Not altogether unwillingly, in the darkness of night, despite that he
disliked the man, did Michael go with Harry Del Mar. Like a burglar the
man came, with infinite caution of silence, to the outhouse in Doctor
Emory's back yard where Michael was a prisoner. Del Mar knew the theatre
too well to venture any hackneyed melodramatic effect such as an electric
torch. He felt his way in the darkness to the door of the outhouse,
unlatched it, and entered softly, feeling with his hands for the wire-
haired coat.
And Michael, a man-dog and a lion-dog in all the stuff of him, bristled
at the instant of intrusion, but made no outcry. Instead, he smelled out
the intruder and recognised him. Disliking the man, nevertheless he
permitted the tying of the rope around his neck and silently followed him
out to the sidewalk, down to the corner, and into the waiting taxi.
His reasoning--unless reason be denied him--was simple. This man he had
met, more than once, in the company of Steward. Amity had existed
between him and Steward, for they had sat at table, and drunk together.
Steward was lost. Michael knew not where to find him, and was himself a
prisoner in the back yard of a strange place. What had once happened,
could again happen. It had happened that Steward, Del Mar, and Michael
had sat at table together on divers occasions. It was probable that such
a combination would happen again, was going to happen now, and, once
more, in the bright-lighted cabaret, he would sit on a chair, Del Mar on
one side, and on the other side beloved Steward with a glass of beer
before him--all of which might be called "leaping to a conclusion"; for
conclusion there was, and upon the conclusion Michael acted.
Now Michael could not reason to this conclusion nor think to this
conclusion, in words. "Amity," as an instance, was no word in his
consciousness. Whether or not he thought to the conclusion in
swift-related images and pictures and swift-welded composites of images
and pictures, is a problem that still waits human solution. The point
is: _he did think_. If this be denied him, then must he have acted
wholly by instinct--which would seem more marvellous on the face of it
than if, in dim ways, he had performed a vague thought-process.
However, into the taxi and away through the maze of San Francisco's
streets, Michael lay alertly on the floor near Del Mar's feet, making no
overtures of friendliness, by the same token making no demonstration of
the repulsion of the man's personality engendered in him. For Harry Del
Mar, who was base, and who had been further abased by his money-making
desire for the possession of Michael, had had his baseness sensed by
Michael from the beginning. That first meeting in the Barbary Coast
cabaret, Michael had bristled at him, and stiffened belligerently, when
he laid his hand on Michael's head. Nor had Michael thought about the
man at all, much less attempted any analysis of him. Something had been
wrong with that hand--the perfunctory way in which it had touched him
under a show of heartiness that could well deceive the onlooker. The
_feel_ of it had not been right. There had been no warmth in it, no
heart, no communication of genuine good approach from the brain and the
soul of the man of which it was the telegraphic tentacle and transmitter.
In short, the message or feel had not been a good message or feel, and
Michael had bristled and stiffened without thinking, but by mere
_knowing_, which is what men call "intuition."
Electric lights, a shed-covered wharf, mountains of luggage and freight,
the noisy toil of 'longshoremen and sailors, the staccato snorts of
donkey engines and the whining sheaves as running lines ran through the
blocks, a crowd of white-coated stewards carrying hand-baggage, the
quartermaster at the gangway foot, the gangway sloping steeply up to the
_Umatilla's_ promenade deck, more quartermasters and gold-laced ship's
officers at the head of the gangway, and more crowd and confusion
blocking the narrow deck--thus Michael knew, beyond all peradventure,
that he had come back to the sea and its ships, where he had first met
Steward, where he had been always with Steward, save for the recent
nightmare period in the great city. Nor was there absent from the
flashing visions of his consciousness the images and memories of Kwaque
and Cocky. Whining eagerly, he strained at the leash, risking his tender
toes among the many inconsiderate, restless, leather-shod feet of the
humans, as he quested and scented for Cocky and Kwaque, and, most of all,
for Steward.
Michael accepted his disappointment in not immediately meeting them, for
from the dawn of consciousness, the limitations and restrictions of dogs
in relation to humans had been hammered into him in the form of concepts
of patience. The patience of waiting, when he wanted to go home and when
Steward continued to sit at table and talk and drink beer, was his, as
was the patience of the rope around the neck, the fence too high to
scale, the narrowed-walled room with the closed door which he could never
unlatch but which humans unlatched so easily. So that he permitted
himself to be led away by the ship's butcher, who on the _Umatilla_ had
the charge of all dog passengers. Immured in a tiny between-decks cubby
which was filled mostly with boxes and bales, tied as well by the rope
around his neck, he waited from moment to moment for the door to open and
admit, realised in the flesh, the resplendent vision of Steward which
blazed through the totality of his consciousness.
Instead, although Michael did not guess it then, and, only later, divined
it as a vague manifestation of power on the part of Del Mar, the well-
tipped ship's butcher opened the door, untied him, and turned him over to
the well-tipped stateroom steward who led him to Del Mar's stateroom. Up
to the last, Michael was convinced that he was being led to Steward.
Instead, in the stateroom, he found only Del Mar. "No Steward," might be
described as Michael's thought; but by _patience_, as his mood and key,
might be described his acceptance of further delay in meeting up with his
god, his best beloved, his Steward who was his own human god amidst the
multitude of human gods he was encountering.
Michael wagged his tail, flattened his ears, even his crinkled ear, a
trifle, and smiled, all in a casual way of recognition, smelled out the
room to make doubly sure that there was no scent of Steward, and lay down
on the floor. When Del Mar spoke to him, he looked up and gazed at him.
"Now, my boy, times have changed," Del Mar addressed him in cold, brittle
tones. "I'm going to make an actor out of you, and teach you what's
what. First of all, come here . . . COME HERE!"
Michael obeyed, without haste, without lagging, and patently without
eagerness.
"You'll get over that, my lad, and put pep into your motions when I talk
to you," Del Mar assured him; and the very manner of his utterance was a
threat that Michael could not fail to recognise. "Now we'll just see if
I can pull off the trick. You listen to me, and sing like you did for
that leper guy."
Drawing a harmonica from his vest pocket, he put it to his lips and began
to play "Marching through Georgia."
"Sit down!" he commanded.
Again Michael obeyed, although all that was Michael was in protest. He
quivered as the shrill-sweet strains from the silver reeds ran through
him. All his throat and chest was in the impulse to sing; but he
mastered it, for he did not care to sing for this man. All he wanted of
him was Steward.
"Oh, you're stubborn, eh?" Del Mar sneered at him. "The matter with you
is you're thoroughbred. Well, my boy, it just happens I know your kind
and I reckon I can make you get busy and work for me just as much as you
did for that other guy. Now get busy."
He shifted the tune on into "Georgia Camp Meeting." But Michael was
obdurate. Not until the melting strains of "Old Kentucky Home" poured
through him did he lose his self-control and lift his mellow-throated
howl that was the call for the lost pack of the ancient millenniums.
Under the prodding hypnosis of this music he could not but yearn and burn
for the vague, forgotten life of the pack when the world was young and
the pack was the pack ere it was lost for ever through the endless
centuries of domestication.
"Ah, ha," Del Mar chuckled coldly, unaware of the profound history and
vast past he evoked by his silver reeds.
A loud knock on the partition wall warned him that some sleepy passenger
was objecting.
"That will do!" he said sharply, taking the harmonica from his lips. And
Michael ceased, and hated him. "I guess I've got your number all right.
And you needn't think you're going to sleep here scratching fleas and
disturbing my sleep."
He pressed the call-button, and, when his room-steward answered, turned
Michael over to him to be taken down below and tied up in the crowded
cubby-hole.
* * * * *
During the several days and nights on the _Umatilla_, Michael learned
much of what manner of man Harry Del Mar was. Almost, might it be said,
he learned Del Mar's pedigree without knowing anything of his history.
For instance he did not know that Del Mar's real name was Percival
Grunsky, and that at grammar school he had been called "Brownie" by the
girls and "Blackie" by the boys. No more did he know that he had gone
from half-way-through grammar school directly into the industrial reform
school; nor that, after serving two years, he had been paroled out by
Harris Collins, who made a living, and an excellent one, by training
animals for the stage. Much less could he know the training that for six
years Del Mar, as assistant, had been taught to give the animals, and,
thereby, had received for himself.
What Michael did know was that Del Mar had no pedigree and was a scrub as
compared with thoroughbreds such as Steward, Captain Kellar, and _Mister_
Haggin of Meringe. And he learned it swiftly and simply. In the day-
time, fetched by a steward, Michael would be brought on deck to Del Mar,
who was always surrounded by effusive young ladies and matrons who
lavished caresses and endearments upon Michael. This he stood, although
much bored; but what irked him almost beyond standing were the feigned
caresses and endearments Del Mar lavished on him. He knew the
cold-blooded insincerity of them, for, at night, when he was brought to
Del Mar's room, he heard only the cold brittle tones, sensed only the
threat and the menace of the other's personality, felt, when touched by
the other's hand, only a stiffness and sharpness of contact that was like
to so much steel or wood in so far as all subtle tenderness of heart and
spirit was absent.
This man was two-faced, two-mannered. No thoroughbred was anything but
single-faced and single-mannered. A thoroughbred, hot-blooded as it
might be, was always sincere. But in this scrub was no sincerity, only a
positive insincerity. A thoroughbred had passion, because of its hot
blood; but this scrub had no passion. Its blood was cold as its
deliberateness, and it did nothing save deliberately. These things he
did not think. He merely realized them, as any creature realizes itself
in _liking_ and in not _liking_.
To cap it all, the last night on board, Michael lost his thoroughbred
temper with this man who had no temper. It came to a fight. And Michael
had no chance. He raged royally and fought royally, leaping to the
attack, after being knocked over twice by open-handed blows under his
ear. Quick as Michael was, slashing South Sea niggers by virtue of his
quickness and cleverness, he could not touch his teeth to the flesh of
this man, who had been trained for six years with animals by Harris
Collins. So that, when he leaped, open-mouthed, for the bite, Del Mar's
right hand shot out, gripped his under-jaw as he was in the air, and
flipped him over in a somersaulting fall to the floor on his back. Once
again he leapt open-mouthed to the attack, and was filliped to the floor
so hard that almost the last particle of breath was knocked out of him.
The next leap was nearly his last. He was clutched by the throat. Two
thumbs pressed into his neck on either side of the windpipe directly on
the carotid arteries, shutting off the blood to his brain and giving him
most exquisite agony, at the same time rendering him unconscious far more
swiftly than the swiftest anaesthetic. Darkness thrust itself upon him;
and, quivering on the floor, glimmeringly he came back to the light of
the room and to the man who was casually touching a match to a cigarette
and cautiously keeping an observant eye on him.
"Come on," Del Mar challenged. "I know your kind. You can't get my
goat, and maybe I can't get yours entirely, but I can keep you under my
thumb to work for me. Come on, you!"
And Michael came. Being a thoroughbred, despite that he knew he was
beaten by this two-legged thing which was not warm human but was so alien
and hard that he might as well attack the wall of a room with his teeth,
or a tree-trunk, or a cliff of rock, Michael leapt bare-fanged for the
throat. And all that he leapt against was training, formula. The
experience was repeated. His throat was gripped, the thumbs shut off the
blood from his brain, and darkness smote him. Had he been more than a
normal thoroughbred dog, he would have continued to assail his
impregnable enemy until he burst his heart or fell in a fit. But he was
normal. Here was something unassailable, adamantine. As little might he
win victory from it, as from the cement-paved sidewalk of a city. The
thing was a devil, with the hardness and coldness, the wickedness and
wisdom, of a devil. It was as bad as Steward was good. Both were two-
legged. Both were gods. But this one was an evil god.
He did not reason all this, nor any of it. Yet, transmuted into human
terms of thought and understanding, it adequately describes the fulness
of his state of mind toward Del Mar. Had Michael been entangled in a
fight with a warm god, he could have raged and battled blindly,
inflicting and receiving hurt in the chaos of conflict, as such a god,
being warm, would have likewise received and given hurt, being only a
flesh-and-blood, living, breathing entity after all. But this two-legged
god-devil did not rage blindly and was incapable of passional heat. He
was like so much cunning, massive steel machinery, and he did what
Michael could never dream he did--and, for that matter, which few humans
do and which all animal trainers do: _he kept one thought ahead of
Michael's thought all the time_, and therefore, was able to have ready
one action always in anticipation of Michael's next action. This was the
training he had received from Harris Collins, who, withal he was a
sentimental and doting husband and father, was the arch-devil when it
came to animals other than human ones, and who reigned in an animal hell
which he had created and made lucrative.
* * * * *
Michael went ashore in Seattle all eagerness, straining at his leash
until he choked and coughed and was coldly cursed by Del Mar. For
Michael was mastered by his expectation that he would meet Steward, and
he looked for him around the first corner, and around all corners with
undiminished zeal. But amongst the multitudes of men there was no
Steward. Instead, down in the basement of the New Washington Hotel,
where electric lights burned always, under the care of the baggage
porter, he was tied securely by the neck in the midst of Alpine ranges of
trunks which were for ever being heaped up, sought over, taken down,
carried away, or added to.
Three days of this dolorous existence he passed. The porters made
friends with him and offered him prodigious quantities of cooked meats
from the leavings of the dining-room. Michael was too disappointed and
grief-stricken over Steward to overeat himself, while Del Mar,
accompanied by the manager of the hotel, raised a great row with the
porters for violating the feeding instructions.
"That guy's no good," said the head porter to assistant, when Del Mar had
departed. "He's greasy. I never liked greasy brunettes anyway. My
wife's a brunette, but thank the Lord she ain't greasy."
"Sure," agreed the assistant. "I know his kind. Why, if you'd stick a
knife into him he wouldn't bleed blood. It'd be straight liquid lard."
Whereupon the pair of them immediately presented Michael with vaster
quantities of meat which he could not eat because the desire for Steward
was too much with him.
In the meantime Del Mar sent off two telegrams to New York, the first to
Harris Collins' animal training school, where his troupe of dogs was
boarding through his vacation:
"_Sell my dogs. You know what they can do and what they are worth. Am
done with them. Deduct the board and hold the balance for me until I
see you. I have the limit here of a dog. Every turn I ever pulled is
put in the shade by this one. He's a ten strike. Wait till you see
him_."
The second, to his booking agent:
"_Get busy. Book me over the best. Talk it up. I have the turn. A
winner. Nothing like it. Don't talk up top price but way over top
price. Prepare them for the dog when I give them the chance for the
once over. You know me. I am giving it straight. This will head the
bill anywhere all the time_."