Treve lay drowsing, in the early morning sunshine, in front of the Dos
Hermanos ranch house. The big young collie sprawled lazily on his left
side; his classic head outlined sharply against the warming sand of the
dooryard; his tiny white forepaws thrust forward as if in a gallop; the
sun’s rays catching and burnishing his massive tawny-gold coat.
Treve was well content to sprawl idly like this. It had been a large
night. Mack and Joel Fenno, and three of their men, had spent hours of
it in rounding up a bunch of stray sheep that had butted their silly
way out of the rotting home fold, after sundown, and had rambled off
aimlessly down the coulée.
The sheep had been gone for hours and had traveled with annoying
steadiness and speed before their loss was noted. Then, it had taken
some time, through the dark, to overhaul them; and far longer to convoy
them home.
The sheep might never have started upon their illicit ramble--assuredly
they would never have proceeded along ten minutes of it--if Treve had
been on the job. But the big young dog had gone with Royce Mack, in
the buckboard, over to Santa Carlotta, for the week’s mail; and had not
gotten home until dark. It was only during his before-bedtime patrol of
the outbuildings that he found the forced wattle; and realized what had
befallen the fold’s occupants.
He had dashed up to the ranch house. There, by his clamor of wild
barking, he had brought the two partners out of doors on the jump. He
led them to the empty fold and obligingly took up the scent there;
tracing the strays far faster than his human companions could follow
through the dense dark and over the rough ground.
Ahead of him, this morning, was another long day’s work as soon as the
partners should finish breakfast. In the meantime, it was pleasant to
sprawl sleepily on the dooryard’s soft sand.
Through the open door, rumbled the sound of voices. Being only a
real-life collie and not a phenomenon, Treve could not understand one
word in ten that reached his keen ears, as he lay there. But he did not
need a knowledge of words to tell him the two men were quarreling.
Vaguely, Treve regretted this; not only as a highly developed collie
always dislikes the sound of human strife, but because one of those
men was his god. He did not like the thought that any one should be
speaking unkindly to this deity of his.
However, he had heard quarrels, before, since he came to Dos Hermanos
Ranch; and none of them had ended in any harm to his deity. So, he
listened drowsily, rather than apprehensively.
To both the partners Treve was docilely obedient. Under their tutelage
he had become one of the best herding dogs in that valley of herding
dogs. But to only one partner did Treve grant the allegiance of his
heart. Old Joel Fenno regarded all livestock as mere counters in his
game for a livelihood. He neither liked nor disliked Treve. He worked
him hard; and he saw that the collie obeyed orders. There the man’s
interest in him ended.
Young Royce Mack was different. By nature he was a dog-lover. Moreover,
he “had a way” with dogs. Between him and Treve, from the outset, a
deep friendship had sprung up. At every off-duty moment, Treve was
at Mack’s heels. He slept beside his bunk, at night; and usually lay
beside his chair at meals. He joined Mack, right joyously, on all walks
or rides. In brief, he adopted Royce as his overlord; and gave him glad
worship.
With disgusted grunts, old Fenno had noted the jolly chumship between
dog and man. To him it was as absurd as though Royce Mack had made a
pet of a horned toad. Yet never until now had he voiced any active
objection. Fenno was a man of few and grudging words. To-day, however,
he considered it high time to speak. He chose the breakfast table as
the place for his rebuke.
“If that cur had been to home, where he belongs, yesterday afternoon,”
he grumbled, as he began his second cup of coffee, “them sheep wouldn’t
ever have got a chance to stray.”
“If he hadn’t been here, last night,” said Royce, “we’d never have
found them in a week. Besides, it wasn’t his fault he was off the job,
in the afternoon. I took him to Santa Carlotta with me. You know that.”
“Sure, I know it,” growled Joel. “Why wouldn’t I know it? Cost me a
night’s sleep, didn’t it? Oh, I _know_ it, all right! But what I’m
gettin’ at is: Every critter in this outfit has got to earn his way;
got to pay for his keep. If he don’t, then he’s got to stop eatin’ our
grub. Treve pays for himself when he works. And when he don’t work,
he’s dead wood. Dos Hermanos Ranch can’t afford dead wood. We don’t
hire Treve to go drivin’ to Santa Carlotta in lux’ry and to traipse
around on loafin’ walks with you. Nor yet we don’t hire him to snore in
the bunk room, nights, when he’d ought to be on guard. If that’s what
he’s goin’ to do, the sooner we feed him a lump of lead, the better.”
The old fellow returned to the task of demolishing his breakfast. He
ate surlily and without gusto. He did all things surlily and without
gusto.
Royce Mack did not speak for a moment or two. He had been waiting for
this outbreak ever since the mischance at the fold. It was like old
Fenno not to have blurted it in the first flush of the excitement; but
to wait until he had marshaled his facts and had cooled down to normal.
Royce, too, had had time for preparation. Presently he made reply;
schooling himself to calmness and even to an assumption of good humor.
“Treve isn’t dead wood,” he said. “If he’d never done another lick
of work, since we had him, he’d have paid for a lifetime’s keep by
rounding up that bunch of strays, last night. You remember where he
found them. And they were still traveling--still heading north. By
daylight, they’d have been over the edge of the Triple Bar range. And
you can figure what that outfit of cow-men would have done to ’em. We’d
never have seen wool nor hoof of one of ’em again. The Triple Bar or
any other of the cattle crowd wouldn’t ask better than to shoot up a
flock of sheep that strayed onto their range.”
Joel Fenno kept on munching his food, interspersing this with noisy
swigs of coffee. He said nothing. Mack resumed:
“Besides, we’ve got Zit and Rastus, for the regular herding and for
night guard. That isn’t supposed to be Treve’s job. They’re both
born to it. They’re little and black and squat and splayfooted and
they can’t be made homelier by galloping all day and every day, over
hardpan, for hundreds of miles in the broiling sun. Neither of them
has got Treve’s brain or his looks. I don’t want him turned into a
splayfoot drudge. He earns his keep, good and plenty, here on the home
tract. We agreed to that, long ago.”
“_You_ agreed to it,” mumbled Fenno, his mouth full, his eyes glum.
“_I_ didn’t. I haven’t been jawin’. But I’ve been watchin’. An’ here’s
where we come to a showdown. Till we got that cur, there wasn’t any
loafin’ here. Since then, you go on silly walks with him, when you
might be workin’. That comes out of _my_ pocket. You let him sleep in
the bunk room, like he was a Christian. The Dos Hermanos is a workin’
outfit. No time for measly pets and the like. It’s got to stop.”
“I don’t neglect my job, by taking Treve up into the hills or along the
coulée for a tramp, Sundays,” denied Mack. “Better do that, on my rest
day, than play poker in the mess shack or ride over to Santa Carlotta
and get drunk on bootleg. He’s my chum. If you don’t like him--”
“I don’t. I don’t like a hair of him. He--”
“Then figure out what his keep costs us; and deduct it from my share of
the profits, every month. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“No,” denied Joel, sullenly. “It ain’t. You’re makin’ us both lose
money by the time you waste, learnin’ him tricks and suchlike, and
loafin’ around with him. Besides, it sets a bad example to the hands.
Yesterday, I saw Toni tryin’ to learn Rastus to shake hands. Tryin’
to make him do like Treve does. Nice stunt for a sheep-wrastler, huh?
Shakin’ hands! It’s got to stop.”
“If it stops, then I stop, too,” said Mack.
He spoke without heat, but with much finality. Fenno grunted as usual
and pushed back his chair from the table. Royce continued, getting to
his feet:
“I’m the only man who ever was able to get on with you, Joel. I’ve
stood your grouches and your crankiness; because I figured those
grouches hurt you a lot more than they could hurt me. And I’ve always
tried to dodge any squabbles with you. I’m still going to try to. So I
guess you’d better think over what you’ve just said about our getting
rid of Treve. If Treve gets out, I get out. Not that I’m fool enough
to value a dog more than I value a man; but because when one partner
begins handing out ultimatums, it’s time for the other to quit. The
ultimatum habit is a rotten one. If I gave in to the first ultimatum,
there’d be more and more of ’em; till some day there’d come one that
I’d have to fight over. So, the first ultimatum is going to be the last
one. That’s why I’m asking you to think it over and take it back. See
you at supper time. So long.”
Still holding in his temper, he left the shack; Joel Fenno staring
after him in baleful speechlessness.
As Mack came out into the dooryard, Treve was off the ground in one
leap; and cantering up to him; eagerly expectant of accompanying his
god whithersoever Royce might be going. But Mack checked him.
“No, old boy,” he whispered, stooping to pat the classic head. “Not
this morning. He’s riled. No sense in riling him worse, by us starting
off to work, together. He’d figure we were going to waste half the day
in chasing jackrabbits and learning tricks. Stay here. He’s going down
to the South Quarter this morning. He said so yesterday. He said, then,
he’d need you to help Rastus drive that South Quarter bunch over to the
Bottoms. I’ve got to pack the big truck across to Santa Carlotta for
the freight we found there yesterday. It’d be good fun for both of us,
to have you ride on the front seat with me, Treve, son. But--well, just
now, he’d likely throw a fit if you took the morning off.... Lie down
there and wait for him.”
The dog obeyed. But he did so with none of his wonted gay alacrity.
Naturally, he understood not a tithe of Royce’s harangue. But he caught
some of its drift, from the tone and from a scattered word or so that
was within his experience.
Like so many lonely men, Mack had fallen into the habit of talking to
this collie chum of his, during their long rides or hikes, as if to a
human. The dog, in true collie fashion, had learned to read both voice
and face; and to pick up the meaning of certain familiar words.
For example, he understood perfectly, now, that he must not accompany
his god as usual, but must lie down and wait for his other owner’s
commands. This was ill news to the dog. His deepset dark eyes were full
of wistful appeal, as he stretched himself reluctantly in the sand
again and stared after the departing Royce.
Treve had not long to wait there, alone. In another minute Joel Fenno
slouched out of the ranch house and stood on the threshold looking
moodily down at him. The collie did not greet Fenno’s advent with any
of the exuberant joy wherewith he had hailed Mack’s. Indeed, he did
not greet Joel at all.
He lay, returning the man’s look. Treve was ready to obey any command
given him by this oldster or to do any work Fenno might assign him to.
He recognized that as his duty. But duty did not entail an enthusiastic
greeting to a man who had never yet lavished so much as a careless pat
on his head or spoken a pleasant word to him.
Joel Fenno was wont to bolt breakfast and then to hustle busily off to
the morning’s tasks. But to-day he stood quite still, his brooding old
puckered eyes scanning the dog; his ears strained for some expected
sound.
Presently he heard the sound he had been awaiting. It was the starting
of the truck’s engine; down at the barn. Joel shifted his puckered gaze
to the group of ramshackle adobe buildings.
Royce Mack was backing the big truck out of its cubby-hole. He swung
it about and headed bumpily for the main road. Treve’s own eyes and
ears were at attention, as he saw Mack departing on a jaunt without his
chum. He whimpered, low down in his throat; and peered longingly after
the truck. Then with a sigh of resignation he turned again to face Joel.
As the truck vanished in a fluff of choky yellow dust, Fenno came
to life. Stepping back into the shack, he scribbled a few lines on a
crumpled paper bag; and pinned the paper to the deal surface of the
table, where it must catch Royce’s notice as soon as the younger man
should come into the house again.
Writing was a tedious and grunt-evoking labor to Joel Fenno. He took
a pardonable pride in his few literary productions. Now, he gratified
such pride by bending over to reread what he had written. Half aloud he
muttered the scrawled words:
“Mack, maybe I was too hot under the collar about Treve. Maybe he
is a good chum, like you say. I aim to find out. I am going to let
Toni take the bunch over to the South Quarter with Zit or Rastus
to-day. And I am going to take a two-day camping trip down to the
Ova and back. Last year this time the waterholes down there had
kept the grazing pretty good. If it is as good this year we can
maybe save a couple of weeks rent money on the gov’t grazing lands
up on the peaks by going to the Ova first. It is worth a try. I
ought to be back by to-morrow night. I am going to take Treve
along for company. JOEL.”
Fenno, for the first time in his sixty-odd years, was attempting wily
diplomacy. And he was doing it very badly indeed. It did not occur
to him that his partner might not accept, at its face value, this
unprecedented taste of his for Treve’s society.
True, both ranchers had had a hazy idea of investigating grazing
conditions in the Ova, before shifting their flocks, as usual, to the
government grazing lands on the slopes of the Dos Hermanos peaks, for
the summer and autumn. But it was a trip any of their men could have
made for them. It was unlike Joel to waste two busy days that way, in
person. Royce could not well avoid wondering at it. This possibility,
too, escaped Fenno’s imagination. To him, his scheme appeared truly
inspired.
He valued Mack’s partnership. In a grouchy way, he was fond of the
jolly young fellow. Royce was a hard worker and a good sheep man.
Moreover, he had up-to-date ideas which more than once had been coined
into money for the ranch. Fenno had no intention of breaking with so
useful a partner.
At the same time, he had still less intent of letting Royce go on
loafing and frittering valuable time away, as Joel deemed it, by making
a pet of a dog. He regarded the romps and comradeship and long walks
of the two, as a hustling financier might view a card game among his
employees in the middle of a busy office day.
Time was money. Also, if Mack had any energy and inventiveness to
spare, he might better place those at the service of the ranch than in
teaching a cur to find his tobacco pouch or to catch food-morsels from
the top of his own nose.
Joel had protested. His protest had been met by Mack’s firm refusal
to give up the collie. There was no sense wasting time in useless
bickering. The one wise move was to get rid of the dog; and to do it
in such a manner that Mack should not suspect his partner of doing it
purposely.
Fenno’s plan had been worked out, in swift detail, as soon as Royce had
departed for the day’s work. He would start on horseback toward the
Ova. At some spot too far from the ranch for Mack to trace the deed,
and lonely enough to preclude the chance of witnesses, he would stop;
put a bullet through the collie; scoop out a shallow grave in the sand
and bury him.
Then, the same evening Fenno would return to the ranch house, saying
Treve had run away during their journey and that he had come back
for him. Mack could prove nothing. According to Joel’s elaborate
calculations, he could suspect nothing. Treve would merely seem to have
strayed from his human companion of the trip, and either to have lost
his way home or to have been stolen by some Mexican or else shot by a
passing cattleman. It was very simple.
Fenno made certain of his scheme’s verisimilitude by ordering Chang,
the cook, to put up two days’ rations for him. Then, giving commands to
Toni, he saddled his mustang for the lethal ride toward the Ova. At his
imperative whistle, Treve ranged alongside the pony, and the two set
forth.
The dog did not relish the prospect of a ride with Joel. True,
almost every dog enjoys a walk or a ride with even a human whom he
does not love. But Treve was aware of a queer distaste for to-day’s
jaunt. Perhaps he was warned by the sixth sense which puzzles so many
collie-students. Perhaps the heat of the day and the glum company of
Fenno made the outing seem less attractive than usual. Yet, obediently,
even if not ecstatically, he loped along at the pony’s side.
The mustang enjoyed the trip still less than did the collie. Fenno
had no understanding of horses. He rode, as he did everything else;
busily and unsparingly. He had no sympathy or sense of fellowship with
his mount. To him, a horse was a machine which must be made to earn
its cost and upkeep. He would have sworn derisively at any one who
might have suggested to him the need of warming a horse’s bit on an
icy morning or of dismounting during a ten-minute halt or of easing
his mount over the heavy going of the sands or tethering him out of
draughts and in the shade rather than in wind and sun.
Horses understand such failings on the part of the men who use them.
Thus, not a pony on the Dos Hermanos ranch bothered to lift head and
to whinny when old Fenno clumped into the barn in the morning. Not
one that did not toss back the head in fear of a fist-blow when Joel
undertook to bridle him.
His mount, to-day, was a temperamental little buckskin, Pancho by name,
whose devil temper and inborn mischief had never been trained fully out
of him. Royce Mack understood Pancho and got good service from him, in
spite of the buckskin’s occasional phases of meanness. But Joel Fenno
and Pancho had a steady hatred for each other.
Joel had chosen the buckskin for to-day’s ride, because his own temper
was still frayed from the night’s work and the morning’s squabble.
Subconsciously, he yearned for something on which to vent his
crankiness. He found himself watching for any trick or meanness on the
part of Pancho which should warrant the liberal use of quirt and spur.
When a man is looking for a fight, Destiny is prone to send one to
him. Fenno had not ridden for more than two hours, when Pancho saw, or
affected to see, something terrifying about a jack rabbit that bounded
out of a sage-clump in front of the pony’s nose.
Pancho went straight up into the air, wheeling half-way about, as
he did so, and coming to earth again, stiff-legged, in a series of
spine-jarring buck-jumps. The first of these banging impacts nearly
unseated Fenno and wholly snapped the ill-tied cord which strapped the
bundle of rations to the back of the saddle.
So occupied was Joel with the punitive values of curb and quirt and
heel that he did not observe the loss of his provisions and water bag.
Treve had viewed the advent of the jack rabbit with pleased interest;
foreseeing some excitement in chasing the long-eared and longer-legged
bunny. But, instantly, the scrimmage between man and horse offered
far more excitement for him, and with less need for active exercise.
Wherefore, the collie stood, tulip ears cocked and classic head
interestedly on one side, watching the battle.
Two or three times, it is true, he had to dodge back in lightning
haste, to avoid Pancho’s flying heels or crazy plunges. But, on the
whole, it was a most entertaining and lively spectacle, wherewith to
vary the tedium of the hot trip. Nor was the collie’s fun in it marred
by any anxiety as to the outcome. Once or twice when Pancho had cut up
like this with Royce Mack, the dog had been terrified for his god’s
safety; and had even sprung for the plunging pony’s nose, until Royce
had shouted gayly to him to stand clear.
But to-day, Treve could witness the fight with unmarred interest. He
did not care, in the very least, whether Pancho should demolish Joel or
Joel demolish Pancho. He had no liking for either of them. It was an
enthralling spectacle to watch. And no personal feeling was involved.
The horse fought frantically. The man fought back with scientific fury.
For ferocity and murderous brutality, he outbattled the beast.
In little more than a minute, Pancho gave up the conflict. Not that
he was subdued, but because he found he could not hope to win this
particular bout. He stood trembling and non-resisting; while the rider
whaled him unmercifully. Then, at a harsh-voiced order, the mustang
continued his journey; his mouth dripping blood-flecked foam; his coat
a white lather of sweat and weals; his sides scored bloodily by the
rowels.
Joel settled himself down into his saddle. Grimly, he was pleased with
himself. He had worked off his sour temper, and he had won a victory.
The dog, resignedly trotting along beside him, could have told him how
far he had come from breaking his foe’s spirit. For Treve could see
the pony’s eyes. And a devil was smoldering behind them. Their whites
showed unduly. There was a hint of murder in their rolling irises.
Joel Fenno, smugly confident in his own horsemanship and in the victory
of man over brute, would have sworn there could not be an atom of fight
left in the sweating and trembling victim of his beating. Thus, for
the billionth time in history, a man might have profited vastly had he
known as much as did his dog.
Two hours went by. And another hour. Then, Fenno began to scan the
distance for some shady spot where he might make his noonday halt, for
a bite of lunch and ten minutes’ rest.
There was no shade in sight. In fact it was the most shadeless season
of a shadeless region in that semi-arid belt of shadeless country.
In Dos Hermanos County, except on the slopes and summits of the Dos
Hermanos Peaks, the average yearly rainfall is but twenty-four inches.
And more than twenty-one of those twenty-four inches fall between
November and April.
Late May had arrived. The level ground--most of it little better than
hardpan--was beginning to dry to the consistency of friable clay. The
lower foothills were losing the last of their verdure and beginning
to assume their summer coat of khaki tan. True, in such lowlands as
the Ova, the occasional waterholes, and like receptacles for rainfall,
sometimes on wet years kept enough green grass alive to serve as
temporary grazing ground for sheep; before the utter drouth of summer
sent the sheep men to the government land high in the mountains, with
their flocks, in search of grass to carry the livestock through until
late autumn. But this was not a wet year.
Joel Fenno saw the arid sweep of ground; broken, perhaps a mile ahead
of him, by an irregular ring of yellowish green. Here, by all signs,
should be a waterhole. True, no shade was near it. But it might offer a
chance to bathe his hot face and wrists in moderately cool water. The
increasing heat of the day made this seem more and more desirable.
Fenno headed for the waterhole. His tired pony plodded along over the
uneven ground with head adroop. Treve had moved from Pancho’s right
side, to his left; seeking such tiny patch of shade as the mustang’s
moving body might afford. The air hung dead and stifling. The sun
blazed down in a copper glare from the pitilessly hot sky. Nature
seemed dead and blistering.
Joel’s tough skin sweated drippingly. It was the hottest day, thus far,
of the year; and the weatherwise man knew it was the first of at least
three scorchingly hot days. He was not minded to continue the ride any
farther than he must. It would be well to do what he had come to do,
and then turn back toward the ranch.
This was as good a spot as any for his purpose. Here, at intervals,
patches of soft and easily-diggable sand cropped out through the
hardpan and rock. It would be easy enough to gouge a space deep enough
to bury the body of a dog. Yes, and it would be best to do so, before
getting any nearer to the waterhole. The presence of water might well
attract other wayfarers,--men who might investigate a newly heaped
mound of sand, in the dead level. The burial would better be here, a
mile on the hither side of the waterhole and on a trackless bit of
ground.
Joel Fenno halted his mustang, and glanced around to make certain he
had the wide sweep of swooningly arid country to himself. In that
pitilessly clear atmosphere, his keen old eyes could have descried any
moving object, many miles away. Treve, still keeping in the shadow of
the pony, stopped and looked inquiringly up at the man. It had been a
long and fast and steady ride, under the sickeningly hot sun glare and
over the ever-hotter hardpan. The dog was glad for a rest.
Then, suddenly, his attention was caught by Fenno’s upraised voice.
Joel, in the course of his sweeping survey of the country behind
him, had chanced to drop his gaze to the hips of his sweating and
welt-skinned mount. He saw the water bag and the bundle of rations were
gone from behind his saddle.
He was an old enough plainsman to realize what this implied. It meant
he must go hungry until night--he who had ridden himself into such a
hearty appetite. It meant, too, that he must do all his drinking from
the muddy and perhaps alkaline puddle of the mile-distant waterhole;
and that thereafter he must travel through the heat with unassuaged
thirst until he should get back to the ranch at nightfall.
Small wonder that he burst into a roar of red profanity!
He knew well enough how the mischance had occurred. His spine still
ached from the bucking of Pancho, four hours ago. It must have been
during that series of jarring bucks that the water bag and the bundle
had been loosened and had tumbled unheeded to earth. It was Pancho’s
fault--all Pancho’s fault!
In a gust of wrath, he slashed the mustang across the neck with his
quirt.
Now a horse is almost as quick as a dog to note a change in his
master’s mood. Even before the blow--even before the burst of
swearing--Pancho had become aware of a slackening in his rider’s wonted
grim self-command. He had prepared, in his meanly uncertain mind, to
take advantage of it.
Before the quirt had fairly landed athwart his neck, Pancho had
left ground. This time he did not buck. Straight up in air shot his
forequarters.
There was no warning of the outbreak. Moreover, Fenno had been sitting
carelessly in the saddle; for the horse had been standing still. There
was no scope for guarding against the trick. Scarce did the man’s knees
seek to grip the pony, in anticipation of any plunge the quirt blow
might entail, when Pancho reared.
With the speed of light, the mustang flung his head and shoulders
upward. In practically the same motion he hurled his tense body back;
dashing himself to the ground, with his rider beneath him.
More than once, in former battles, Pancho had attempted this, with
Joel. But, usually a fist-thump between the ears had brought him down
on all fours again before the ruse was complete. Failing to land such
a punch, Fenno had at other times twisted out of the saddle and safely
out of the falling body’s path, before the pony could strike ground.
But, to-day, the outshot fist started its drive an instant too late. It
grazed Pancho’s ear. Joel slipped from the saddle; but again a fraction
of a second too late.
Down crashed the nine-hundred-pound mustang, full on the helplessly
struggling body of his fallen rider; pinning Fenno to earth on an
outcrop of shale rock.
With a snort and a wriggle, Pancho was up on his feet again.
On the trampled ground behind him floundered a writhing and bruised
man, who twisted like a stamped-on snake.
With all his might, Joel Fenno strove to get up. He knew something
of untamable horses’ temper; and he knew what must be in store for
himself, should he fail to regain his feet.
But he could not arise. He did not know why. His legs refused to obey
him. The fall, and the crushing weight that ground his back into the
rock, had wrenched the spine. While his injury was not mortal or even
beyond easy surgical cure, yet it had left his legs temporarily numb
and useless. He was paralyzed.
The mustang celebrated his own release by a thunderous circular
gallop; the circle bringing him again toward the prostrate man. With
lips drawn back from his evil teeth, and with ears flat, the infuriated
pony charged. Here was the longed-for chance to revenge himself on the
enemy who had scourged and roweled him and jerked his lips to ribbons
with the curb chain! The devil that lurked behind the rolling eyes
flamed forth in murder.
With an effort that wellnigh made him faint with agony, Fenno reached
back to his hip for the service revolver he had strapped to his belt
that morning for the killing of Treve.
Then, the agony of his mind made him forget the anguish of his body. In
his tumble, the pistol had bounced from its holster. It was lying some
ten feet away; impotently reflecting from its blue barrel and cylinder
the glint of the noonday sun. For all use the weapon could now be to
its owner, it might as well lie in the next county.
Down at the helpless cripple thundered Pancho.
The mustang’s flashing forefeet were in air above the man; poised for
the tearing beats which should stamp their victim to a jelly. Joel shut
his eyes.
But the murderous hoofs did not reach their goal.
This because a tawny-golden body whizzed through the air, from nowhere
in particular, but with the deadly accuracy of a rifle shot. A pair of
snapping jaws sunk their teeth deep in the mustang’s sensitive nose;
while a sixty-pound furry body whirled itself so sharply to one side
that Pancho’s aim and velocity were deflected.
Down came the hoofs; but waveringly and scramblingly and not within ten
inches of the fallen man. Before they could rear again, the grip on the
nose was changed to a slash along the left side of the mustang’s head.
Under the pain of this, Pancho veered. A second slash veered him still
farther from the crippled Joel.
Probably Treve had no clear idea why he dashed to the rescue of the
man for whom he had no feeling except a vague dislike. While Pancho
and Joel had fought upon more even terms, the dog had looked on
impersonally, entertained by the spectacle, and with no impulse to
interfere. But now that the man was down and helpless, somehow it was
different.
To a dog, all men are gods. That does not mean they are his own
particular gods or that he has any interest in most of them. But they
are of the race which he and his ancestors have served and guarded and
worshiped since the days when the new earth was covered with vapor and
the Neanderthal man tamed the first wolf-cub.
So now, when Joel Fenno lay stricken and defenseless and the mustang
turned on him in murder, the collie played true to ancestral instinct.
Pancho spun about at the dog that had balked his yearning to murder the
man. Apparently the collie must be gotten rid of, before the mustang
could finish the task of killing Fenno, with any peace and absence of
interruption. Wherefore, the pony turned his attention to killing Treve.
But, in less than a handful of seconds, he found he had taken upon
himself a job far too big and too dangerous for his powers. The dog
entered rapturously into the sport. He was everywhere at once and
nowhere at any particular moment.
He was rending the bloody nostrils of the mustang. He was nipping the
mustang’s hocks. He was slashing at the throat; he was tearing at face
and chest and hips, in almost the same instant. With perfect ease, he
eluded the flailing hoofs and the pony’s wide-snapping jaws.
Joel Fenno forgot his own intolerable pain in the fascination of the
combat. But, as suddenly as it began, the fight ended. The mustang had
wit enough to know when he was bested. Bleeding, smarting, confused,
all the lust of battle bitten out of him, he turned tail and fled.
After the first few yards of clamorous barking and heel-teasing, Treve
let him go and trotted back to the groaning Fenno.
Gravely, inquisitively, the collie stood over the man who had brought
him here to shoot him. Down into the tortured face he looked. Joel
returned the sorrowful gaze, with something of terror in his own
leathern visage. He was jolted out of a lifetime’s beliefs and
theories. His thoughts would not assemble themselves.
He tried once more to get to his feet. But his legs were numb. He
sought to wriggle along on his stomach toward the mile-off waterhole.
There he could quench the awful thirst that had begun to grip him.
There, too, he might be found by some passerby, seeking water on the
way across the arid waste.
But the pain of even the slightest motion was more than his iron nerve
could endure. With a groan he gave up the attempt. Supine and panting,
Fenno lay where he had fallen; the great dog standing protectingly
above him.
From time to time Treve would bend down to lick the tortured face or to
whine softly in sympathy. He knew the man was helpless and in pain. But
there was nothing he could do except to interpose his own hot shaggy
body between Fenno’s head and the terrific sun-rays. And even this may
have been done by accident.
Thirst gripped Joel; tenfold more agonizingly than did the pain of his
wrenched back. His mouth was parched and burning. His tongue had begun
to swell. Burying his face--now sweatless and dryly torrid--in his
hands, he lay and prayed for death.
When he looked up again, Treve was gone. An awful sense of loneliness
seized the tormented sufferer. Blithely would he have given his share
of the ranch, in return for the dog’s comforting presence at his side.
More blithely would he have given ten years of life for one drop of
water, to ease the fever and maniac thirst that possessed him.
To few is it given to receive the granting of the only two wishes they
make. But, presently, it was granted to Joel Fenno. He heard a patter
of running feet. Toward him, from the direction of the waterhole, Treve
came bounding. The collie’s massively shaggy coat was adrip with water.
Up to the parched victim he trotted, and lay down beside Fenno’s head.
Greedily Joel dug both fevered hands in the dog’s mattress of soaked
fur, squeezing into his own mouth the drops of grimy water wherewith
the coat was saturated.
Now, Treve had done no miraculous thing; although to Fenno it seemed a
major miracle of brain and devotion. Indeed, the dog had done something
absolutely normal and characteristic. Seeing Joel lie still, with his
face buried in his hands, he had concluded the man was asleep; and thus
was in no immediate need of the collie’s services. Thus, the young dog
had scope to think of his own needs.
For more than five hours, through the scorching heat, Treve had been
running; without so much as a single drink of water to cool his throat.
Collies, more than almost any other dogs, require plenty of drinking
water. Now that he was at leisure to consider his own wants, Treve
realized he was acutely thirsty.
His uncanny sense of smell told him there was water, somewhere ahead.
Off he went to investigate. Finding the waterhole, he drank his fill;
then, collie-like, he wallowed deep in the muddy liquid. Cooled and
with his thirst assuaged, he recalled his duty; and galloped back to
the injured man; lying down in front of him to await orders. That his
soaked coat chanced to contain enough water to soothe the torment of
Joel’s fever-thirst, was mere coincidence.
Twice more, during that terrible afternoon of heat, the dog stole away
to the waterhole to drink and to wallow. Both times he came back
to the sufferer who waited so frantically to wring out into his own
burning mouth the life-saving drops.
Even before the riderless Pancho came cantering home in late afternoon,
Royce Mack had begun to worry. Returning early from Santa Carlotta, he
had found Joel’s note; and had read perplexedly between the lines. At
sight of Pancho, he flung a saddle on another pony and yelled to two of
his men to follow. Then he set off at top speed along the trail toward
the Ova.
Dark had fallen, hours agone, when the bark of a collie came to Mack,
on his plodding ride. Then there was a scurry of padded feet; and Treve
was leaping and barking about Royce’s pony. From a mile to one side
of Mack’s line of march, the night breeze had brought the collie his
master’s scent. He had galloped to intercept him and to guide him to
where a half-delirious old man lay sprawled out on a hot rock.
At sight of the rescuer, Joel Fenno tensed his muscles and forced
his face into its wonted sour grimness. But he could not keep his
delirium-tickled tongue from babbling.
“Say!” he grunted, before Mack could speak. “We’ll keep Treve, if
you’re so set on keepin’ him. Not that he’s reely wuth keepin’--except
maybe sometimes. Let him stay on at Dos Hermanos, if you like.
He’s--he’s only part collie, though. He’s got some of the breedin’
of--of the ravens that fed Elijah. Let him stay with us. I don’t mind,
so long as he don’t eat too much.... Now quit gawpin’ like a fool; and
help get me to a doctor! Why, that collie’s got more sense than what
you’ve got. Besides, he’s--he’s sure one grand water-dog!”