right amazing phenomenon. The Boy had been walking directly in front of
him, gun over shoulder. With no warning at all, the youthful hunter
fell, feet foremost, out of sight, through the ice.
The light shell of new-frozen water that covered the lake’s thicker ice
also masked an air-hole nearly three feet wide. Into this, as he strode
carelessly along, the Boy had stepped. Straight down he had gone, with
all the force of his hundred-and-twenty pounds and with all the impetus
of his forward stride.
Instinctively, he threw out his hands to restore his balance. The only
effect of this was to send the gun flying ten feet away.
Down went the Boy through less than three feet of water (for the bottom
of the lake at this point had started to slope upward towards the
marshes) and through nearly two feet more of sticky marsh mud that
underlay the lake-bed.
His outflung hands struck against the ice on the edges of the air-hole,
and clung there.
Sputtering and gurgling, the Boy brought his head above the surface and
tried to raise himself by his hands, high enough to wriggle out upon the
surface of the ice. Ordinarily, this would have been simple enough for
so strong a lad. But the glue-like mud had imprisoned his feet and the
lower part of his legs; and held them powerless.
Try as he would, the Boy could not wrench himself free of the slough.
The water, as he stood upright, was on a level with his mouth. The
air-hole was too wide for him, at such a depth, to get a good purchase
on its edges and lift himself bodily to safety.
Gaining such a finger-hold as he could, he heaved with all his might,
throwing every muscle of his body into the struggle. One leg was pulled
almost free of the mud, but the other was driven deeper into it. And, as
the Boy’s fingers slipped from the smoothly wet ice-edge, the attempt to
restore his balance drove the free leg back, knee-deep into the mire.
Ten minutes of this hopeless fighting left the Boy panting and tired
out. The icy water was numbing his nerves and chilling his blood into
torpidity. His hands were without sense of feeling, as far up as the
wrists. Even if he could have shaken free his legs from the mud, now, he
had not strength enough left to crawl out of the hole.
He ceased his useless frantic battle and stood dazed. Then he came
sharply to himself. For, as he stood, the water crept upward from his
lips to his nostrils. He knew why the water seemed to be rising. It was
not rising. It was he who was sinking. As soon as he stopped moving, the
mud began, very slowly, but very steadily, to suck him downward.
This was not a quicksand, but it was a deep mud-bed. And only by
constant motion could he avoid sinking farther and farther down into it.
He had less than two inches to spare, at best, before the water should
fill his nostrils; less than two inches of life, even if he could keep
the water down to the level of his lips.
There was a moment of utter panic. Then the Boy’s brain cleared. His
only hope was to keep on fighting—to rest when he must, for a moment or
so, and then to renew his numbed grip on the ice-edge and try to pull
his feet a few inches higher out of the mud. He must do this as long as
his chilled body could be scourged into obeying his will.
He struggled again, but with virtually no result in raising himself. A
second struggle, however, brought him chin-high above the water. He
remembered confusedly that some of these earlier struggles had scarce
budged him, while others had gained him two or three inches. Vaguely, he
wondered why. Then turning his head, he realised.
Wolf, as he turned, was just loosing his hold on the wide collar of the
Boy’s mackinaw. His cut forepaws were still braced against a flaw of
ragged ice on the air-hole’s edge, and all his tawny body was tense.
His body was dripping wet, too. The Boy noted that; and he realised that
the repeated effort to draw his master to safety must have resulted, at
least once, in pulling the dog down into the water with the floundering
Boy.
“Once more, Wolfie! _Once more!_” chattered the Boy through teeth that
clicked together like castanets.
The dog darted forward, caught his grip afresh on the edge of the Boy’s
collar, and tugged with all his fierce strength; growling and whining
ferociously the while.
The Boy seconded the collie’s tuggings by a supreme struggle that lifted
him higher than before. He was able to get one arm and shoulder clear.
His numb fingers closed about an up-thrust tree-limb which had been
washed down stream in the autumn freshets and had been frozen into the
lake ice.
With this new purchase, and aided by the dog, the Boy tried to drag
himself out of the hole. But the chill of the water had done its work.
He had not the strength to move farther. The mud still sucked at his
calves and ankles. The big hunting-boots were full of water that seemed
to weigh a ton.
He lay there, gasping and chattering. Then through the gathering
twilight, his eyes fell on the gun, lying ten feet away.
“Wolf!” he ordered, nodding towards the weapon. “Get it! _Get_ it!”
Not in vain had the Boy talked to Wolf, for years, as if the dog were
human. At the words and the nod, the collie trotted over to the gun,
lifted it by the stock, and hauled it awkwardly along over the bumpy ice
to his master, where he laid it down at the edge of the air-hole.
The dog’s eyes were cloudy with trouble, and he shivered and whined as
with ague. The water on his thick coat was freezing to a mass of ice.
But it was from anxiety that he shivered, and not from cold.
Still keeping his numb grasp on the tree-branch, the boy balanced
himself as best he could, and thrust two fingers of his free hand into
his mouth to warm them into sensation again.
When this was done, he reached out to where the gun lay, and pulled its
trigger. The shot boomed deafeningly through the twilight winter
silences. The recoil sent the weapon sliding sharply back along the ice,
spraining the Boy’s trigger finger and cutting it to the bone.
“That’s all I can do,” said the Boy to himself. “If any one hears it,
well and good. I can’t get at another cartridge. I couldn’t put it into
the breech if I had it. My hands are too numb.”
For several endless minutes he clung there, listening. But this was a
desolate part of the lake, far from any road; and the season was too
early for other hunters to be abroad. The bitter cold, in any case,
tended to make sane folk hug the fireside rather than to venture so far
into the open. Nor was the single report of a gun uncommon enough to
call for investigation in such weather.
All this the Boy told himself, as the minutes dragged by. Then he looked
again at Wolf. The dog, head on one side, still stood protectingly above
him. The dog was cold and in pain. But, being only a dog, it did not
occur to him to trot off home to the comfort of the library fire and
leave his master to fend for himself.
Presently, with a little sigh, Wolf lay down on the ice, his nose across
the Boy’s arm. Even if he lacked strength to save his beloved master, he
could stay and share the Boy’s sufferings.
But the Boy himself thought otherwise. He was not at all minded to
freeze to death, nor was he willing to let Wolf imitate the dog of
Pompeii by dying helplessly at his master’s side. Controlling for an
instant the chattering of his teeth, he called:
“Wolf!”
The dog was on his feet again at the word; alert, eager.
“Wolf!” repeated the boy. “_Go!_ Hear me? _Go!_”
He pointed homeward.
Wolf stared at him, hesitant. Again the Boy called in vehement command,
“_Go!_”
The collie lifted his head to the twilight sky with a wolf-howl hideous
in its grief and appeal—a howl as wild and discordant as that of any of
his savage ancestors. Then, stooping first to lick the numb hand that
clung to the branch, Wolf turned and fled.
Across the cruelly sharp film of ice he tore, at top speed, head down;
whirling through the deepening dusk like a flash of tawny light.
Wolf understood what was wanted of him. Wolf always understood. The pain
in his feet was as nothing. The stiffness of his numbed body was
forgotten in the urgency for speed.
The Boy looked drearily after the swift-vanishing figure which the dusk
was swallowing. He knew the dog would try to bring help; as has many
another and lesser dog in times of need. Whether or not that help could
arrive in time, or at all, was a point on which the Boy would not let
himself dwell. Into his benumbed brain crept the memory of an old Norse
proverb he had read in school:
“_Heroism consists in hanging on, one minute longer._”
Unconsciously he tightened his feeble hold on the tree-branch and braced
himself.
From the marshes to The Place was a full two miles. Despite the deep and
sticky snow, Wolf covered the distance in less than nine minutes. He
paused in front of the gate-lodge, at the highway entrance to the drive.
But the superintendent and his wife had gone to Paterson, shopping, that
afternoon.
Down the drive to the house he dashed. The maids had taken advantage of
their employers’ day in New York, to walk across the lake to the
village, to a motion-picture show.
Wise men claim that dogs have not the power to think or to reason things
out in a logical way. So perhaps it was mere chance that next sent
Wolf’s flying feet across the lake to the village. Perhaps it was
chance, and not the knowledge that where there is a village there are
people.
Again and again, in the car, he had sat upon the front seat alongside
the Mistress when she drove to the station to meet guests. There were
always people at the station. And to the station Wolf now raced.
The usual group of platform idlers had been dispersed by the cold. A
solitary baggageman was hauling a trunk and some boxes out of the
express-coop on to the platform; to be put aboard the five o’clock train
from New York.
As the baggageman passed under the clump of station lights, he came to a
sudden halt. For out of the darkness dashed a dog. Full tilt, the animal
rushed up to him and seized him by the skirt of the overcoat.
The man cried out in scared surprise. He dropped the box he was carrying
and struck at the dog, to ward off the seemingly murderous attack. He
recognised Wolf, and he knew the collie’s repute.
But Wolf was not attacking. Holding tight to the coat-skirt, he backed
away, trying to draw the man with him, and all the while whimpering
aloud like a nervous puppy.
A kick from the heavy-shod boot broke the dog’s hold on the coat-skirt,
even as a second yell from the man brought four or five other people
running out from the station waiting-room.
One of these, the telegraph operator, took in the scene at a single
glance. With great presence of mind he bawled loudly:
“MAD DOG!”
This, as Wolf, reeling from the kick, sought to gain another grip on the
coat-skirt. A second kick sent him rolling over and over on the tracks,
while other voices took up the panic cry of “Mad dog!”
Now, a mad dog is supposed to be a dog afflicted by rabies. Once in ten
thousand times, at the very most, a mad-dog hue-and-cry is justified.
Certainly not oftener. A harmless and friendly dog loses his master on
the street. He runs about, confused and frightened, looking for the
owner he has lost. A boy throws a stone at him. Other boys chase him.
His tongue hangs out, and his eyes glaze with terror. Then some fool
bellows:
“Mad dog!”
And the cruel chase is on—a chase that ends in the pitiful victim’s
death. Yes, in every crowd there is a voice ready to raise that asinine
and murderously cruel shout.
So it was with the men who witnessed Wolf’s frenzied effort to take aid
to the imperilled Boy.
Voice after voice repeated the cry. Men groped along the platform edge
for stones to throw. The village policeman ran puffingly upon the scene,
drawing his revolver.
Finding it useless to make a further attempt to drag the baggageman to
the rescue, Wolf leaped back, facing the ever larger group. Back went
his head again in that hideous wolf-howl. Then he galloped away a few
yards, trotted back, howled once more, and again galloped lakeward.
All of which only confirmed the panicky crowd in the belief that they
were threatened by a mad dog. A shower of stones hurtled about Wolf as
he came back a third time to lure these dull humans into following him.
One pointed rock smote the collie’s shoulder, glancingly, cutting it to
the bone. A shot from the policeman’s revolver fanned the fur of his
ruff, as it whizzed past.
Knowing that he faced death, he nevertheless stood his ground, not
troubling to dodge the fusillade of stones, but continuing to run
lakeward and then trot back, whining with excitement.
A second pistol-shot flew wide. A third grazed the dog’s hip. From all
directions people were running towards the station. A man darted into a
house next door, and emerged carrying a shot-gun. This he steadied on
the veranda-rail not forty feet away from the leaping dog, and made
ready to fire.
It was then the train from New York came in. And, momentarily, the sport
of “mad-dog” killing was abandoned, while the crowd scattered to each
side of the track.
From a front car of the train the Mistress and the Master emerged into a
bedlam of noise and confusion.
“Best hide in the station, Ma’am!” shouted the telegraph operator, at
sight of the Mistress. “There is a mad dog loose out here! He’s chasing
folks around, and—”
“Mad dog!” repeated the Mistress in high contempt. “If you knew anything
about dogs, you’d know mad ones never ‘chase folks around,’ any more
than diphtheria patients do. Then—”
A flash of tawny light beneath the station lamp, a scurrying of
frightened idlers, a final wasted shot from the policeman’s pistol,—as
Wolf dived headlong through the frightened crowd towards the voice he
heard and recognised.
Up to the Mistress and the Master galloped Wolf. He was bleeding, his
eyes were bloodshot, his fur was rumpled. He seized the astounded
Master’s gloved hand lightly between his teeth and sought to pull him
across the tracks and towards the lake.
The Master knew dogs. Especially he knew Wolf. And without a word he
suffered himself to be led. The Mistress and one or two inquisitive men
followed.
Presently, Wolf loosed his hold on the Master’s hand and ran on ahead,
darting back every few moments to make certain he was followed.
“_Heroism—consists—in—hanging—on—one—minute—longer_,” the Boy was
whispering deliriously to himself for the hundredth time; as Wolf
pattered up to him in triumph, across the ice, with the human rescuers a
scant ten yards behind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
EIGHT: Afterword
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]
EIGHT: Afterword
I have drawn upon one of our Sunnybank collies for the name and the
aspect and certain traits of my “Treve” book’s hero. The real Treve was
my chum, and one of the strangest and most beautiful collies I have
known.
Dog aristocrats have two names; one whereby they are registered in the
American Kennel Club’s immortal studbook and one by which they are known
at home. The first of these is called the “pedigree name.” The second is
the “kennel name.” Few dogs know or answer to their own high-sounding
pedigree names. In speaking to them their kennel names alone are used.
For example, my grand old Bruce’s pedigree name was Sunnybank
Goldsmith;—a term that meant nothing to him. My Champion Sunnybank
Sigurdson (greatest of Treve’s sons), responds only to the name of
“Squire.” Sunnybank Lochinvar is “Roy.”
Treve’s pedigree name was “Sunnybank Sigurd.” And in time he won his
right to the hard-sought and harder-earned prefix of “CHAMPION”;—the
supreme crown of dogdom.
We named him Sigurd—the Mistress and I—in honour of the collie of
Katharine Lee Bates; a dog made famous the world over by his owner’s
exquisite book, “_Sigurd, Our Golden Collie_.”
But here difficulties set in.
It is all very well to shout “Sigurd!” to a collie when he is the only
dog in sight. But when there is a rackety and swirling and excited
throng of them, the call of “Sigurd!” has an unlucky sibilant
resemblance to the exhortation, “Sic ’im!” And misunderstandings—not to
say strife—are prone to follow. So we sought a one-syllable kennel name
for our golden collie pup. My English superintendent, Robert Friend,
suggested “Treve.”
The pup took to it at once.
He was red-gold-and-snow of coat; a big slender youngster, with the true
“look of eagles” in his deepset dark eyes. In those eyes, too, burned an
eternal imp of mischief.
I have bred or otherwise acquired hundreds of collies in my time. No two
of them were alike. That is the joy of collies. But most of them had
certain well-defined collie characteristics in common with their
blood-brethren. Treve had practically none. He was not like other
collies or like a dog of any breed.
Gloriously beautiful, madly alive in every inch of him, he combined the
widest and most irreconcilable range of traits.
For him there were but three people on earth;—the Mistress, myself and
Robert Friend. To us he gave complete allegiance, if in queer form. The
rest of mankind, with one exception—a girl—did not exist, so far as he
was concerned; unless the rest of mankind undertook to speak to him or
to pat him. Then, instantly, such familiarity was rewarded by a
murderous growl and a most terrifying bite.
The bite was delivered with a frightful show of ferocity. And it had not
the force to crush the wing of a fly.
Strangers, assailed thus, were startled. Some were frankly scared. They
would stare down in amaze at the bitten surface, marvelling that there
was neither blood nor teeth-mark nor pain. For the attack always had an
appearance of man-eating fury.
Treve would allow the Mistress to pat him—in moderation. But if I
touched him, in friendliness, he would toss his beautiful head and dart
out of reach, barking angrily back at me. It was the same when Robert
tried to pet him.
Once or twice a day he would come up to me, laying his head across my
arm or knee; growling with the utmost vehemence and gnawing at my sleeve
for a minute at a time. I gather that this was a form of affection. He
did it to nobody else.
Also, when I went to town for the day, he would mope around for awhile;
then would take my cap from the hall table and carry it into my study.
All day long he would lie there, one paw on the cap, and growl fierce
menace to all who ventured near. On my return home at night, he gave me
scarcely a glance and drew disgustedly away as usual when I held out my
hand to pat him.
In the evenings, on the porch or in front of the living room fire, he
would stroll unconcernedly about until he made sure I was not noticing.
Then he would curl himself on the floor in front of me, pressing his
furry body close to my ankles; and would lie there for hours.
The Mistress alone he forbore to bite. He loved her. But she was a
grievous disappointment to him. From the first, she saw through his
vehement show of ferocity and took it at its true value. Try as he would
he could not frighten her. Try as he would, he could not mask his
adoration for her.
Again and again he would lie down for a nap at her feet; only to waken
presently with a thundrous growl and a snarl, and with a lunge of bared
teeth at her caressing hand. The hand would continue to caress; and his
show of fury was met with a laugh and with the comment:
“You’ve had a good sleep, and now you’ve waked up in a nice homicidal
rage.”
Failing to alarm her, the dog would look sheepishly at the laughing face
and then cuddle down again at her feet to be petted.
There was another side to his play of indifference and of wrath. True,
he would toss his head and back away, barking, when Robert or myself
tried to pat him. But at the quietly spoken word, “Treve!”, he would
come straight up to us and, if need be, stand statue-like for an hour at
a time, while he was groomed or otherwise handled.
In brief, he was the naughtiest and at the same time the most
unfailingly obedient dog I have owned. No matter how far away he might
be, the single voicing of his name would bring him to me in a swirling
rush.
In the show-ring he was a problem. At times he showed as proudly and as
spectacularly as any attitude-striking tragedian. Again, if he did not
chance to like his surroundings or if the ring-side crowd displeased
him, he prepared to loaf in slovenly fashion through his paces on the
block and in the parade. At such times the showing of Treve became as
much an art as is the guiding of a temperamental race-horse to victory.
It called for tact; even for trickery.
In the first place, during these fits of ill-humour, he would start
around the ring, in the preliminary parade, with his tail arched high
over his back; although he knew, as well as did I, that a collie’s tail
should be carried low, in the ring.
I commanded: “Tail down!” Down would come the tail. But at the same time
would come a savage growl and a sensational snap at my wrist. The
spectators pointed out to one another the incurably fierce collie.
Fellow-exhibitors in the ring would edge away. The judge—if he were an
outsider—would eye Treve with strong apprehension.
It was the same when I whispered, “Foot out!” as he deliberately turned
one white front toe inward in coming to a halt on the judging block. A
similar snarl and feather-light snap followed the command.
The worst part of the ordeal came when the judge began to “go over” him
with expert hands, to test the levelness of his mouth, the spring of his
ribs, his general soundness and the texture of his coat. An exhibitor is
not supposed to speak to a judge in the ring except to answer a
question. But if the judge were inspecting Treve for the first time, I
used to mumble conciliatingly, the while:
“He’s only in play, Judge. The dog’s perfectly gentle.”
This, as Treve resented the stranger’s handling, by growl-fringed bites
at the nearest part of the judicial anatomy.
A savage dog does not make a hit with the average judge. There is scant
joyance in being chewed, in the pursuit of one’s judging-duties. Yet, as
a rule, judges took my word as to Treve’s gentleness; especially after
one sample of his biteless biting. Said Vinton Breese, the famed
“all-rounder” dog-judge, after an Interstate show:
“I feel slighted. Sigurd forgot to bite me to-day. It’s the first time.”
The Mistress made up a little song, in which Treve’s name occurred
oftener than almost all its other words. Treve was inordinately proud of
this song. He would stand, growling softly, with his head on his side,
for an indefinite time, listening to her sing it. He used to lure her
into chanting this super-personal ditty by trotting to the piano and
then running back to her.
Nature intended him for a staunch, clever, implicitly obedient, gentle
collie, without a single bad trait, and possessed of rare sweetness. He
tried his best to make himself thoroughly mean and savage and
treacherous. He met with pitifully poor success in his chosen rôle. The
sweetness and the obedient gentleness stuck forth, past all his best
efforts to mask them in ferocity.
Once, when he bit with overmuch unction at a guest who tried to pat him,
I spoke sharply to him and emphasised my rebuke by a slight slap on the
shoulder. The dog was heart-broken. Crouching at my feet, his head on my
boot, he sobbed exactly like a frightened child. He spent hours trying
pitifully to make friends with me again.
It was so when his snarl and his nip at the legs of one of the other
dogs led to warlike retaliation. At once Treve would rush to me for
protection and for comfort. From the safe haven of my knees he would
hurl threats at his assailant and defy him to carry the quarrel further.
There was no fight in him. At the same time there was no taint of
cowardice. He bore pain or discomfort or real danger unflinchingly.
One of his chief joys was to ransack the garage and stables for sponges
and rags which were stored there for cleaning the cars. These he would
carry, one by one, to the long grass or to the lake, and deposit them
there. When the men hid these choice playthings out of his way he would
stand on his hindlegs and explore the shelves and low beam-corners in
search of them; never resting till he found one or more to bear off.
He would lug away porch cushions and carelessly-deserted hats and wraps,
and deposit them in all sorts of impossible places; never by any chance
bringing them back.