furnishing process would continue to improve his physique till after the
end of his second year; but he had definitely laid aside puppyhood in
his eighteenth month and had a truly commanding presence. He was three
inches lower at the shoulder than his sire--the tallest hound in
England--yet looked as big a dog because built on slightly heavier
lines. He had the wolfhound's fleetness, but with it much of the massy
solidity of the bloodhound. His chest was immensely deep, his fore legs,
haunches, and thighs enormously powerful. And the wrinkled massiveness
of his head, like the breadth of his black saddle, gave him the
appearance of great size, strength, and weight.
As a fact he scaled one hundred and sixty-four pounds on his second
birthday, and that was eight pounds heavier than his sire; a notable
thing in view of the fact that he was in no way gross and carried no
soft fat, thanks to the many miles of downland he covered every day of
his life in hunting with Finn and walking with Betty Murdoch.
Taking him for all in all, Jan was probably as finely conditioned and
developed a hound as any in England when he reached his second birthday,
and it is hardly likely that a stronger hound could have been found in
all the world. It may be that for hardness and toughness and endurance
he might have found his master without much difficulty; for hardship
begets hardihood, and Jan had known no hardship as yet. But at the end
of his second year he was a very splendid specimen of complete canine
development, and, by reason of his breeding, easily to be distinguished
from all other hounds.
And then, two months after that second birthday, Dick Vaughan came home
on short furlough, a privilege which, as Captain Will Arnutt wrote to
Dr. Vaughan, he had very thoroughly earned.
XIX
DISCIPLINE
Dick Vaughan's home-coming was something of an event for the district,
as well as for Dr. Vaughan and the Upcroft household, and for Betty
Murdoch and the Nuthill folk. He was a totally different person from the
careless, casual, rather reckless Dick Vaughan who had left for Canada
eighteen months before. Every one had liked the old Dick Vaughan who had
disappeared; yet nobody now regretted the apparently final loss of him,
and all were agreed in admiring the new Dick with more or less
enthusiasm.
Already he had won promotion in the fine corps to which he belonged, and
his scarlet uniform coat had a stripe on one sleeve. But this was a
small matter--though Dr. Vaughan was prouder of it than of any of his
own long list of learned degrees and other honors--by comparison with
the other and unofficial promotion Dick had won in the scale of manhood.
No uniform was needed to indicate this. One became aware of it the
moment one set eyes upon him. It showed itself in the firm lines of his
thin, tanned face, in the carriage of his shoulders, the swing of his
walk, the direct, steady gaze of his eyes, and the firm, assured tone of
his voice.
Always a sportsman and a good fellow, Dick Vaughan was now a full man, a
man handled and made; a strong, disciplined man, decently modest, but
perfectly conscious of his strength, and easily able to control other
men. This was what Canada and membership of the Royal North-west Mounted
Police had done for Dick Vaughan in a short eighteen months.
For young and healthy men there is perhaps no other country which has
more to give than Canada in the shape of discipline; of that kind of
mental, moral, and physical tonic which makes for swift, sure
character-development, and the stiffening and bracing of the human
fibers. In English life there has been of late years a rather serious
scarcity of this tonic influence. Canada is very rich in her supply of
it; but the tonic is too potent for the use of weaklings.
Then, too, there were the R.N.W.M.P. influences, representing a
concentrated distillation of the same tonic. The traditions of this fine
force form a great power for the shaping and making of men. First, they
have a strongly testing and selective influence. They winnow out the
weeds among those who come under their influence with quite
extraordinary celerity and thoroughness. Those who come through the
selective process satisfactorily may be relied upon as surely as the
grain-buyer may rely on the grade of wheat which comes through its tests
as "No. 1, hard." The trooper who comes honorably out of his first year
in the R.N.W.M.P. is quite certainly "No. 1, hard," as much to be relied
upon as any other single product of the prairies.
"It is not only that the man in any way weak is quite unable to stand
the steady test of R.N.W.M.P. life. Apart from that, no blatherskite can
endure it; no vain boaster, no aggressive bully, no slacker, and no
humbug of any kind can possibly keep his end up in the force." So wrote
a widely experienced and keen-witted "old-timer," in 1908, and he was
perfectly right.
For example, the R.N.W.M.P. man who made an unnecessary use or display
of weapons, by way of enforcing his authority, would be laughed and
ridiculed out of the force. The thing has been done, and will be done
again, if necessary. Aided only by the weight of the fine traditions
belonging to his uniform, the R.N.W.M.P. man is expected to be capable,
without any fuss at all, of arresting a couple of notorious toughs, and,
with his naked hands, of taking them away with him from among the
roughest sort of crowd of their associates.
And in the R.N.W.M.P., if a man does not show himself consistently
capable of doing that which the traditions of the force say is to be
expected of him, his place in the force will know him no more. There are
no failures in the R.N.W.M.P.--they are not allowed. The force could not
afford to allow them, because their existence--the existence of any of
them--would weaken R.N.W.M.P. prestige; and that prestige is the armor
without which the work of the force would be utterly impossible; not
merely for the average trooper, but even for an individual possessed of
the combined genius of a Napoleon, a Sherlock Holmes, and an Admirable
Crichton.
As things stand, the maintenance of law and order in the western and
north-western prairies, with their vast, trackless stretches of as yet
almost uninhabited territory, is fully equal to the level attained in
London or New York. The law is quite as much respected there;
infractions of it are quite as surely punished; peace and security are
to the full as well preserved. This truth is speedily understood even by
the least desirable brand of foreign immigrant. The fugitive from
justice reckons his chances considerably better in any other place than
the territory of the Riders of the Plains. And all this because of a
handful of mounted men in red coats.
"The fact is," said a Minnesota farmer to the present writer, "it don't
matter a cent what sort of a pull a man has, how many guns he carries,
or how many dollars are behind him; if he breaks the law up there in the
North-west, he knows he's just got to be jailed for it, sure as he's
alive. It may take a day, or it may take a year. It may cost the
authorities a dollar, or it may cost 'em a million, and a life or two
thrown in. But that tough is just going to be jailed, and he durned well
knows it. That's what the R.N.W.M.P. means to the North-west; and you
take it from me, it's a pretty big thing to mean."
It is a big thing. And what makes it possible for that handful of
redcoats is not money, or guns, or numbers, but a solid, four-square
foundation of irreproachable prestige; an unspotted tradition of
incorruptible honesty, tirelessness, braveness, fairness, and real
_decency_. This is the reason why no failures are allowed in the
R.N.W.M.P.; this is the reason why eighteen months of service in that
corps, of a sort that earns promotion, means so much for the man who
accomplishes it. It demands a great deal of him. It gives him an
indisputable title to complete manhood.
* * * * *
Though the point was often discussed, it never was made quite clear who
first suggested that Jan should accompany Dick Vaughan when, after three
short weeks at home, he set out again for the West. The Master privately
believed the first suggestion came from him. Dick was sure he had begun
by begging for the privilege. Betty cherished the idea that her gift was
unsought and quite spontaneous. At all events, once the thing was
decided, nobody concerned doubted for a moment the fitness of it.
Betty's own arrangements may have had something to do with it. For the
Master and the Mistress had set their hearts upon Betty having a season
in London and a month or two on the Continent, in part with her Nuthill
friends, and, for a portion of the time, with another relative. This
made the prospect of parting for a time with Jan a good deal easier.
Then, again, Dick Vaughan had certainly "said a word" to Betty now. He
had, indeed, said a good deal to her. And there was one little
affirmative word she had given him which he held more preciously
significant than all the rest of the world's oratory put together. It
was Dick Vaughan's own suggestion that he should serve a further
probationary term. It was his own idea that he should earn the Master's
blessing by winning sergeant's rank in the R.N.W.M.P.; and that not till
then should he allow his father to set him up in England. His decision
in this delighted Dr. Vaughan and confirmed the Master in his faith. It
meant a further term of absence, but Betty Murdoch was sensible enough
to be proud of the pride behind Dick's plan; and thus all were agreed.
Jan's opinion in the matter could hardly be ascertained; but no one who
had ever seen Dick and Betty on the Downs with Jan and Finn, and noted
the wonderful responsiveness of the young hound to Dick's control, would
have entertained any doubt about this. Dick's mastery of animals had
always been remarkable; his hold upon their affections had been one of
the most striking characteristics of his life. And in this, as in other
matters, his experiences in the West had taught him a good deal.
At home in Sussex, and even as a youngster, it had been recognized that
Dick Vaughan could get rather more out of an average horse than any one
else in the district. On the prairies he had so far developed this gift
of his that his charger would lie down on the ground at a word from him,
and remain lying, as though dead, without ever injuring or displacing
his saddle, until given the word to rise; and this even though his neck
were used as a gun-rest, and Dick's rifle fired from it.
Dick's horses in Canada--and he trained many--required no tethering.
They would remain, all day if need be, upon the exact spot at which he
bade them stand. They would push and nuzzle a man along a road, and
never upset him. They would gallop, unridden, in any given direction, at
the word of command, and halt as if shot at the sound of Dick's voice.
He actually taught a mare to leave her foal and come to him at the word
of command. Not the wildest and most vicious of broncos could resist him
when he set his mind to their subjugation, yet he wore drilled sixpences
in place of rowels in his spurs, and rarely carried a whip; though on
certain occasions he might borrow one for a specific use.
During his walks on the Downs with Betty and the two hounds he taught
Jan to lie down, stand to attention, gallop in any direction, wheel and
return without hesitation; and all this upon the instant of the word of
command, or in obedience to a wave of the hand. He arranged for Betty to
take Jan away with her for, say, a quarter of a mile, and then, short of
holding him, to use every persuasion she could to keep him beside her.
Then Dick would give a long call, and then another. It was almost
uncanny to see, from the expression on his face, the struggle going on
in Jan's mind. But the end was always the same. The second call took him
away at the gallop, even from Betty. Then Jan was taught to remain on
guard over any object, such as a stick, a glove, or a cap, while Dick
and Betty, and Finn, too, went right away out of sight for, it might be,
half an hour.
Jan learned these things readily, and with apparent ease. Yet his only
rewards were an occasional caress and words of praise. And, apparently,
there were no punishments in Dick's educational system. At least he
never struck Jan. He really seemed so to influence the young hound that
the withholding of praise became a sharp rebuke. Jan himself had no
notion why he allowed Dick to school him, or why he yielded this man a
measure of obedience and instant devotion that he had given to no one
else. The basis of Dick's power was the exceptional gift of magnetism he
had--the special kind of magnetism which makes for the subjugation of
their wills and personalities, be they human or animal.
But, over and above this gift, Dick had faultless patience with animals.
He never gave an order without making perfectly certain that it was
understood. And he never betrayed the smallest hint of indecision or
lack of assured confidence.
"Stay--right--there--Jan," he would say. "Guard--that." His voice was
low, his speech slow, emphatic, distinct. It was a compelling form of
speech, and yet, withal, hardly ever harsh or even peremptory. And when,
in the earlier stages, he had occasion to say: "No, no; that's no good.
That won't do at all, Jan"; or, "You've got to do a heap better than
that, Jan," the words or their tone seemed to cut the dog as it might
have been with a whip-lash. You could see Jan flinch; not cowed or
disheartened, as the dogs trained by public performers often are, but
touched to the very quick of his pride, and hungrily eager to do better
next time and win the low-voiced: "Good dog! That's fine! Good dog,
Jan!" with, it may be, a caressing pat on the head or a gentle rubbing
of both ears.
Jan did not know why he learned, why he loved the lessons and the
teacher, why he obeyed so swiftly, or why praise filled him to the
throat with glad, swelling pride, while the withholding of it, or an
expression of disapproval, sent his flag down between his hocks, and his
spirits with it, to zero. Jan did not know, but he was merely
exemplifying a law as old as the hills. The Israelites found out that
righteousness was happiness, and that no joy existed outside of it.
Righteousness--do ye right--is another word for discipline. The proudest
and the happiest people in the world are the best disciplined people.
Perfect discipline is righteousness for righteousness' sake. According
to his lights, obedience to Dick was righteousness for Jan. Hence his
joyous pride in the progress of his education. No form of
self-indulgence could yield Jan (or any one else) a tithe of the
satisfaction he derived from this subordination of himself.
His greatest trial, and, by that token, once he really understood it,
his greatest source of pride, came in the severe lesson of being sent
home in the early stages of a morning's walk. First it was from the
garden gate; then from the orchard gate in the lane; and later from the
open Down, perhaps half a mile or more away. He would be gamboling to
and fro with Finn, exulting in the joy of out of doors, and swift and
unanswerable would come the order to return home and wait. Finn was to
go on and enjoy the ramble. Jan, for no fault, was to go home alone to
wait. And in the end he did it with no pause for protest or hesitation,
and at length with no regret, all that being swallowed up by his immense
pride in his own understanding and perfect subordination.
He might have to wait ten minutes or an hour or more on the door-step at
Nuthill; but it was notable that he never went unrewarded for this
particular performance of duty. He was always specially commended and
caressed for this; and he never altogether lost a ramble by it, for Dick
would make a point of taking him out again, either at once or at some
time during the same day. It was a stiff lesson to learn, this; and that
was why, once learned, the practice of it was highly stimulating to
Jan's self-respect and dignity of bearing.
Upon the whole, in the course of those three crowded weeks of holiday
happiness and courting Dick Vaughan managed to pass on to Jan a quite
appreciable simulacrum of all the benefits which had made so markedly
for his own development during the preceding eighteen months. And most
notably was Jan developed in the process.
"We gave Jan a good physique, didn't we, Betty?" said the Master,
admiringly; "but in three weeks this wizard has made a North-west
Mounted Policeman of him, absolutely fully equipped, bar speech and a
uniform!"
"Oh, well," replied Dick, with a laugh, "we don't reckon to be very much
as speakers out West, you know; and for uniform, Jan's black and
iron-gray coat is good tough wear, and will outlast the best of tunics,
and turn snow or hail or rain a deal better. Won't it, Jan?"
XX
SUSSEX TO SASKATCHEWAN
In the absence of that three weeks' schooling, there is no doubt the
journey to Regina would have been a pretty dismal business for Jan. It
occupied close upon a fortnight, and there was very little liberty for
Jan during that time.
Unlike his great sire, Jan had never been stolen, and had learned
nothing of the dire possibilities connected with confinement behind iron
bars. He tasted some tolerably close confinement during this journey;
but he thought each day would bring an end to it; and, meantime, nobody
ill-treated him, and, what was more to the point, he had some converse
with Dick each day.
As the habit of his kind is, he had, of course, parted with Finn and the
Nuthill folk without the slightest premonition regarding the duration of
their separation. In the confinement of the cupboard beside the
butcher's shop which he occupied while crossing the Atlantic, Jan
thought a good deal of Finn, of Betty, and of Nuthill; yet not with
melancholy. While at sea he had several visits each day from Dick
Vaughan, and during the preceding few weeks Dick had become very
securely established as Jan's hero and sovereign lord.
Jan would never cease to love Betty Murdoch; but in the nature of things
it was impossible for gentle, merry Betty to give this big hound quite
all that masterful Dick Vaughan could give him. His heart had often
swelled in answer to a caress from Betty; but his whole being thrilled
again to the touch of Dick's strong hand or to a word of command or
praise or deprecation from him. Jan was a grown hound now, and newly
initiated to the joys of disciplined service.
The train was worse, far worse, than the ship; but it came after the
major part of a day at large with Dick in the picturesque streets of
Quebec. And even on the train, with its demoniacal noises, and groaning,
jarring, jolting lack of ease, each day brought its glimpses of Dick,
and its blessed respites of ten minutes or so at a time on station
platforms. Jan had traveled before in an English train; but that had
been as a passenger, and with passengers, in an ordinary compartment. In
the dark, cramped, and incredibly noisy hole of a dog-box on "No. 93"
(as this particular west-bound train was called) Jan realized that
railway traveling could be a very unpleasant business for a hound. A
month earlier the experience would have exhausted him, because he would
have frittered away his energies in futile fretting and fuming, and in
equally futile efforts to force his way out through steel walls. Now his
cramped quarters were made tolerable by the fact that quiet submission
to them represented obedience to a personal order from his sovereign.
What had otherwise been wretchedness and misery was now willingly
accepted discipline, the earning of a substantial reward: his
sovereign's approval and his own pride of subordination--a totally
different matter from mere painful imprisonment.
Captain Will Arnutt had heard all about Jan by letter from Nuthill. One
would not altogether say that so important a person as the captain went
to Regina station expressly to meet Dick and Jan; but it certainly did
happen that he was admiring the flower-beds in the station's garden when
No. 93 hove in sight from the eastward; and being there, he decided to
stroll on to the platform and watch the train's arrival, along with
every one else who happened to be in sight at the time.
It might, perhaps, lead to awkward consequences if every
non-commissioned man of the R.N.W.M.P. took to keeping animals in
barracks. Both Dick and Captain Arnutt had thought of this, and,
accordingly, Jan, the son of Finn and Desdemona, was welcomed upon his
first appearance in the capital of Saskatchewan as Captain Arnutt's
hound, brought from England by Dick Vaughan, and to be looked after for
Captain Arnutt by the same man. Jan would have been tickled could he
have perceived this harmless piece of human deception; but it was just
as well he did not understand, since he would never have lent himself to
it very convincingly.
By reason of his breeding Jan was, as a matter of fact, unique among
hounds. Apart from this, no hound of his size or splendid development
had ever before been seen upon Regina station platform. The people of
the West are a forthright, plain-spoken, and enterprising folk, and
before he left the station Captain Arnutt was offered fifty dollars for
Jan. Nothing damped by the captain's smiling refusal of his offer, the
sporting stranger said:
"Well, an' I don't blame ye, Colonel, neither. But, say, it's a pity to
miss a good deal. I like the looks o' that dog, and"--drawing out a fat
wallet from his hip-pocket--"we'll make it a hundred dollars, an' the
deal's done."
As Dick subsequently explained to Captain Arnutt, two thousand dollars
had been offered, and refused, for Jan's mother. "And I'm dead sure
twenty thousand wouldn't buy his sire."
But these figures were for private consumption, of course. Dick had no
wish to invite the attention of the predatory; and, in any case, buyers
and sellers of dogs do not talk in thousands of dollars on the prairie.
At the entrance to the R.N.W.M.P. barracks the unsuspecting Jan was
violently attacked by a fox-terrier, the pet of one of the senior
officers of the corps. This pugnacious little chap wasted no time over
preliminaries, and apparently had no desire whatever to examine the
new-comer. He just flew straight at Jan's throat, snarling furiously.
Captain Arnutt was distressed, for he made sure the terrier would be
killed, and that Jan would thereby make an enemy of one of the senior
officers. But his fears were groundless, thanks to Jan's few weeks of
discipline and training before leaving Nuthill.
"Come in here--in--here--Jan, boy. Don't touch him. Come--in--here!"
Jan stood for one moment, listening, his hackles bristling resentment of
the terrier's insolence. And then he walked obediently to Dick's side,
the snarling, yapping terrier literally pendent from his neck.
"That was stupid of you, little chap," said Dick, when he had detached
the terrier and was holding him firmly in both his hands, still snarling
angrily. "If you were mine, you'd probably get a hiding, my son. As it
is, you'll stop that snarling. You--hear--me? Stop it!"
And reluctantly the terrier did cease his snarling. One could see the
little beast slowly calming down in Dick's strong hands, like an excited
patient under the spell of some mild anesthetic. And then, having calmed
him, Dick very carefully showed the terrier to Jan.
"Look at him, Jan, boy. He's privileged--not to be hurt. Never touch
him, lad. He belongs to us, you see. Never hurt him."
Then, rather ostentatiously stroking the terrier in full view of Jan,
Dick put the little beast down and bade it run away.
"No more snarling at Jan, mind. He belongs to us, you see."
And whether or not the terrier understood, he did, at all events, walk
off toward the veranda of his master's quarters without further
demonstrations of belligerency. Captain Arnutt joined enthusiastically
with Dick in bestowing praises upon Jan for his forbearance and
docility.
"I made sure the little fellow's number was up," said the captain. "One
good bite from this chap would have about settled his business. And,
mind you, he bit hard, too. There's blood on Jan's coat--look. A fine
welcome we've given you, old chap."