jealousy. At all events, the man's own story was that he had been the
lover of the woman he had killed. He paid the law's last penalty within
the confines of the R.N.W.M.P. barracks, and his capture and trial made
Jan for the time the most famous dog in Saskatchewan. Pictures of him
appeared in newspapers circulating all the way from Mexico to the Yukon;
and in his walks abroad with Dick Vaughan he was pointed out as "the
North-west Mounted Police bloodhound," and credited with all manner of
wonderful powers.
It was natural, of course, that he should be called a bloodhound; and it
did not occur to any one in Regina that his height, his fleetness, and
his shaggy black and iron-gray coat were anything but typical of the
bloodhound.
With one exception every man in the R.N.W.M.P. headquarters was proud
of Jan. Even the different barracks dogs were conscious of some great
addition to the big hound's prestige. The senior officers of the corps
went out of their way to praise and pet Jan, and Captain Arnutt had a
light steel collar made for him, with a shining plated surface, a lock
and key, and an inscription reading thus:
Jan, of the Royal North-west Mounted Police, Regina.
But Jan's triumph earned him the mortal hatred of one man, and the
deference shown to him in barracks added bitterness to the jealous
antipathy already inspired by him in the hard old heart of Sourdough.
Sergeant Moore said nothing, but hate glowed in his somber eyes whenever
they lighted upon Jan's massive form.
"I believe he'd stick a knife in Jan, if he dared," said French, the man
of Devon. "You take my tip, Dick, and keep Jan well out of the
sergeant's way. The man's half crazed. His old Sourdough is all he's got
in the world for chick or child, and he'll never forgive your dog for
doing what Sourdough couldn't do."
"Oh, well," said Dick, with a tolerant smile, "I think he's too much of
a man to try and injure a good dog."
"An' that's precisely where you get left right away back," said
O'Malley. "I tell ye that blessed sergeant wouldn't think twice about
giving Jan a dose of poison if he thought he could get away with the
goods. And if he can teach Sourdough to kill Jan, I reckon he'd sooner
have that than a commission any day in the week. Man, you should watch
his face when he sees the dog. There's murder in it."
It was a fact that the praises showered upon Jan, the publicity given to
his doings, and, above all, the respect shown for the big hound within
R.N.W.M.P. circles, were the cause of real wretchedness to Sergeant
Moore. When a man who is well on in middle life becomes so thoroughly
isolated from friendly human influences as Sergeant Moore was, his mind
and his emotions are apt to take queer twists and turns, his judgment to
become strangely warped, his vision and sense of proportion to assume
the highly misleading characteristics of convex and concave mirrors,
which distort outrageously everything they reflect.
Sourdough, like his master, was dour, morose, forbidding, and a
confirmed solitary. He was also a singularly ugly and unattractive
creature, whom no man had ever seen at play. But prior to Jan's arrival
he had been the unquestioned chief and master among R.N.W.M.P. dogs.
"Surly old devil, Sourdough," men had been wont to say of him; "but, by
gee! there's no getting around him; you can't fool Sourdough. He'd go
for a grizzly, if the grizzly wouldn't give him the trail. Aye, he's a
hard case, all right, is Sourdough. You can't faze him."
And Sergeant Moore, without ever moving a muscle in his mahogany face
(all the skin of which was indurated from chin to scalp with the finest
of fine-drawn lines) had yet been moved to rare delight by such remarks.
He hugged them to him. He gloried in all such tributes to Sourdough's
dourness.
"Aye, you're tough, Old-Timer," he had been heard to growl to his dog;
"you're a hard case, all right. There isn't a soft hair on you, is
there, Sourdough? And they all know it. They may squeal, but they've got
to give trail when Sourdough comes along."
There were times when he would cuff the dog, or snatch his food from
him, for the sheer delight of hearing the beast snarl--as he always
would--at his own master.
"What a husky!" he would say in an ecstasy of admiration. "You'd go for
me if I gave you half a chance, wouldn't you, Sourdough? And I don't
blame you, you old tough."
And now it seemed the barracks had no time to note Sourdough's
implacable sourness; everybody was too busy praising that sleek,
well-groomed brute from England, of whom the sergeant thought very much
as some savage old-timers think of tenderfeet and remittance men, but
with a deal more of bitterness in his contempt.
"But Sourdough will spoil your fine coat for you, my gentleman, the
first time you come in our way," the sergeant would mutter to himself
when he chanced to see Dick giving Jan his morning brush-down after
Paddy was groomed.
He had been foiled half a dozen times in his attempts to get Sourdough
into Paddy's stall when Jan was there and Dick Vaughan engaged in any
way elsewhere. It seemed that some of Dick's comrades were always on
hand to bar the way; and, for appearance's sake, the sergeant could not
have it said that he had deliberately brought about a fight between his
dog and the valued hound of an officer, who was everybody's favorite.
"They're afraid, Sourdough, that's what it is; they're afraid you might
chew up the overgrown brute and spit him out in scraps about the yard.
Let 'em wait. We'll give 'em something to be afraid of presently."
He meant it, and he kept his word.
Since the Italian murder case, a regular craze had developed among the
men for trailing and the education of dogs. The barracks dogs were
constantly being added to, and every man who owned or could obtain a dog
gave his leisure to attempts--largely unsuccessful--at training the
animal to track.
O'Malley was one of the first to succumb to the new diversion, and was
lavishing immense care and patience upon the education of a cross-bred
Irish terrier, who would soon be able to wipe the eye of any Sassenach
dog in Canada, so he would! Meanwhile O'Malley, conveniently forgetful
of Jan's English nationality, was fond of borrowing the big hound for an
hour or so together to help him in his educational efforts on behalf of
Micky Doolan, the terrier. In such a matter Dick Vaughan and Jan were
equally approachable and good-natured. Indeed, the pair of them had
already done more than any of the different pupils' masters in the
matter of this revival of schooling among the barracks dogs.
It happened toward four o'clock of a late autumn day that Dick Vaughan
was engaged in Regina in attendance upon a great personage from Ottawa.
O'Malley, having borrowed Jan's services as helper, was busy giving
tracking lessons to Micky Doolan on the prairie, half a mile from
barracks. Chancing to look up from his work, O'Malley saw Sergeant Moore
approaching on foot, with Sourdough (as ever) at his heels. He did not
know that the sergeant had been watching him through binoculars from the
barracks, and that he had spent a quarter of an hour in carefully
devised efforts to exacerbate the never very amiable temper of
Sourdough.
O'Malley swore afterward that as the sergeant drew level with little
Micky Doolan (a dozen paces or so from the Irishman), he whispered to
Sourdough, and "sooled him on."
"Tsss--sss! To him, then, lad," is what O'Malley vowed the sergeant
said.
Be that as it may, Sourdough did wheel aside, as his way was, and
administer a savage slash of his fangs upon poor little Micky's neck. As
O'Malley rushed forward to protect his pet the game little beast,
instead of slinking back from tyrant Sourdough, a tribute that hard case
demanded from every dog he met, sprang forward with a snarl and a plucky
attempt to return the unsolicited bite he had received.
"Come in, come in, ye little fool!" yelled O'Malley.
But he was too late. A light of malevolent joy gleamed in the big
husky's red eyes as he plunged upon the terrier. One thrust of his
mighty shoulder sent the little chap spinning on his back, and there was
the throat-hold exposed to Sourdough's practised fangs. His bitter
temper had been carefully inflamed in advance, and demanded now the
sacrifice of blood, warm life-blood. His wide jaws flashed in upon the
terrier's throat just as O'Malley's boot took him in the rear.
"If ye touch that dog again, my man, I'll break your jaw for you," came
from the sergeant in a hoarse growl.
Now O'Malley was a disciplined man, and the sergeant was his official
superior. But, as it happened, the matter was now taken out of his
hands. Jan, who, before the sergeant's arrival, had been lying stretched
in the dust thirty paces distant, had risen then and stood stiffly,
watching Sourdough with raised hackles. At the moment that the husky's
fangs touched the skin of Micky's throat, Jan was upon him like a
battering-ram, shoulder to shoulder, with an impact that sent the husky
rolling, all four feet in the air, a position in which no barracks dog
had ever before seen Sourdough, and one in which any of them would have
given a day's food to find him. For that is the one position in which
even a Sourdough may with safety be attacked.
But Jan apparently (and very recklessly) scorned to avail himself of
this splendid opportunity. His own great weight and swiftly silent
movement had been responsible for Sourdough's complete downfall. And
now, while O'Malley grabbed his terrier in both arms, thankful the
little beast's throat was whole, Jan stood stiff-legged, with stiffly
arched neck and bristling hackles, glaring down at Sourdough, with the
expression which, among pugilistic school-boys, goes with the question,
"Have you had enough?"
"Enough!" Any such question could but prove abysmal ignorance of
Sourdough's quality. The big husky was not scratched, and of fighting he
could hardly be given enough while his heart continued to beat. Before,
he had been angered. Before, he had loathed and hated Jan. And now Jan
had rolled him over on his back as though he were a helpless whelp. Jan
had glared menacingly at him, at Sourdough, while he, the acknowledged
canine master and terror of that countryside, had all four feet in the
air. A flame of hatred surged about the husky's heart. His snarl as he
bounded to his feet was truly awe-inspiring. His writhen lips drew up
and back crescent-wise over red gums, showing huge yellow fangs and an
expression of most daunting ferocity.
In the next moment he tore a groove six inches long down Jan's left
shoulder, scooping out skin and fur as a machine saw might have done it;
and in the same second he was away again, wolf-like, his steel muscles
already contracting for the next attack.
Now Jan had no thought of fighting when he bowled Sourdough over. His
sole preoccupation had been the rescue of his little friend, Micky
Doolan, from what looked like certain death. Contact with Sourdough had
greatly stirred the combatant blood in him, as had also the hated smell
of the husky. Even then a call from Dick Vaughan would have met with
instant response from Jan. But there was no Dick Vaughan in sight.
Sergeant Moore stood gazing eagerly, a little anxiously even, but with
no hint of any thought of interfering with the meeting he had schemed to
bring about. O'Malley, clutching his terrier in his arms, was rather
distractedly calling:
"Come away in, Jan! Drop it now, Jan! Come in here, come in here, Jan!"
But O'Malley, after all, though an amiable person enough, and, as a
friend of Dick's, a man to be obeyed cheerfully enough in the ordinary
way, yet was not Dick. He was hardly a shadow of the sovereign. And then
came that fiery stroke that had opened a groove down Jan's left
shoulder.
After that, it is a moot point whether even Dick Vaughan's voice would
have served to penetrate the cloud of fury in which Jan moved. He became
very terrible in his wrath. One saw less of the bloodhound and more, far
more, of his sire, of royal Finn, the fighting wolfhound of the
Tinnaburra ranges, in his splendid pose, in the upward, scimitar curve
of his great tail, the rage in his red-hawed eyes, the vibrant defiance
of his baying roar.
But he lacked as yet his sire's inimitable fighting craft, just as he
lacked entirely the lightning cunning of the half-wolf Sourdough. And
before he had touched the husky his sound shoulder had been grooved, and
one of his ears badly torn.
It might have been better tactics on Sourdough's part to have made
direct for some killing hold, instead of administering these instructive
preliminary chastenings. Seeing clearly Jan's inferiority in wolf
tactics, Sourdough underrated the forces of his size, weight, endurance,
power, and quite indomitable bravery. In fact, the cunning Sourdough was
very thoroughly deceived by Jan. Never having in his varied experiences
encountered chivalry, nobility, nor yet much gallantry in a dog, he made
no allowance for these qualities in Jan. He could not conceive that the
attack which had bowled him over was no more than a generous attempt to
save Micky Doolan. And so he thought it was a challenge to combat; and
combat, as the husky saw it, meant an effort to kill by any and every
means available. In the same way, the reckless scorn of himself and of a
palpable advantage, which Jan had shown after knocking him over, was a
thing not to be comprehended for what it really was by Sourdough. He
thought it evidence of weakening, of sudden fear, of terror inspired in
Jan by the sight of the thing he had impulsively done.
Yes, Sourdough entirely misread Jan; and he believed now that he had
ample time in which to bleed and cripple the big hound by means of his
natural wolf tactics, and then to finish off a helpless enemy at
leisure. Cunning often does mislead those who possess it. In this case
it was responsible for tactics by which, had he but known it, Sourdough
presented his enemy with triple-thick armor, and schooled him finely for
the task that lay before him.
Sourdough's second slash cost Jan a split ear, but gave him flashlight
vision of his fight with Grip in Sussex, with Grip of the wolf-like
fighting methods. Sourdough's third attack cost Jan a burning groove
down his hitherto untouched shoulder; but, by that token, it effectually
completed the lesson of attack number two, and brought a final end to
the period of Sourdough's really enjoyable fighting. So poorly, then,
did Sourdough's cunning serve him, that his fourth attack came near to
costing him his life.
With bloody glee in his eyes, and wide-parted drooling jaws, he darted
in to take his fourth cut at Jan, eager for the joyous moment in which
the repetition of these slashes should have reduced Jan to ripeness for
the killing thrust--the throat-hold. But Jan had learned his lesson. At
the psychological fraction of a moment he changed his position, and,
instead of passing on comfortably through space after his attack,
Sourdough's shoulder met another bigger shoulder, braced like a granite
buttress to receive the impact, and the husky reached earth on his side.
That rather shook the wind out of him; but that was nothing by
comparison with the fact that, in the same moment, Jan's viselike jaws
closed about one side of his neck, close in to the skull where the hair
shortened. That was a serious moment, if you like, for Sourdough; for in
addition to the huge power of those jaws there was weight--a hundred and
sixty-four pounds of sinew, bone, and rubber-like muscle behind and
above the jaws.
A very desperate vigor stirred in Sourdough's limbs as he took the
course which is only taken at critical moments. He deliberately turned
farther on his back--the position of all others most dreaded--in order
to bring his feet into play, his jaws being momentarily helpless. His
abdominal muscles were in splendid order. Like a lynx, Sourdough drew in
and up his powerful hind quarters, and, as if they had been a missile
launched from a catapult, slashed his two hind feet along Jan's belly,
as a carpenter might rip a board down with a chisel.
In that same moment Sergeant Moore stepped forward, with a hoarse cry:
"Here, damme!" he shouted at O'Malley, "you'd better haul off your
captain's dog, or--or mine'll kill him!"
And with a resounding thwack he brought his riding-cane down across
Jan's forehead. It was this, rather than his own very serviceable two
chisels, that brought the husky sudden release from the grip upon his
neck, which, already deep-sunk, had been like to finish his career. The
high-crowned shape of Jan's skull, and the soft fineness of the skin and
hair that covered it, made him very sensitive to a blow on the head.
Also he knew it was a man's attack, and not a dog's. When he saw who the
man was, he roared at him very ferociously. And that was the first
occasion upon which Jan had ever shown his teeth in real anger to a
human.
Had not Sourdough been there, it is hard to say what might have
happened. As it was, the sergeant's intervention and Jan's angry
response thereto gave Sourdough the opportunity he had longed for. It
gave him, in safety, the rush at Jan from the side. It would have
availed him little if Jan had seen him coming. But Jan, engaged in
threatening his human enemy, saw nothing till the tremendous impact of
Sourdough's rush took him off his feet, and the husky got, not precisely
the true throat-hold he wanted, but a deadly hold, none the less, in the
flesh of Jan's dewlap.
The position of a few seconds earlier had been practically reversed.
Jan's blood was running between Sourdough's fangs now--a fiery tonic,
and veritable _eau-de-vie_ to the husky. Sourdough's catlike
tactics--perhaps the best and safest in such a case--were not adopted by
Jan, who never yet had used such a method. With a huge effort the hound
managed to twist his body in such a way as to gain foothold for his hind
feet; and then, by the exercise of sheer muscular strength, he curved
his neck and shoulder inch by inch (while still his blood slaked
Sourdough's thirst) until with sudden swiftness he was able to grip the
husky's near fore leg between his jaws, just on and below the knee.
Then Jan concentrated his whole being into the service of his jaws.
Sourdough gave a cry that was almost a scream, and his jaws flew apart,
dripping Jan's blood. Jan's teeth sank a shade deeper. Sourdough pivoted
round in agony, snapping at the air, and emitting an unearthly yowling,
snarling, grunting cry the while. Jan's teeth locked together, and then
were sharply withdrawn, leaving a very thoroughly smashed and punctured
fore leg to dangle by its skin and sinew.
During the past few seconds the sergeant had been raining down blows of
his cane on Jan's head. Now O'Malley grabbed Jan by his steel collar.
"By hivens, sergeant!" he spluttered, "if ye'll meet me afterwards,
without your stripes on, I'll--I'll give ye what Jan here'd give your
bloody wolf, if ye had the honesty to l'ave 'em to ut."
Jan dragged back momentarily, and--in justice to Sourdough's gameness,
be it said--the husky struggled hard from his master's entwining arms to
be at the enemy again on three legs. But O'Malley's pleadings were
urgent and his right arm strong (the left was curled round Micky
Doolan); and so it befell that, while Sergeant Moore remained tending
his wounded favorite, O'Malley, leading Jan, whose front was bleeding
badly, as were his shoulders and one ear, arrived at the barracks gates
just as Dick Vaughan trotted up to them, on his return from duty in
Regina.
"My hat!" cried Dick, as he dismounted. "Has he killed the sergeant's
dog?"
"He would ha' done, the darlin', if the sergeant had bin a man, in place
o' the mad divil he is," replied O'Malley.
XXIV
PROMOTION
For a week and more after the fight the barracks saw nothing of
Sourdough, whose leg was being mended for him in the stable of a
veterinary surgeon in Regina. Sergeant Moore would have made no
difficulty over spending half his pay upon the care of his beloved
husky.
Jan's ills were confined to flesh-wounds, and in any case Dick preferred
to doctor the big hound himself. The story of the fight, and of Sergeant
Moore's not very sporting part therein, was now known to every one in
the barracks, with the result that Jan became more than ever the
favorite of the force, and the sergeant more than ever its Ishmaelite,
against whom every man's hand was turned in thought, if not in deed. It
was little Sergeant Moore cared for that. It almost seemed as though he
welcomed and thrived upon the antipathy of his kind, even as a normal
person prospers upon the love of his fellows. The scowls of his comrades
were accepted by the sergeant as a form of tribute, so curiously may a
certain type of mind be warped by the influence of isolation.
It was at this stage, when Jan's flesh-wounds were no more than half
healed, that Captain Arnutt brought Dick Vaughan the intelligence that,
as the result of the Italian murder case and other matters, he was to be
promoted to acting-sergeant's rank, and given charge, on probation, of
the small post at Buck's Crossing, some sixty-odd miles north-west of
Regina.
The news brought something of a thrill to Dick, because it had been
arranged, by his own suggestion in Sussex, that his promotion to full
sergeant's rank should mark the period of quite another probationary
term; and here, undoubtedly, was a step toward it. On the other hand, he
had formed friendships in Regina; and while most of the people in the
barracks would be genuinely sorry to lose him, he, for his part, could
not contemplate without twinges of regret the prospect of exchanging
their society for the isolation of the two-roomed post-house at Buck's
Crossing.
"And in some ways it will be just as well for you and Jan to be out of
here for a time," said Captain Arnutt. "Sergeant Moore has quite a
number of fleas in his bonnet, and you can't afford to come to blows
with him--here, anyhow."
"No fear of that, sir," said Dick. "Why, he's nearly twice my age,
and--"
"Don't you make any mistake of that sort, my friend. There are limits to
any man's self-control. The sergeant may be twice your age, but he's
made of steel wire and moose-hide, and let me tell you he could give a
pretty good account of himself in a ring against any man in
Saskatchewan. Then, again, your intentions might be ever so good, but I
wouldn't like to answer for you, or for any other white man, if it comes
to being actually tackled by as heavy-handed a hard case as Sergeant
Moore. And then there's Sourdough. When that husky's leg is sound again
he'll be about as safe a domestic pet as a full-grown grizzly. No, it's
better you should be away for a bit. Also, my friend, it's a chance for
you. There are some pretty queer customers pass along that Buck's
Crossing trail these days, making north. Your beat's a long one. You'll
have a good deal of responsibility; and, who knows? You might win a
commission out of it. You won't be forgotten here, you know."
Then the order came that Dick was to take over the Buck's Crossing post
that same week. It was necessary for Dick to ride the whole sixty-odd
miles, but his kit was to be sent thirty-two miles by rail, and there
picked up by wagon for the remainder of the journey. Meantime there were
a number of stitches in Jan's dewlap and shoulders not yet ripe for
removal, and Dick decided that he would not ask the hound to cover over
sixty miles of trail in a day, as he meant to do. Therefore it was
arranged that O'Malley should see to putting Jan on the train when
Dick's kit was sent off, and that Jan should have a place in the wagon
for the thirty-odd miles lying between Buck's Crossing and its nearest
point of rail.
And then, having seen to these arrangements, Dick bade good-by to his
comrades, rubbed Jan's ears and told him to be a good lad till they met
again, in forty-eight hours' time, and rode away, carrying with him the
good wishes of every one in the barracks, with the exception of one who
looked out at him from the windows of the sergeants' quarters, with
grimly nodding head and a singularly baleful light in his eyes.