poor mutt looked! And the boob says he’s ‘even
better than he gave promise to be.’ Do you get that? Yet you hear a lot
about Scotchmen being shrewd! Gee, but I wish you’d let me have a slice
of that $600 bet! I’d—”
“No,” said Frayne judicially. “That’s my own meat. It was caught in my
trap. But I tell you what you can do: Wait till I send my check and till
it’s covered, and then write to Mackellar and ask him if he’s willing to
bet another $150, on the side, with you. From the way he sounds, you
ought to have it easy in getting him to make the side bet. He needn’t
tell his wife. Try it anyhow; if you like.”
Roke tried it. And, after ridiculously small objection on Jamie’s part,
the side bet was recorded and its checks were posted with the editor of
_Dog News_. Once more Lucius Frayne and his faithful kennel man shook
hands in perfect happiness.
To the topmost steel rafters, where the grey February shadows hung, old
Madison Square Garden echoed and reverberated with the multi-keyed barks
of some two thousand dogs. The four-day show had been opened at ten
o’clock of a slushy Wednesday morning. And as usual the collies were to
be judged on the first day.
Promptly at eleven o’clock the clean-cut collie judge followed his
steward into the ring. The leather-lunged runner passed down the double
ranks of collie benches, bawling the numbers for the Male Puppy Class.
The judge had a reputation for quickness, as well as for accuracy and
honesty. The Open classes, for male dogs, were certain to come up for
verdict within an hour, at most.
Seven benches had been thrown into one, for the Frayne dogs. At its back
ran a strip of red silk, lettered in silver: “LOCHINVAR COLLIE KENNELS.”
Seven high-quality dogs lay or sat in this space de luxe. In the
centre—his name on a bronze plate above his head—reclined Lochinvar
King.
In full majesty of conscious perfection he lay there; magnificent as a
Numidian lion, the target for all eyes. Conditioned and groomed to the
minute, he stood out from his high-class kennel-mates like a swan among
cygnets.
Frayne, more than once in the show’s first hour or so, left his
much-admired benches; for a glance at a near-by unoccupied space,
numbered 568. Here, according to the catalogue, should be benched
Lochinvar Bobby.
But Bobby was nowhere to be seen.
Congratulating himself on his own craft in having inserted a forfeit
clause in the bet agreement, Frayne was none the less disappointed that
the fifth-rate mutt had not shown up.
He longed for a chance to hear the titter of the railbirds; when the
out-at-elbow, gangling, semi-hairless little nondescript should shamble
into the ring. Bobby’s presence would add zest to his own oft-told tale
of the wager.
According to American Kennel Club rules, a dog must be on its bench from
the moment the exhibition opens until the close, excepting only when it
is in the ring or at stated exercise periods. That rule, until recently,
has been most flagrantly disregarded by many exhibitors. In view of
this, Frayne made a trip to the exercise room and then through the
dim-lit stalls under the main floor.
As he came back from a fruitless search for Bobby or for Mackellar, he
passed the collie ring. “Limit; Dogs,” was chalked on the blackboard.
Two classes more—“Open, Merle,” and "Open, Tricolour"—and then King must
enter the ring for “Open, Sable.” Frayne hurried to the Lochinvar
benches, where Roke and another kennel man were fast at work putting
finishing touches to King’s toilet.
The great dog was on his feet, tense and eager for the coming clash.
Close behind the unseeing Roke, and studying King with grave admiration,
stood Jamie Mackellar.
“Hello, there!” boomed Frayne with loud cordiality, bearing down upon
the little man. “Get cold feet? I see your dog’s absent. Remember, you
forfeit by absence.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jamie with meekness, taking off his hat to the renowned
sportsman, and too confused in fumbling with its wabbly brim to see the
hand which Frayne held out to him. “Yes, sir. I remember the forfeit
clause, sir. I’m not forfeiting. Bobby is here.”
“Here? Where? I looked all over the—”
“I hired one of the cubby-hole rooms upstairs, sir; to keep him in,
nights, while he’s here. And I haven’t brought him down to his bench
yet. You see, he—he ain’t seen many strangers. And you’ll remember,
maybe, that he used to be just a wee peckle shy. So I’m keeping him
there till it is time to show him. My boy, Donald, is up, now, getting
him ready. They’ll be down presently, sir. I think you’ll be real
pleased with how Bobby looks.”
"I’m counting on a heap of pleasure," was Frayne’s cryptic reply, as he
turned away to mask a grin of utter joy.
Five grey dogs were coming down the aisle to their benches. The Merle
Class had been judged and the Tricolours were in the ring. There were
but four of these.
In another handful of minutes the “Open, Sable” Class was called. It was
the strongest class of the day. It contained no less than three
champions; in addition to four less famous dogs, like Bobby;—seven
entries in all.
Six of these dogs were marched into the ring. The judge looked at the
steward, for the “all-here” signal. As he did so, the seventh entrant
made his way past the gate crowd and was piloted into the ring by a
small and cheaply clad man.
While the attendant was slipping the number board on Mackellar’s arm,
Lucius Frayne’s eyes fell upon Lochinvar Bobby. So did those of the
impatient judge and the ninety out of every hundred of the railbirds.
Through the close-packed ranks of onlookers ran a queer little wordless
mutter—the most instinctive and therefore the highest praise that can be
accorded.
Alertly calm of nerve, heedless of his surroundings so long as his
worshipped god was crooning reassurances to him, Bobby stood at
Mackellar’s side.
His incredible coat was burnished like old bronze. His head was calmly
erect, his mighty frame steady. His eyes, with true eagle look, surveyed
the staring throng.
Never before, in all the Westminster Club’s forty-odd shows, had such a
collie been led into the ring. Eugenic breeding, wise rationing and
tireless human care had gone to the perfecting of other dogs. But Mother
Nature herself had made Lochinvar Bobby what he was. She had fed him
bountifully upon the all-strengthening ration of the primal beast; and
she had given him the exercise-born appetite to eat and profit by it.
Her pitiless winter winds had combed and winnowed his coat as could no
mortal hand, giving it thickness and length and richness beyond belief.
And she had moulded his growing young body into the peerless model of
the Wild.
Then, because he had the loyal heart of a collie and not the incurable
savagery of the wolf, she had awakened his soul and made him bask
rapturously in the friendship of a true dog-man. The combination was
unmatchable.
“Walk your dogs, please,” ordered the judge, coming out of his momentary
daze.
Before the end of the ring’s first turn, he had motioned Frayne and
Mackellar to take their dogs into one corner. He proceeded to study the
five others; awarding to two of them the yellow third-prize ribbon and
the white reserve, and then ordering the quintet from the ring. After
which he beckoned Bobby and King to the judging block.
In the interim, Frayne had been staring goggle-eyed at the Midwestburg
collie. He tried to speak; but he could not. A hundred thoughts were
racing dumbly through his bemused brain. He stood agape, foolish of
face.
Jamie Mackellar was pleasantly talkative.
“A grand class, this,” he confided to his voiceless comrade. “But, first
crack, Judge Breese had the eye to single out our two as so much the
best that he won’t size ’em up with the others. How do you like Bobby,
sir? Is he very bad? Don’t you think, maybe, he’s picked up, just a
trifle, since you shipped him to me? He’s no worse, anyhow, than he was
then, is he?”
Frayne gobbled, wordlessly.
“This is the last time I’ll show him, for a while, Mr. Frayne,”
continued Jamie, a grasping note coming into his timid voice. “The cash
I’m due to collect from you and Mr. Roke will make enough, with the
legacy and what I’ve saved, to start me in business with a truck of my
own. Bobby and I are going into partnership. And we’re going to clean
up. Bobby is putting seven hundred and fifty dollars and to-day’s cash
prizes into the firm. He and I are getting out of the show-end of collie
breeding, for a time. The more we see of some of you professionals, the
better we like cesspools. If dogs weren’t the grandest animals the good
Lord ever put on earth, a few of the folks who exploit them would have
killed the dog game long ago. It—. Judge Breese is beckoning for us!”
Side by side, the two glorious collies advanced to the judging block.
Side by, side, at their handlers’ gestures, they mounted it. And again
from the railbirds arose that queer wordless hum. Sire and son, shoulder
to shoulder, faced the judge.
And, for the first time in his unbroken career of conquest, Lochinvar
King looked almost shabby; beside the wondrous young giant he had sired.
His every good point—and he had no others—was bettered by Bobby.
As a matter of form, Breese went over both dogs with meticulous care;
testing coat-texture, spring of ribs, action, soundness of bone,
carriage, facial expression, and the myriad other details which go into
the judging of a show dog. Long he faced them, crouching low and staring
into their deep-set eyes; marking the set and carriage of the tulip
ears; comparing point with point; as becomes a man who is about to give
victory to an Unknown over a hitherto Invincible.
Then with a jerk of his head he summoned the steward with the judging
book and ribbons. And, amid a spontaneous rattle of applause, Jamie
Mackellar led his splendid dog to the far end of the ring, with one
hand; while in the fingers of the other fluttered a strip of
gold-lettered dark blue ribbon.
Back came both collies for the “Open, Any Colour Class,” and the verdict
was repeated; as it was repeated in the supreme “Winners’” Class which
followed. “Winners’” Class carried, with its rosette and cash specials,
a guerdon of five points toward Bobby’s championship.
Then followed the rich harvest of other cash specials in the collie
division, including $25 for “Best of Breed,” and for the next three days
even fatter gleanings from among the variety classes and unclassified
specials. These last awards ranged from five dollars to twenty-five
dollars apiece; apart from a valiseful of silver cups and like trophies
which are more beautiful than pawnable.
On Saturday, Jamie Mackellar and Bobby took the midnight train for
Midwestburg; richer by almost nine hundred dollars for their New York
sojourn.
Rolling sweetly around in Jamie’s memory was a brief talk he had had
with Roke, an hour before the close of the show. Sent as emissary by
Frayne, the kennel manager had offered Mackellar a flat two thousand
dollars for the sensational young prize winner.
“We’re not parting company, Bobby and I,” Jamie had made civil answer.
“Thanking you and your boss just as much. But tell Mr. Frayne if ever I
breed a pup as good as Bobby was when he came to me, he can have it for
an even hundred and fifty. I wouldn’t want such a fine chap to think I’m
not just as clean a sportsman as what he is!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SEVEN: “One Minute Longer”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]
SEVEN: “One Minute Longer”
Wolf was a collie, red-gold and white of coat, with a shape more like
his long-ago wolf ancestors’ than like a domesticated dog’s. It was from
this ancestral throw-back that he was named Wolf.
He looked not at all like his great sire, Sunnybank Lad, nor like his
dainty, thoroughbred mother, Lady. Nor was he like them in any other
way, except that he inherited old Lad’s staunchly gallant spirit and
loyalty and uncanny brain. No, in traits as well as in looks, he was
more wolf than dog. He almost never barked, his snarl supplying all
vocal needs.
The Mistress or the Master or the Boy—any of these three could romp with
him, roll him over, tickle him, or subject him to all sorts of playful
indignities. And Wolf entered gleefully into the fun of the romp. But
let any human, besides these three, lay a hand on his slender body, and
a snarling plunge for the offender’s throat was Wolf’s invariable reply
to the caress.
It had been so since his puppyhood. He did not fly at accredited guests,
nor, indeed, pay any heed to their presence, so long as they kept their
hands off him. But to all of these the Boy was forced to say at the very
outset of the visit:
“Pat Lad and Bruce all you want to, but please leave Wolf alone. He
doesn’t care for people. We’ve taught him to stand for a pat on the
head, from guests,—but don’t touch his body.”
Then, to prove his own immunity, the Boy would proceed to tumble Wolf
about, to the delight of them both.
In romping with humans whom they love, most dogs will bite, more or less
gently,—or pretend to bite,—as a part of the game. Wolf never did this.
In his wildest and roughest romps with the Boy or with the Boy’s
parents, Wolf did not so much as open his mighty jaws. Perhaps because
he dared not trust himself to bite gently. Perhaps because he realised
that a bite is not a joke, but an effort to kill.
There had been only one exception to Wolf’s hatred for mauling at
strangers’ hands. A man came to The Place on a business call, bringing
along a chubby two-year-old daughter. The Master warned the baby that
she must not go near Wolf, although she might pet any of the other
collies. Then he became so much interested in the business talk that he
and his guest forgot all about the child.
Ten minutes later the Master chanced to shift his gaze to the far end of
the room. And he broke off, with a gasp, in the very middle of a
sentence.
The baby was seated astride Wolf’s back, her tiny heels digging into the
dog’s sensitive ribs, and each of her chubby fists gripping one of his
ears. Wolf was lying there, with an idiotically happy grin on his face
and wagging his tail in ecstasy.
No one knew why he had submitted to the baby’s tugging hands, except
because she _was_ a baby, and because the gallant heart of the dog had
gone out to her helplessness.
Wolf was the official watch-dog of The Place; and his name carried dread
to the loafers and tramps of the region. Also, he was the Boy’s own
special dog. He had been born on the Boy’s tenth birthday, five years
before this story of ours begins; and ever since then the two had been
inseparable chums.
One sloppy afternoon in late winter, Wolf and the Boy were sprawled,
side by side; on the fur rug in front of the library fire. The Mistress
and the Master had gone to town for the day. The house was lonely, and
the two chums were left to entertain each other.
The Boy was reading a magazine. The dog beside him was blinking in
drowsy comfort at the fire. Presently, finishing the story he had been
reading, the Boy looked across at the sleepy dog.
“Wolf,” he said, “here’s a story about a dog. I think he
must have been something like you. Maybe he was your
great-great-great-great-grandfather. He lived an awfully long time
ago—in Pompeii. Ever hear of Pompeii?”
Now, the Boy was fifteen years old, and he had too much sense to imagine
that Wolf could possibly understand the story he was about to tell him.
But, long since, he had fallen into a way of talking to his dog,
sometimes, as if to another human. It was fun for him to note the almost
pathetic eagerness wherewith Wolf listened and tried to grasp the
meaning of what he was saying. Again and again, at sound of some
familiar word or voice inflection, the collie would pick up his ears or
wag his tail, as if in the joyous hope that he had at last found a clue
to his owner’s meaning.
“You see,” went on the Boy, “this dog lived in Pompeii, as I told you.
You’ve never been there, Wolf.”
Wolf was looking up at the Boy in wistful excitement, seeking vainly to
guess what was expected of him.
“And,” continued the Boy, “the kid who owned him seems to have had a
regular knack for getting into trouble all the time. And his dog was
always on hand to get him out of it. It’s a true story, the magazine
says. The kid’s father was so grateful to the dog that he bought him a
solid silver coller. Solid silver! Get that, Wolfie?”
Wolf did not “get it.” But he wagged his tail hopefully, his eyes alight
with bewildered interest.
“And,” said the Boy, “what do you suppose was engraved on the collar?
Well, I’ll tell you: ‘_This dog has thrice saved his little master from
death. Once by fire, once by flood, and once at the hands of robbers!_’
How’s that for a record, Wolf? For _one_ dog, too!”
At the words “Wolf” and “dog,” the collie’s tail smote the floor in glad
comprehension. Then he edged closer to the Boy as the narrator’s voice
presently took on a sadder note.
“But at last,” resumed the Boy, “there came a time when the dog couldn’t
save the kid. Mount Vesuvius erupted. All the sky was pitch-dark, as
black as midnight, and Pompeii was buried under lava and ashes. The dog
could easily have got away by himself,—dogs can see in the dark, can’t
they, Wolf?—but he couldn’t get the kid away. And he wouldn’t go without
him. You wouldn’t have gone without me, either, would you, Wolf? Pretty
nearly two thousand years later, some people dug through the lava that
covered Pompeii. What do you suppose they found? Of course they found a
whole lot of things. One of them was that dog—silver collar and
inscription and all. He was lying at the feet of a child. The child he
couldn’t save. He was one grand dog—hey, Wolf?”
The continued strain of trying to understand began to get on the
collie’s high-strung nerves. He rose to his feet, quivering, and sought
to lick the Boy’s face, thrusting one upraised white forepaw at him in
appeal for a handshake. The Boy slammed shut the magazine.
“It’s slow in the house, here, with nothing to do,” he said to his chum.
“I’m going up the lake with my gun to see if any wild ducks have landed
in the marshes yet. It’s almost time for them. Want to come along?”
The last sentence Wolf understood perfectly. On the instant he was
dancing with excitement at the prospect of a walk. Being a collie, he
was of no earthly help in a hunting-trip; but, on such tramps, as
everywhere else, he was the Boy’s inseparable companion.
Out over the slushy snow the two started, the Boy with his light
single-barrelled shotgun slung over one shoulder, the dog trotting close
at his heels. The March thaw was changing to a sharp freeze. The deep
and soggy snow was crusted over, just thick enough to make walking a
genuine difficulty for both dog and Boy.
The Place was a promontory that ran out into the lake, on the opposite
bank from the mile-distant village. Behind, across the highroad, lay the
winter-choked forest. At the lake’s northerly end, two miles beyond The
Place, were the reedy marshes where, a month hence, wild duck would
congregate. Thither, with Wolf, the Boy ploughed his way through the
biting cold.
The going was heavy and heavier. A quarter-mile below the marshes the
Boy struck out across the upper corner of the lake. Here the ice was
rotten at the top, where the thaw had nibbled at it, but beneath it was
still a full eight inches thick; easily strong enough to bear the Boy’s
weight.
Along the grey ice-field the two plodded. The skim of water, which the
thaw had spread an inch thick over the ice, had frozen in the day’s cold
spell. It crackled like broken glass as the chums walked over it. The
Boy had on big hunting-boots. So, apart from the extra effort, the
glass-like ice did not bother him. To Wolf it gave acute pain. The sharp
particles were forever getting between the callous black pads of his
feet, pricking and cutting him acutely.
Little smears of blood began to mark the dog’s course but it never
occurred to Wolf to turn back, or to betray by any sign that he was
suffering. It was all a part of the day’s work—a cheap price to pay for
the joy of tramping with his adored young master.