GOOD KING HARRY
So much for the Bonstones--now for my own dear family. We are not as
high up among the hills as they are. My master bought, not a regular
farm like the Bonstones, but what they call a gentleman’s estate.
It has eighty acres of ground, some woodland, some meadow, a big
old-fashioned flower garden, a fine strip of land for vegetables, and a
stately old colonial mansion.
The house is situated on a bit of rising ground overlooking the
Pleasant River Valley--just a tiny, baby valley with a slender thread
of a river picking its way among meadows of the greenest grass I ever
saw.
The house is beautifully, even luxuriously, furnished, but without a
foolish expenditure of money. The drawing-room is a dream. We dogs are
allowed to go in, if we are quite clean, and if we lie down quietly on
the big hearth-rug, and do not romp about and shake ourselves.
Even if a dog does live in the country, there is no need for him to be
careless in his habits. I often tell that to Cannie the Dandie Dinmont
terrier, who fell to our lot in the division of the showman’s dogs.
His coat is dense, hard and wiry, and it is some trouble for him
to keep himself clean. Sometimes he neglects himself a bit between
his washings by Louis, and then I scold him. He is a grey brindle in
colour, and a fine, sensible little chap, but inclined to reminisce too
much about his trials with the showman.
“Look ahead, little dog,” I often say to him, “and not over your
shoulder.”
He never resents my criticism. He is a very docile, courageous and
affectionate dog, and a great favourite with every one here.
Beside Cannie, we have King Harry, the best specimen of a bloodhound I
ever saw. His magnificent domed head, and wrinkled forehead give him
an appearance of great wisdom. His eyes are small and deep-set, with a
third eyelid. His ears are long and fine in “leather,” and hang close
to his kind old cheeks. His muzzle is long, deep and blunt at the tip,
and he has a dewlap in the front of his throat.
[Illustration: KING HARRY, THE BEST SPECIMEN OF A BLOODHOUND I EVER SAW]
Oh! what good talks I have had with this noble dog. He has told me the
whole history of his race. I never knew before that they are called
bloodhounds because they were used first of all to track wounded
animals. They were known in ancient Gaul, and there is distinct mention
of them in England during the reign of Henry the Third. De Soto in his
expedition from Spain to Cuba brought a pack of bloodhounds with him
to subdue the natives. Some of these same hounds were brought to our
Southern States, and now there are plenty of them there, and they are
known as “man trailers.”
So the present American bloodhound is a descendant of the old Spanish
kind. King Harry is of English stock. He says his grandmother, old Lady
Gray, had the longest list of cases to her credit of any dog in America.
When I asked him, one day after we first came here, what he meant by
that, he said that she had captured thirty criminals--men and women who
had burnt houses or killed some one.
“How would she do it?” I asked him.
He said he had asked his grandmother many times to tell him about the
way she was trained, and she said that she was one of a litter of five
puppies. Now her owner wished to know which of the puppies had the best
nose, so he used to approach the tightly boarded side of their yard on
tiptoe, and put his eye at a knot-hole.
“Oh! I see,” I exclaimed, “that was to find out which pup discovered
him first.”
“Yes,” replied King Harry. “My grandmother was always the first to wind
him, so he gave her special training. When she was four months old, he
taught her to lead quietly, neither pressing forward, nor holding back
on the chain. Next, she was taught to follow, and to come at a whistle.”
“All this was for obedience, I suppose,” I remarked.
“Yes, and to form her character,” said King Harry. “Next she had to
learn to jump in and out of a buggy--there were no automobiles then--to
climb fences, to swim creeks, to get accustomed to the noise of a town,
and to become used to strangers, but never familiar with them. She was
not allowed to play with children, nor with other dogs--just with
her owner, Tim Dobson.
“When she was eight months old, Dobson took her to the woods. A
stranger held her by the collar, and Dobson started off with an old
towel in his hand. He kept shaking it at my grandmother, who strained
at her collar, and was finally released by this assistant.”
“Why the towel?” I asked.
“To make her anxious to play with it, and to reach her master. This was
the overtaking lesson, and it was repeated several times, then came the
lesson in trailing. Dobson hid behind a tree, and when he was out of
sight, the assistant released grandmother. As soon as she reached the
place where she last saw Dobson, she dropped her nose to the ground.
She never had much trouble in owning a trail----”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Recognising the scent of the person she was following--she had a
grand nose, and Dobson used to keep bits of meat in his pocket to
reward her for quick work. She was taught to bark on trail, and bay at
hiding-places. Then when she was well educated along this line, Dobson
changed places with his assistant.”
“You mean Dobson ran with your grandmother, and together they trailed
the assistant.”
“Yes. Dobson kept changing his assistant, so she wouldn’t get familiar
with him. He would make him strip off his coat, and run. Then
grandmother would smell his coat, the older the coat the higher the
smell, and Dobson would run with her, and encourage her to trail him.
The assistant used to have other men cross his trail, he would wade in
creeks, and walk along fences, but grandmother nearly always got him,
even when she had to work out a cold scent.”
“I would like to have seen that fine Lady Gray,” I said
enthusiastically.
“I am said to look exactly like her,” said King Harry with a melancholy
smile, “but alas! I was stolen when a puppy, and I can do only amateur
work at trailing. However, if you just want to see my grandmother, look
at me.”
I smiled, and he went on. “Next thing came the taking up of a trail
with which grandmother was unacquainted. Dobson had the man who was to
be trailed go to an old stable with an earth floor. He would walk about
a few minutes, throw down his hat, and leave the place. In ten minutes,
Dobson would take grandmother there, keeping every one else out, let
her smell the hat, then hunt up the owner.”
“How interesting all this is,” I exclaimed. “I had no idea such pains
was taken with the training of bloodhound puppies. I thought the
trailing gift came by instinct.”
“Everything that’s worth anything costs trouble,” said King Harry.
“Grandmother said as soon as she learned how to take a trail freely and
eagerly, she was entered to horse and man trailing.”
“How do they do that?” I enquired.
“The assistant led the horse thirty yards, being right out in front of
him, so the horse would be on his trail, then he mounted, rode thirty
feet, dismounted, led the horse fifty feet, mounted, rode one hundred
feet, dismounted and led.”
“Well,” I said, “no wonder your grandmother became so clever.”
“Clever,” repeated King Harry, “she was a marvel. She once followed a
trail that was thirty hours cold.”
“Whose trail was that?”
“A poor, crazy, coloured woman. She had set fire to her house, tried
to kill her husband, and then ran like a fox to a swamp. Grandmother
followed her from seven o’clock one evening till two the next morning,
and the poor creature was found more dead than alive, and put in a
hospital where she subsequently recovered.”
“I have heard that bloodhounds are very fierce in disposition, but I
don’t find you so,” I said.
“Some of them used to be made so,” said King Harry, “but they are
really just like other dogs. Treat them kindly, and they will treat you
kindly, and a bloodhound can be trained not to lay hold of a fugitive.”
“I say, King Harry,” I remarked, “dogs are wonderful creatures. It’s a
pity men don’t understand better how to utilise them.”
“What gets me most of all,” said the dog in his melancholy voice, “is
the unappreciated devotion of dogs. I heard your master telling the
other day of a friend of his who was in Belgium during the late war.
He said that no human beings were more faithful than dogs; that the
red-cross animals were simply magnificent, and even the poor house-dogs
who were left in the Belgian villages, when their owners fled for
their lives, were so devoted that they sat by their kennels till they
dropped dead. Even when food was offered them, they turned their heads
away. The poor starving brutes thought it was right for them to stay by
their ruined homes, and not to take food from strangers.”
“Don’t talk about that war,” I cried, “don’t talk about that awful
war--I’m trying to forget it. Come on down to the village. There’s to
be a feast in Neighbourhood Hall.”
Good King Harry pricked his drooping ears, and ran along with me. This
Neighbourhood Hall was one of the grandest institutions I ever heard
of, but I will tell of it later on, for I want to give an account now
of something King Harry did to help along the work master and Mr.
Bonstone were engaged in.