When Treve saved Chris Hibben from a peculiarly hideous death under the
hoofs of Chris’s own Triple Bar steers, he did more to patch up a truce
between the Dos Hermanos and the Triple Bar outfits than could a score
of peace conferences.
From the beginning, throughout the West, sheepmen and cattlemen have
been mortal enemies. Seldom has this eternal feud blazed hotter than
between Chris Hibben’s cattle ranch and the nearby Dos Hermanos sheep
ranch of Joel Fenno and Royce Mack.
Ever there had been a grim understanding that a sheep or sheepdog
straying over the line into the Triple Bar range was a sheep or
sheepdog killed. More than once this understanding had been justified.
Then, too, a year before, a bunch of six yearling beef cattle had
strayed through a fence gap and down the coulée into Number Six camp of
the Dos Hermanos. There all trace of them was wiped out;--except that
Toni and the other Dos Hermanos herdsmen varied their dreary fare of
tinned goods and tough mutton by a prolonged fresh-beef debauch.
Then had come the day when Treve unwittingly played the rôle of Dove
of Peace by turning a cattle stampede and saving the dismounted Hibben
from being trampled into the next world. After which Chris gave terse
command to his cowboys that the pesky Dos Hermanos sheep could come
along and chew the barbs off the wire of the Triple Bar home corral if
they chose to; and if need be they were to be escorted back in safety
and in cotton wool.
Nor did Hibben stop there. From that one briefly terrific moment of
the turned stampede, he had seen what a collie could accomplish with
cattle. He saw more. He saw that two or three well-trained collies
could do the work of a dozen cowboys. Yes, and they could and would do
it on board wages and without threats of going on strike or complaints
about the grub. Nor would they vanish on pay-day and show up a week
later with delirium tremens. It would be a tremendous saving. Anyhow,
the experiment was worth trying.
It was not Hibben’s custom to do anything rashly. Thus he planned to
begin in a small way; by the purchase of a single collie. If that first
dog should do the work satisfactorily it would be time to buy more.
With this in view he surprised the Dos Hermanos partners, one evening,
by riding across to their ranch-house. Mack and Fenno were sitting on
the handkerchief-sized porch, smoking a before-bedtime pipe. At Royce’s
feet lay Treve.
On sound of Hibben’s approach, the big collie was awake and alert. Down
the path he dashed, to meet, and if need be stop, the intruder. Then,
recognizing the man he had rescued, the collie drew aside and let Chris
proceed up the path to the porch.
“Evening,” said Hibben, stiffly uncertain of his welcome.
“Evening,” replied Mack, with cold civility, while old Joel Fenno sat
still and scowled mute query.
“Have you eaten?” went on Royce, in the time-honored local phrase of
hospitality.
“Yep,” said Chris; adding: “Not cawed mutton, neither.”
He caught himself up, belatedly recalling that he was at peace with
these sheepmen; and he hurried on to ask:
“Will you boys set a price on that collie of yours? Nope, I’m not
joshing. I don’t know how such critters run in price. But I’ve got a
couple of hundred dollars in my jeans, here, that I’ll swap for him.”
“Treve’s not for sale,” was Royce Mack’s curt retort. “We told you
that, the day he kept your steers out of your hair. He--”
“Hold on!” purred Joel, smitten with one of his rare and beautiful
ideas. “Hold on, Friend Hibben. Trevy ain’t for sale. Just like
my partner says. Not that he’s wuth any man’s money--not even a
cattleman’s. But we’ve got kind of used to his wuthless ways and we aim
to keep him. But if you’re honin’ for a collie, I c’n tell you where to
get one. Always s’posin’ you’re willin’ to pay fair for a high-grade
article. I c’n give you the _ad_dress of the feller who used to own
Treve.”
“That’s good enough for me,” returned Chris. “The feller that bred this
dog of yours sure knew how to breed the best. I’ll hand him that much.
And it’s the best I want. Who is he and where does he hang out?”
“Wait,” said Fenno, with amazing politeness, as he heaved his rheumatic
frame up from his chair and pottered away into the house. “I’ve got his
_ad_dress in here. I’ll write it down for you.”
With as near an approach to a grin as his surly leathern mask could
achieve he made his way to his own cubbyhole room. There he dug out the
battered gray catalog of the Dos Hermanos dogshow to which he had taken
Treve. Riffling its pages, he came to the list of exhibitors’ names at
the back. One of these he jotted down with a pencil stump on a dirty
envelope and returned with it to the porch.
The name he had found and scribbled was “Fraser Colt.” After it he had
copied the man’s address, from the catalog.
It seemed to Joel the acme of refined humor to steer this once-hostile
cowpuncher up against the man of all others who seemed most likely
to cheat him. Judging from his own experience with Colt, he felt
reasonably certain the dog-breeder could be relied on to whipsaw any
trusting customer; especially when that customer was so far distant as
to make it necessary to buy, sight unseen.
Royce Mack gave a low whistle of amaze as Fenno showed the name and
address to him, on the way across the porch to hand it to Hibben. Then
Mack choked back a half-born expostulation. He remembered the loss of
sheep after sheep at the hands of the Triple Bar outfit. He saw no
reason to spoil his partner’s joke.
A week later, in response to a letter of inquiry, Chris received
word from Fraser Colt that the latter had no full-grown and trained
cattle-herding collies in stock, just then; but that he had an
unusually promising thoroughbred female collie puppy which could
readily be taught to work cattle, since both her parents had been
natural cattle workers.
As Mr. Fraser Colt was closing out his kennels and moving East, Mr.
C. Hibben was at liberty to avail himself of this really remarkable
chance for a bargain, by purchasing the puppy in question (“Cirenhaven
Nellie”) at the ridiculously low price of seventy-five dollars; payable
in advance. If this generous proposition interested Mr. C. Hibben,
would Mr. C. Hibben kindly forward his check (certified) for the above
sum; along with shipping directions? If, on the contrary, Mr. C. Hibben
was a mere “shopper” or was inclined to haggle, this letter required no
answer.
Now Chris Hibben could no more have been cheated or overcharged on
a consignment of beef cattle than could a bank cashier be hoaxed by
a leaden half-dollar. But, on the subject of dogs he was woefully
ignorant. Moreover, there was a curtly self-assured and businesslike
tang to the letter, which impressed him. Besides, hadn’t the Dos
Hermanos outfit a wonder-dog, acquired from the same man? Surely it was
worth the gamble.
Chris sent the certified check, as soon as he could get it from the
Santa Carlotta bank.
A week later arrived a matchwood crate, containing the collie pup.
Hibben himself motored across to Santa Carlotta to bring home his
purchase. His homeward road led past the Dos Hermanos ranch. He saw the
two partners washing up, on the steps, preparatory to supper. Beside
them stood Treve; mildly tired and more than mildly hungry after a long
day on the range.
Chris turned in at the gate and hailed Fenno and Mack, pointing with
pride to the crate.
“Oh, you got her, hey?” said Joel, with much interest. “I’ll come out
and have a look at the pup. Fraser Colt sure knows a collie. Pretty
near as intimate as a vivisector is due to know the smell of brimstone.
This dog will be a treat to see.”
“I’ll save you the trouble of comin’ out here,” called back Hibben,
lifting the crate and its light burden out of the truck. “I’ll fetch
her up there, onto your stoop. I haven’t even had a chance to look at
her yet. We’ll have an inspection bee. I want your opinion of her.”
As he talked, he was carrying the crate along the path. Joel astounded
Royce Mack by going out to meet him and by carrying one end of the box
up the steps. Joel was not wont to lend an unasked hand.
On the porch floor the crate was set. Hibben undid its crazy catch and
opened its door.
Slowly, uncertainly, a half-grown collie pup stepped out and stood
before them.
Hibben nodded appreciatively. He was no dog judge. But he could see
that this was a really handsome puppy. Her coat was dense and long.
It was a rich mahogany in hue; save for the snowy chest and paws
and tailtip. An expert might have found the pretty head too broad
and the ears too large and low for show-purposes or even for a show
brood-matron’s career. But the newcomer was decidedly good-looking. She
seemed not only intelligent but strong.
Joel puckered his forehead. The unaccustomed smirk fled from his
leathern face. The joke was turning out to be no joke at all. This
strikingly handsome youngster appeared to be well worth seventy-five
dollars.
Mack was loud in his praise. But, like Fenno, he could not reconcile
the pup’s excellent value with his own theories of Colt.
“Yep,” pursued Hibben, “that’s Cirenhaven Nellie. A beauty, ain’t she?
I’m sure your debtor for sickin’ me onto that Colt chap. I wish now I’d
ordered a couple more of ’em.”
Treve had watched with keen interest the opening of the crate. Now he
came forward eagerly and touched noses with the bewildered pup. His
plumed tail was wagging in friendly welcome.
“He won’t bite Nellie, will he?” asked Hibben, a trifle anxiously.
“No,” answered Royce Mack. “Man is about the only animal that mistreats
the female of his race. Treve’s making friends with her. See, Joel?
He’s making more friends with her than ever he’s made with any of the
range collies. He acts like he knew she was helpless and that he had to
protect her. He--”
Mack broke off in his lecture. The new puppy had begun to move about,
on the porch, with a queer wariness. Now, coming to its edge, she did
not observe that there was a two-foot drop to the yard below; and she
was stepping out into space when a quick intervention of Treve’s shaggy
shoulder turned her back to confused safety.
“Hold on!” exclaimed Joel, suddenly. “I knew there was a catch in it,
somewheres. An’ her eyes have a funny look, too! Watch me.”
He struck a match and held it scarcely an inch from the puppy’s wide
eyes; twitching the flame back and forth in the windless air, so close
to her unflinching pupils that the lashes were all but singed. Nellie
did not so much as blink.
“Blind!” diagnosed Joel, with grim satisfaction. “Stone blind. I knew
there was suthin’ queer. There was bound to be. Been blind always, most
likely, if she’s only six months old. Hibben, you’re stung all the way
acrost the board. Your Cirenhaven Nellie couldn’t ever be learned to
herd anything--without it was the three blind mice the feller writ the
song about. You’re seventy-five dollars in the hole!”
The poor blind pup seemed to sense the ridicule in his tone. She shrank
back a little in her groping approach toward the speaker. Instantly,
Treve licked her face reassuringly, as though he were comforting a
scared child. The big dog had known instinctively that this newcomer
was afflicted and unable to look after herself. And his great heart had
gone out to her in loving protectiveness.
Now, before Joel had fairly stopped speaking, the sensitive Nellie
shrank even more appealingly against Treve’s shaggy side. For Chris
Hibben was waking the echoes with a salvo of profanity that shook the
house. Fenno listened with real interest to the outburst. He had the
air of one who is acquiring many new and valuable words. As Chris
paused for breath, Joel said sanctimoniously to Treve:
“Best run indoors, Trevy. You’re learnin’ language that won’t do you no
reel good. You’ve been brought up by a couple of God-fearin’ sheep men.
This blasphemious cattle talk is new to you. Best run away till he--”
A sharp gesture from Hibben interrupted him. The cattleman whipped out
his heavy pistol and leveled it at the hapless little female collie as
she crouched shivering and frightened before him.
Nellie had had bruisingly terrible experience with Fraser Colt’s brutal
rages. To her, the sound of an angry voice meant a fast-ensuing kick--a
kick her blind eyes could not tell her how to avoid.
Treve, too, understood Chris Hibben’s volley of fury; and he understood
the deadly gesture which was its climax. In an instant he was ready for
what might follow.
“Stand clear!” bawled Hibben, dropping his pistol muzzle to cover the
quivering Nellie’s head. “You boys tolled me into gettin’ this cur. Now
you boys c’n have the job of buryin’ her an’ of mopping up your stoop.
Stand clear, I said! And haul Treve out of the way; unless you want me
to drill him, too.”
For the tawny gold collie had stepped quietly between Chris and the
puppy. Steadfastly, his mighty body guarding the cowed little Nellie,
he was gazing at the furious cattleman.
Hibben took a stride nearer his victim. With his free hand and one
booted foot, he thrust Treve sharply from between him and Nellie;
leveling the pistol afresh as he did so.
Now, it was not on the free list to lay menacing hands upon Treve; to
say nothing of booting him. The thing had never before been done. Added
to his natural resentment was his keen urge to save Nellie from the
fate he fore-read in Hibben’s glance and in the leveled pistol. Once
before had he seen the man fire that pistol; and he had seen a Dos
Hermanos sheep fall dead from its bullet.
Before Chris could shoot, a furry thunderbolt launched itself on him;
lethal as a flung spear; silent with concentrated wrath.
Under that fierce impact the unprepared Hibben reeled back; his finger
spasmodically pressing the trigger as he threw both arms up to shield
his menaced throat.
The bullet rent a splintering hole in the porch roof. The marksman, in
his staggering retreat, slipped off the edge of the top step and bumped
backward to earth; with a thud that knocked the breath out of him.
Scarce had his lean shoulders touched ground when Treve was on him;
ravening for his throat.
Mack watched, dumbfounded. Joel, quicker-witted, yelled to the dog.
Reluctantly, Treve quitted his prey; and in a bound was back at
Joel’s side; while Royce Mack with profuse apologies was helping the
sputteringly infuriated Hibben to his feet.
Joel surreptitiously picked up the fallen pistol from the floor and
pocketed it. Then he turned to look at Treve, who had left his side and
had moved across to Nellie.
The puppy, frightened out of all self-control, had bolted. Her
blundering rush had brought her up against the house door with a force
that knocked her down. Now, shaking all over and moaning softly, she
crouched with her head hidden in the angle of porch and door.
Above her stood Treve; his eyes fixed on Hibben in cold menace. The big
dog knew well that it was not permissible to attack a human; least of
all a human who was the guest of his two masters. Perhaps swift death
might be the punishment for his deed. But he did not falter.
His body shielding the wretched puppy, he stood there, tensely ready
for Hibben’s next assault. Joel Fenno read the dog’s purpose and his
thoughts; as he might have read those of a fellowman. The collie was
playing with possible death, to guard something that could not defend
itself. Fenno’s gnarled old heart gave a queer twist.
“Trevy!” he breathed, under cover of Hibben’s loudly truculent return
to the porch.
At sound of Joel’s voice, Treve shifted his stern gaze from Chris to
the old man. And in the collie’s sorrowful dark eyes, now, was an agony
of appeal. So might the eyes of a mother be raised to the doctor who
alone could save her sick child.
Joel Fenno’s thin lips set tightly. His old eyes were slits. He was
about to do the foolishest thing of his career. The saner half of him
told him so and reviled him scathingly for it. But sanity went by the
board, in face of that awful pleading in his belovèd dog’s eyes.
“Hold on, friend!” he interposed, as the cursing Hibben peered
murderously about the floor for his lost pistol. “You’ll stop temptin’
Providence to swat this shack with lightin’, as a punishment for that
string of hellfire words you’re bellerin’; and you’ll listen to me.
You paid seventy-five dollars for this poor sick puppy you’re tryin’
to kill. Well, I’m buyin’ her off’n you, for seventy-five dollars.
Get that? _I’m buyin’ her!_ Now shut up an’ stand quiet-like, while I
traipse indoors and git the cash for you.... I’m doin’ this out’n my
own pocket!” he snarled at the thunderstruck Royce. “Not out of the
partnership funds. Josh me all you like. I don’t care a hoot for your
blattin’. I’ve--I’ve took a sort of fancy to the pup.”
Five minutes later Hibben was driving away; grumbling but appeased.
Joel, awkward and shamefaced, was guiding Nellie’s questing nose to
a saucer of bread and milk. Royce Mack was looking on, bereft of
speech and incredulous. Treve, too, was looking on; a glint of utter
contentment in his deepset eyes. Joel addressed his blank-faced
partner, glumly:
“Now I s’pose you’ll be makin’ my life rotten by hect’rin’ me ’bout
this! Well, I done it to show you there c’n be another dog on this
ranch as wuthless as your mis’ble Treve. At that, I doubt if she’s as
wuthless as what he is. She ain’t lived so long on the same ranch with
_you_.”
Followed the first peaceful, not to say beautifully happy, time that
Nellie had ever known. From the moment Fraser Colt had discovered her
blindness--and thus her absolute uselessness--she had been kicked and
maltreated and made to feel that her only use in life was to serve as a
vent for her breeder’s ill-temper.
Colt had continued to feed and lodge her, only in the well-founded
hope of cheating some one into buying her. He and his kennels had
been permanently disqualified by the American Kennel Club for crooked
dealings. So, as he was forced to go out of the dog business, anyway,
he had no fear of reprisal, in selling the blind puppy to some novice.
Under decent treatment now, Nellie’s brain and spirits bloomed forth.
Swift to learn and coming from a breed that has more than normal
intelligence, her progress was amazing. Ever beside her, to fend off
trouble and to show her the way, was Treve. With unfailing patience
Treve watched over her and trained her. Joel looked on with secret
admiration and patiently contributed his own quota to the wise training.
Nellie could never hope to see. But, with almost miraculous intuition
she learned to find her way about. A collie’s ears and nose are more to
him than are his eyes. Nellie’s absence of sight intensified tenfold
her power of scent and of hearing.
She could track either of the partners for miles, nose to earth; nearly
always forewarned in some occult manner to avoid obstacles in her path.
She was even, in a small way, of help to Treve in rounding up sheep.
And ever that strange instinct--a sort of sixth sense--developed more
and more, as her brain and experience developed.
Around the house she was the sweetest and most loving of pets; though
her real adoration and slavish worship were lavished on Treve alone.
She was his shadow. And to her he accorded a tender friendliness which
he had refrained haughtily from bestowing on the splay-footed little
black range collies.
It was nearly six months after the coming of Nellie that the blizzard
struck the Dos Hermanos region.
In that southerly and semi-arid stretch, snow was a rarity. Heavy snows
were practically unknown in the lowlands. Storms, which whitened the
Dos Hermanos peaks and slopes, fell usually as rain in the valley. But
now, in mid-February, came a genuine blizzard.
It caught the ranch totally by surprise. The various bunches of sheep
were grazing wide; as usual at that rain-flecked time of year. Out
of a softly blue sky came a softer grayish haze. Two hours later the
blizzard was roaring in full spectacular fury.
Every man and every dog was pressed into service. Floundering knee-deep
through drifts, the partners and their herdsmen and Sing Lee, the new
Chinese cook, sought puffingly to drive the scattered and snow-whipped
sheep to places of shelter.
The dogs, half-submerged in the floury snow, staggered and fought their
way in the teeth of the blast and the stabbing cold. Their pads were
tight-packed with painful snow-lumps. There was no time to stop and
gnaw these torments out. The dogs drove on, limping, unresting.
It was a madly busy three or four hours. Men and dogs alike were
blinded by the whirling tons of snow. There was no such thing as
following a scent, with any accuracy, through that smother. Nor could a
voice be heard, fifty feet away, in the screech of the gale.
Spent, dizzy, numb, the partners came back at last to their snow-piled
home. The storm had ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Already a
watery sunshine was beginning to glisten on the ocean of snow that
spread everywhere.
“All safe except the bunch on Six Range,” reported Royce breathlessly
as he and Fenno met, near the gate. “It was touch-and-go, with the
whole lot. But those got tangled up somehow in the blizzard and bolted.
Treve and I worked for two hours to find them. But it was no good.
They’ve stampeded over the rock wall of the coulée or else over the
cliff into the river. Either way, they’re goners. In a storm like that
they--”
He stopped short. The dazzling white snow around the house was darkened
by a shifting and huddling mass of dirty gray. The partners squinted
their snow-blurred eyes to see what the phenomenon might mean.
There, encircling the house and pressing against it for warmth in a
world of pitiless cold, swarmed something like three hundred sheep.
On the porch--worn out and panting, her pink tongue lolling--slumped
Cirenhaven Nellie.
Nellie had followed Treve, as ever, into the welter of blizzard, in
pursuit of the stampeded Number Six flock. Presently she had caught the
scent on her own account; and had held it. When Treve had been lured
aside in quest of a handful of strays that had turned back from the
main stampede, Nellie had plodded heavily on.
The scent of the main body of sheep had by this time become too badly
obliterated by snow-swirl and cross-winds, for even Treve to pick it
up. He could not scent Nellie’s own tracks through that hurricane of
whizzing snow which blotted out each footstep as fast as it was made.
But to Nellie the elusive scent was still strong enough for her
preternaturally keen nose to follow it more or less correctly. When
this was at times impossible, her uncanny instinct--the instinct of the
trained blind--carried her on. Slowly, wearily, yet unfaltering, she
kept up the quest.
She came staggeringly upon the sheep, at last, as they wavered on
the precipice edge of the coulée--as they waited for some leader to
be insane enough to fling himself over the brink; so that they might
follow. Nellie ran nimbly along the slippery cliff-edge; forcing them
back with bark and nip; just as one panicky wether was gathering
himself for the downward leap.
Back she drove them, huddled and bleating and milling; rounding up the
exhausted beasts and heading them away from the coulée. She had no
faintest idea where they belonged; or whither to guide them. All she
knew was that she was sick and suffering and that she stood in dire
need of getting home. Her Hour was close upon her. So homeward she
drove the flock; unaware that she had achieved a bit of tracking that
no normal-eyed sheepdog could have hoped to copy.
Next morning, Chris Hibben started for Santa Carlotta, to direct the
unloading of freight for the Triple Bar. The snow was too deep for a
car to get through it. So Hibben rode his strongest cow-pony;--a pony
that made heavy enough going of it through the drifts. As Chris neared
the Dos Hermanos ranch house, a man came running out of the kitchen and
hailed him excitedly.
The man was Joel Fenno. Never before had Hibben seen the old chap
excited. Fearing something might be amiss in the house, the rider
dismounted, tossed the bridle over his pony’s head and waded up the
walk.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, as he came face to face with Joel.
“Nuthin’s wrong,” Fenno assured him, his mouth twisted in an effort to
grin. “Ev’rything’s grand--and ‘ev’rything’ incloods a bunch of three
hundred sheep that Nellie yanked out’n the blizzard yest’d’y, for us.
That dog sure paid her board yest’d’y. She--”
“Say!” interposed Chris, none too graciously. “Did you stop me, when I
was in a hurry, just to tell me Nellie had been wastin’ her time by
roundin’ up a lot of mangy sheep? I’m gladder’n ever that I sold her
to you, if that’s all she’s fit for. Now if it’d been a bunch of good
cattle--”
“She’s fit for suthin’ else,” returned Fenno. “That wa’n’t why I
high-signed you. I wanted to show you the suthin’ else she’s fit for.
C’m’on in.”
He led the way into the kitchen. There, behind the stove, was a
big box, half full of soft rags. In the box lay Cirenhaven Nellie,
reclining comfortably on her side. At sound of Joel’s step her tail
gave a lazy wag or two, by way of welcome. But at sound and scent of
the stranger behind him, her tail ceased to wave, and her lip curled in
menace. For Nellie was on guard again.
This time she was not guarding silly sheep. She was guarding eight
squirming gray-brown atoms, that nuzzled close against her furry body.
The baby collies were no larger than plump rats. But the way they
wriggled and drank proved them none the worse for their mother’s
gallant exploits of the preceding day.
At a gentle word from Royce Mack, the collie mother dropped her tired
head back on the bed of rags and suffered the outsider to draw near and
gaze. Hibben stood looking curiously at the snuggling family in the
box. Treve crossed the kitchen and stood beside Mack, his head on one
side, gazing down at his babies. It was Joel who broke the silence.
“Eight of ’em!” he proclaimed. “An’ they take after their ma. For
ev’ry one of ’em is as blind as a cowman’s int’llects. But in another
nine days the hull eight of ’em is due to git their eyes wide open.
That’s when they’ll commence to take after their pa an’ be a credit to
a sheep ranch. How many of ’em d’you want us to save out for you--at
seventy-five dollars per?”