happenings came swiftly passing little silhouettes of people and
happenings farther away in point of time and distance. He saw Dick
Vaughan, in scarlet tunic and yellow-striped breeches, sitting on a box
with his, Jan's, head between his knees, his hands fondling the long
ears that now were so terribly torn and bloody. He saw the great, gray,
lordly Finn pacing gravely beside the Master and Betty Murdoch on the
Downs at Nuthill; himself trotting to and fro between Betty and the
noble hound that sired him. He heard Dick Vaughan's long, throbbing
whistle, and then the old familiar call:
"Jan, boy! Ja--an!"
And as he heard this call he had never once failed to answer, some
subtle force at work in Jan loosed the cord that had seemed to hold him
fettered to the heavy aftermath of his greed that night. His heart
swelled within him in answer to the sovereign's call, till it seemed to
send new blood, hot and compelling, racing through all his veins into
the last least crevices of his remotest members. His massive head ceased
to sway. It was uplifted in the moment that a roaring baying cry escaped
him; he knew not how or why. And that was the moment called
psychological. For it was the instant of a new and different attack from
Bill, this tremendous moment of Jan's real awakening.
For some minutes now, while he flashed in and out, bleeding his prey in
preparation for the final assault, Bill had noted with infinite cold joy
that swaying motion of Jan's great head. He knew it well for the gesture
of the baited creature, and as the head swung lower the flames of Bill's
hate shot higher and ever higher; for this lower swaying, as he knew,
was the signal of the end for which he had striven so cunningly and
long.
At the moment that Jan heard Dick's call, Bill drew up his muscles for
administration of the final thrust. (The bull had bled sufficiently. Now
for the steel in the nape.) Bill leaped, red froth flying from his bared
fangs. As he leaped, Jan's strange baying roar smote upon his senses
with a chill foreboding. He knew nothing of the call that had loosed
from its lethargy the essential Jan. But the roar spoke of doom and Bill
flinched; wavered in his attack, as a horse will momentarily waver at a
high leap. That peril might have passed. But it was part of a double
blunder. The leap had been wrongly conceived. It had come too soon. And
now the leaper balked, conscious of error; conscious also, dimly, of
some terrific change in Jan, heralded by his awe-inspiring cry.
Bill jarred down to earth, short of his mark, his feet ill placed, his
world awry. And in that instant the big hound was upon him like a bolt
from heaven: the strangest attack surely that ever dog faced, or so it
must have seemed to stricken Bill, the northland fighter for the killing
throat-hold, who never had seen the famous killing grip that was always
used by Jan's tall sire, Finn the wolfhound.
Jan came down upon Bill as though from the clouds. (He stood a full four
inches higher than Bill.) His huge jaws, stretched to cracking-point,
took Bill where the base of the skull meets the spinal cord. One jaw on
either side that rope of life, they drove down; through the matted armor
of Bill's coat, through skin and flesh, and on to their ultimate
destination, under the crushing pressure of a hundred and forty pounds
of steel-like muscle, bone, and sinew, the invincible product of the
trail-life developed upon a foundation of scientifically attained health
and strength.
Bill, the fearless and unbeaten, now screamed aloud; not for mercy, but
in mortal pain. His tense body squirmed, convulsed, under Jan's great
weight like a thing galvanized by electricity.
Jan's jaws sank deeper.
Bill snapped at the bloody snow in his frenzy, actually breaking his own
fangs.
Jan's jaws sank deeper.
A long horrible shudder passed through the squirming body of Bill. And
Jan's jaws sank a little deeper. Then with a dreadful sucking sound and
a sharp gasp for breath, those jaws parted and were withdrawn; for
Bill's long fight and his life were ended now, and Jan was quite alone
in that desolate place.
XXX
REAL LEADERSHIP
The thrifty Jean was far from pleased when, on the morning after his
lucky moose-shot, he found that the sled-team was short of one dog. As
it happened, Jake was the first to note the absence of Bill, the
ex-leader; and while he looked this way and that for the missing dog,
Jean, by a thought process which went a little farther, called Jan to
him and proceeded to look over the big hound.
"You don't need to look for no Beel," he said, grimly, to Jake. "Look
thees Jan, here. By gar! that was some fight, now I'm telling you. See
that, an' thees. Look that ear. See thees shoulder. By gar! that Beel he
fight good an' hard. But when he fight Jan, tha's the feenish--for
Beel."
Jake and Jean together made the best job they could of patching up Jan's
wounds a little against the frost and the rub of trace and breast-band.
"Good dog, too, that blame Bill," mused Jake.
"Sure, he was good dog, very good dog; by gar! yes," agreed Jean. "But
thees Jan, hee's best of all dogs. No good for Beel to fight heem. Only
he was too blame full o' moose-meat, he don' lose no blood to Beel, you
bet. That why Beel he don' eat las' night. Seeck? No. He too cunning,
that Beel." A long pause, while Jean spat out chewed tobacco and juice
over one of Jan's worst wounds, with a view to its antiseptic and
healing properties. And then, on a grunting sigh: "Ah, well, I reckon
that makes Jan's price five hunderd. That blame Beel, he worth two
hunderd any day."
So, by Jean's simple commercial method, the big hound's wounds and the
previous night's great fight were best summed up by reckoning that they
added two hundred dollars to Jan's market price. And, all things
considered, he was very likely right; for there could be no sort of
doubt about it, the episode had taught Jan lessons he never would
forget; it had advanced his education hugely and added a big slice to
the sum of his knowledge of the wild northland life. Therefore it had
made him the more fit to survive in the north; and hence it must have
added to his value.
Dogs may not do much talking one with another, as humans understand
talk; but their methods of intercourse suffice them. Just as Jean saw no
need to hunt for the missing Bill, once he had looked over Jan's wounds,
so every dog in the team knew perfectly well why Bill was not of their
number that morning. They asked no questions; but they knew. The thing
was indelibly recorded in their minds. Bill, who had mastered them, had
disputed Jan's mastery. And now Bill was no more. They would not forget.
But all the same, their deductive powers were far from perfect. They saw
in Jan a leader who could not hide the soreness and stiffness caused by
his many wounds. They, for their part, were feeling rather like
indiscreet workmen after a public holiday that has been too recklessly
enjoyed. They had no headache, but were feeling fat and lazy; and,
noting the stiffness of Jan's movements, they slouched and shirked, and
caused delays over the making of a start that morning.
"H'm! Too much moose-meat. Thees will be a short day," growled Jean, as
he reached out for his whip before proceeding farther with the
harnessing. Only the stiff-legged leader was in his place; the rest lay
dotted about with lolling tongues, bent on loafing.
Jan saw Jean go for his whip. But it was no fear of the lash that moved
him to action. He had been desperately conscious for a good many hours
of his stiffness and weariness, and had hoped his services as policeman
of the team would not have been needed that morning. Now, in a flash, he
comprehended the true position. And he knew the sled was now twice its
previous weight. He looked across at Jean, and gave a short, low bark,
which meant:
"Don't you trouble about your whip. This is my job. Don't suppose I've
forgotten it, or that this team is going to be any the weaker for Bill's
loss. Devil a bit of it."
And with that Jan tossed aside his stiffness and flew around among his
six team-mates, the very incarnation of masterful leadership. Not one
dog, not even old Blackfoot, escaped him; and if their leader began the
day's work as a sorely wounded dog, it was certain that each dog behind
him began it with one sore spot to occupy his mind withal. Inside of one
minute he had the six of them standing alertly to attention in their
respective places, waiting for their harness and itching to be off; not
by reason of any sudden access of virtue or industry in them, but
because the leader they had thought too sore and stiff to accomplish
much that day was pacing sternly up and down their rank, with fangs
bared, and the hint of a snarl in every breath he drew; ready, and
apparently rather anxious, to visit condign punishment upon the first
dog who should stir one paw a single inch from its proper place.
"Five hunderd!" shouted Jean, with his broad, cheery grin. "By gar! tha'
Jan hee's worth ten hunderd of any man's money for team-leadin'. Yes,
_sir_; an' you can say I said so. I don't care where the nex' come from;
tha' Jan, hee's masterpiece."
Jake readily admitted, when, over their pipes that night, he and Jean
came to review the day's run, that the team had worked better this day
than on any previous day in the past month.
"With double load, an' one dog short," Jean reminded him.
"That's so," said Jake. "I guess that moose-meat's put good heart into
them."
"Ah! moose-meat, hee's all right; good tack, for sure," said Jean. "But
tha's not moose-meat mushed them dogs on so fast an' trim to-day. No,
_sir_. Tha's Jan--bes' dog-musher in 'Merica to-day, now I'm tellin'
you. He don' got Beel to upset things to-day, and, by gar! you see how
he make them other dogs mush. You don't need no wheep, don't need no
musher, so's you got Jan a-leadin', now I'm tellin' you."
Jan imbued each of the other dogs with a portion of his own
inexhaustible pride in the team's perfect working. Ready to start in the
morning he would stand in the lead, pawing eagerly at the snow, his head
turning swiftly from side to side as he looked round to make sure his
followers were in order, and in his anxiety to catch the first breath of
the command to "Mush on there!"
And when the word came, with what a will those seven dogs bowed to their
work! How furiously their hard pads scrabbled at the trail, to overcome
the first inertia of the laden sled, before it gained the gliding
momentum which they would never allow it to lose for an instant until
the order came to halt! If any dog put one ounce less than the pressure
he was capable of exerting into his breast-band, Jan knew it that
instant, more surely than the watching man behind; and would let out a
sharp, low-sounding bark. And very well each dog in the team knew what
that bark meant. They feared it more than Jean's thong. For Jan had
taught them to know that this bark gave warning of a shrewder blow to
come than any whip could give; and a blow from which there would be no
possible escape. Men-folk might sometimes forget a promised cuff. Jan
was never known to forget a promised bite; and if twelve hours should
elapse between promise and payment, so much the worse for the payee; for
Jan had a system of his own for the reckoning of compound interest, the
efficacy of which, at one time or another, each dog in the team had
tested, and found deadly.
Yes, in the fortnight that followed the shooting of the moose and the
disappearance of Bill the sled-team driven by Jean and Jake was perhaps
the finest and the most efficient in all that white world of
hard-bitten, hard-trained, hard-working men and dogs. And, by that
token, there was no happier team living, and none in better condition.
There are not many teams, of course, whose members eat moose-flesh every
day. But quite apart from the substantial addition to their dietary
which Jean's lucky moose-shot brought, his sled-team was superbly fit
and efficient, because it was perfectly led and perfectly disciplined.
And then came all the strange confusion of the noisy mining town and the
end of this particular phase of Jan's life.
XXXI
THE COST OF INCOMPETENCE
Jan's private impressions of the northern mining town were, first, that
it was the most horrible place he had ever seen; second, that it was
perhaps the most interesting place he had ever seen; and, third and
lastly, that it was a very good place to get away from, and that he
would be pleased to exchange its complex interests for the clean,
arduous stress and strain of the trail.
Jan spent less than a week in the town; but into that week was packed
perhaps rather more than the allowance of new impressions and excitement
of one sort and another that go to make up the record of her first
season in town for the average human débutante. The cynic might protest
that many a modern débutante is as certainly put up for sale to the
highest bidder of the town season as Jan was. Well, at least the thing
is a good deal more carefully wrapped up and veiled, and a great deal
more time is given to it.
Jean was very firmly set in his determination not to part with Jan for a
cent under five hundred dollars. (Had not Jan cost him two hundred
dollars on the night of Bill's disappearance?) Had there been any really
knowledgeable judges of dogs in the town just then who needed a dog,
they would hardly have quarreled with his owner over Jan's price. But it
happened there were none. And the result was that Jan had to be put
through his paces five separate times for the benefit of five separate
prospective purchasers, not one of whom was really capable of
appreciating his superlative quality, before the five hundred dollars
demanded did eventually find its way into Jean's pouch and he was called
upon to part with his leader. He intended to give Snip the leadership of
his team now, because Snip was a curiously remorseless creature; and to
buy a husky as cheaply as might be to take the trace ahead of
Blackfoot--kindliest of wheelers.
Jean's parting with Jan was characteristic of the man. He had conceived
an admiring and prideful affection for the big hound, and had liefer
died than allow this to be shown to any other man. His pride in his
dog's ability, his full appreciation of the animal's many points--yes,
he would show these, and very insistently, to any man. But for his
perfectly genuine affection; that, as he understood it, was a culpable
weakness which no living soul must be permitted to suspect--no, not even
Jan himself. And that was where Jean fooled himself. For his occasional
blows and frequent curses did not in the least deceive Jan, who was
perfectly well aware of Jean's fondness for him, and, to a considerable
extent, reciprocated the feeling. He did not love Jean; but he liked the
man, and trusted and respected him for his all-round ability and
competence.
"Ye--es," said Jean, slowly, to the moneyed _chechaquo_ who had
purchased Jan, "tha' Jan, hee's ther bes' lead dog ever I see, an' I've
handled some. But ef you take my word, Mister Beeching, you won' ask Jan
to take no other place than lead in your team. Eef you do, your leader
'll hear about it, en he might lose some hide over it, too, I guess. But
tha' Jan, hee's a great lead dog, all right, an' I'm tellin' you. Well,
so long, boss; I'll be gettin' along. Git back there, you, Jan! By gar!
you stay right there now, when I say so. What 'n hell d'you want
follerin' me? Git back!"
That was how Jean bade Jan good-by. Jan, scenting trouble vaguely, was
determined to stick to Jean, and thought he went about it craftily
enough. But Jean caught him each time, and kicked him back to the place
where the _chechaquo_ stood, cuffing him roughly over the head by way of
final salutation.
"I'll larn ye to foller me," he said, sourly.
"Mighty little _he_ cares for his dogs!" thought the tenderfoot; and he
turned (with his more delicate sentiments) to caress Jan's head. But Jan
abruptly lowered his head to avoid the touch; though, obedient now to
Jean, the proved master, he remained where he had been told to stay.
But these things happened within twenty-four hours of Jan's departure
from that town. In the days immediately preceding this one of his
parting from Jean he had roamed the town at large with Blackfoot, Snip,
and the others of his team, observing, making acquaintances, fending off
attacks, administering punishment, and swaggering with the best among a
great company of sled-dogs of all sorts and sizes and in every varying
grade of condition, from fatted and vainglorious sleekness to downright
emaciation. For there were dogs here who, having recently shared cruelly
hard times with their men, would require weeks of recuperation to make
them fit for the rigors of the trail. Some of this latter sort were for
sale, and could be bought for a tenth of Jan's price, or less. Others,
again, were "resting," as the actors say, while their impoverished
masters worked at some other craft to earn money enough to give them
back the freedom of the trail.
None the less, he felt tolerably forlorn and desolate when, upon his
last evening there, he was led away by his new master, whose name, it
seemed, was Beeching, and locked in a small inclosure of high iron rails
with nine other dogs, the remaining complement of the team in which he
was now to serve. However, for a while he was kept too busy here to
spare much thought for the matter of the loss of his companions.
Every one of the nine strangers was sleek and well fed. _Chechaquo_
Beeching was bound for the sea and civilization, with the moderate pile
which a beginner's luck, rather than any skill or enterprise of his, had
brought him; and he was bent on doing the trip in style, he and his
curious friend, whom he called Harry. Of these nine finely conditioned
dogs, four had met Jan about the town and learned to show him some
deference. Two--Jinny and Poll--were bitches, and therefore not to be
regarded by Jan as possible opponents in a fight; but the remaining
three members of the crowd, lusty huskies, full of meat and insolence,
had never seen the big hound before, and these had to be thrashed pretty
soundly before Jan won his footing in the inclosure.
Fortunately, the two bitches were disposed to be friendly from the
outset, and of the three huskies, two were intently engaged upon bones
at the time of Jan's entrance. The third husky attacked him, blindly,
without stopping to exchange so much as glances. This little incident
was soon ended. In ten seconds Jan had bowled clean over on his back the
too temerarious Gutty--to give this particular husky the name under
which Mr. Beeching had bought him--and was shaking him by the throat as
a terrier shakes a rat. But Jan was far from being really angry, or
Gutty had paid with his life for the impudence of his attack; and when
the husky chokingly whined for mercy he was allowed to spring to his
feet and slink away into a dark corner, with nothing worse than a little
skin-wound to worry over.
The case of the other two huskies was more serious, however; for in the
half-light Jan chanced to brush against one of them as he gnawed his
bone; and in the next moment they both were leaping at him with clashing
fangs, convinced that he aimed at plunder. While Jan, in warding off
their attacks, tried to explain, good-humoredly, that he meant them no
ill, Jinny and Poll made off with their bones. But of this the two
huskies knew nothing, being fully occupied by their joint attack upon
the great dog who, had they but known it, was destined for some time to
be their master, in the traces and out of them.
It was a rather troublesome fight, involving considerable bloodshed; for
Fish and Pad, the two huskies, were quite notable battlers, and Jan, for
his part, was genuinely anxious to avoid any killing. He was quite
shrewd enough to know that he had now joined a new team, and, while it
was very necessary that his prowess should be recognized and respected,
he desired peace, and perfectly understood that, if he began by killing,
the results might be serious for the team and for himself.
In the end, having made some sacrifices, he had to inflict a severe gash
on the side of Pad's face, and to come near to throttling the life out
of Fish, before he could reduce the pair of them to a state of
comparatively decent, if still snarling, submission. After that there
was peace; Fish and Pad were too busy in dressing their wounds to notice
the loss of their bones; and Jan was free to introduce himself to the
others of the pack, which he did in friendly fashion enough, despite his
still raised hackles and rather noticeably stiff gait.
There was quite a gathering assembled next morning to see the last of
Jan's new masters. But though he eyed the crowd closely to find them,
Jan saw nothing of Jake or Jean, nor any of his old team-mates. Beeching
and Harry--the latter a gentleman who, having apparently no faith in his
own luck, believed in attaching himself firmly to any more fortunate
person who would tolerate his society--were, to all seeming, not really
unpopular. The thoroughly unpopular man is rarely guyed, with roars of
open laughter and back-slapping merriment, by men who wink and nod at
one another while joining forces in the matter of ragging their butt.
That was how Beeching was treated by the crowd of acquaintances who came
to give him his start on the southward, seaward trail. Harry was, for
the most part, merely ignored. It was understood that now, as in the
past, he was supposed to make himself "useful" by way of paying his
shot; and as he had never been known to be any other thing than useless,
it was evidence rather of the easy good nature than the perspicacity of
his associates that he never had actually lacked food and shelter in
that place. But that was as much, men thought, as "Tame Cat Harry" could
possibly expect. One of the last fond messages flung at Beeching, as his
overloaded sled swung out on the trail, was:
"Don't you be letting Harry loose, mind you, or he'll surely hark back
on the trail; an' then we'll shoot him on sight."
"Well, say," yelled another man, "if you do loose him any, be sure you
put a muzzle on him, so's to keep our grub-boxes safe."
After which crude gibe at Harry's sponging proclivities, Homeric
laughter set a period upon the town's farewell to Jan's new masters. And
that laughter stirred to fresh activity the uneasy want of confidence,
the rather cheerless sense of foreboding, which, for close upon
twenty-four hours now, had been growing in the breast of the team's
leader. Jan should, perhaps, have felt drawn toward Beeching and Harry,
since both were compatriots of his and hailed from southern England. But
England has sent a good many of her most confirmed wastrels oversea,
along with the very cream of her manhood; and whether or no, Jan had no
more confidence in his masters than he had in Gutty, the husky he had
thrashed overnight, and far less than he had in Fish and Pad, the two
opponents he had found so much more difficult to trounce.
As a fact, Jan's skepticism was amply justified. In the thirty-five-day
trip thus begun--which should have been completed in sixteen days--Jan
was given as striking an example of the effects of man's muddle-headed,
slack-minded incompetence as that which Jean had furnished him of the
effects of man's able-bodied, clear-headed competence and efficiency.
Jan never worked it out in precisely this way, but after his own simple
and direct fashion he came to the definite conclusion, before he had
been two days on the trail with Beeching and Harry, that, for his part,
he would sooner thole the harshest kind of severity or even cruelty in a
master, so that it be allied with competence, than he would endure this
evils which (in the northland more than in most places) attend all the
steps of the man who is slack, shiftless, and incompetent; and, be it
noted, make miserable the days of all and sundry who are forced to be in
any way dependent on that man.