Where it flowed into the pool beneath the bridge, the creek made
rippling little noises. A swimming muskrat, going upstream and suddenly
seeing the fire and the two beside it, splashed as he dived. From
somewhere up in the forested hills there floated an owl's mournful cry.
Over all murmured a caressing little breeze which, while still soft with
summer's gentleness, had within it a foretaste of autumn's cold.
Shaken, Jeff stood a moment. It was not the first time anyone had tried
to strong-arm his pack away from him, but it was the closest anyone had
ever come to succeeding. His fright ebbed away. Tarrant Enterprises,
Ltd., had led him into other unusual situations and doubtless would lead
into more. He turned to the dog.
"Welcome, Pal!" he said grandly. "From now to forever you may share the
fortunes of Tarrant Enterprises, Ltd.! But what the dickens sent you at
exactly the right time?"
The dog quivered with delight. He had wandered for so long, his only aim
to find someone who would be glad of his company, and at last his goal
was reached! He wagged a happy tail and licked Jeff's hand with the tip
of a moist, warm tongue. Though he would never cringe, the dog would
appease, and now that he had found someone, in order to stay near he
would appease any way he could. Jeff's exploring hand found the dog's
matted head and ears, and a puzzled frown wrinkled his forehead.
"Whoever you belong to hasn't been taking very good care of you," he
murmured. "Haven't you ever been brushed?"
His hands dropped farther, to the dog's sides, and when he touched the
right front shoulder the great animal winced and brought his head
quickly around. Jeff had found the place which the chunk of wood had
struck, and that was painful. But the dog did not bare his teeth or
growl. Jeff took his hands away.
"You've been hurt, Pal," he said understandingly. "Here, let me feel it
once more."
Very gently, pressing no harder than was necessary, he went over the
right shoulder again. He could feel no broken bones, but just beneath
the skin was a jelly-like mass of congealed blood, and when Jeff brought
his hand away his fingers were sticky with blood. Next he found the
wound inflicted by the brindle bull, and as he continued to explore his
puzzlement increased.
The dog wore a round leather collar that formerly might have fitted
well, but because he was thin, it now hung loosely. There was no license
or identifying tag. Starved to gauntness, obviously the animal had been
receiving neither food nor attention. His long fur was matted, and there
were so many burrs of various kinds entangled in it that there was
almost no hope of grooming him properly.
The conviction grew upon Jeff that this dog was a stray, and that he
had come to the fire because there was no other place for him. Either
he'd lost his master or the master had lost him, and in either event, he
was homeless. Jeff frowned.
The whole success of Tarrant Enterprises, Ltd., hinged on its being
entirely footloose. There were places to go, and often it was essential
to go there in somewhat of a hurry. Obviously, it would be impossible to
take a dog this size on a train, and certainly nobody with any sort of
vehicle would be inclined to pick him up.
Jeff said good-humoredly, "Why the dickens couldn't you have been one of
those flea-sized dogs that I might have tucked in my pocket?"
The dog wagged his tail and looked at this friendly human with happy
eyes. Jeff rubbed his huge head and tried to think a way out of his
dilemma. Surely the big fellow had no home and was loose on the
countryside. Familiar with stray dogs, Jeff knew that just one fate
awaited them; sooner or later, but surely, they were killed. Ordinarily
the young trader would have confined himself to pity. But this dog had
helped him when he was in desperate need of help. He must not be
abandoned now.
Perhaps, Jeff thought, he could find a family that would give the dog a
home--but he abandoned the notion almost as soon as it glimmered. How
many families wanted a dog half the size of a Shetland pony? Maybe he
could pay someone to take care of him. But how could he be sure that the
dog would be cared for and not abused? There was no way to check. Six
weeks from now, depending on where Tarrant Enterprises, Ltd., led him,
Jeff might be a hundred or a thousand miles away. He did not know when,
if ever, he would come back. The happy thought that first things must be
first occurred to him.
While the dog looked gravely on, he tilted his bubbling coffee away from
the fire and unwrapped the chicken. The dog licked his lips and riveted
his gaze on the fowl. Jeff grinned. He'd been told that dogs should not
have chicken bones. But unless they were always tied or penned, sooner
or later most dogs found and ate them. At any rate, the dog had to eat
and there wasn't anything except chicken, bread and butter. Jeff sliced
both legs from the chicken and ordered,
"Sit!"
The dog sat; obviously he had had training. When Jeff extended a chicken
leg, the dog took it from him so gently that only his lips touched
Jeff's hand, but when he had the leg in his mouth he tore all the meat
from it with one turn of his jaws. Then he ground the bone to bits and
swallowed that too. Jeff looked at the two bites he had taken from his
own drumstick.
"Hey!" he protested. "Just because you're company, you don't have to
gobble everything in sight!"
He looked determinedly away and took another bite of chicken, but he
felt the dog's appealing eyes on him and turned back again.
"If you could talk," he said resignedly, "you could be sales manager for
Tarrant Enterprises, Ltd. You certainly know how to sell yourself."
Jeff cut a wing, gave it to the dog, and watched in fascination while it
went the way of, and as fast as, the chicken leg. He cut the loaf of
bread into six thick slices, spread an equal amount of butter on each,
and saw the dog gulp five of them. Jeff ate as rapidly as he could; if
he was going to get anything, he had to get it fast. He watched while
the dog ate all the rest of the chicken and cleaned and swallowed the
splintered bones.
"If you're going to be a partner," he observed, "you'd better learn to
pay your own way. I'll go broke just feeding you. Oh, well, we can
always have nice fresh air for breakfast. Now I'm going to work on you,
Pal. You do look sort of wild and woolly and it might help both of us
stay out of trouble if you didn't. Down!"
The dog lay down, eyes glowing happily, and Jeff used gentle fingers to
untangle his fur. Where it was matted too tightly, he cut it off with a
pair of scissors. Separating a hair at a time and using as little
pressure as possible, he worked on the injured right side. Then he took
a brush from his pack and brushed the dog smooth.
When he was finished, the animal still looked huge. His eyes sparked in
the firelight and his flabby jaws loaned him an air of grimness. But his
coat was no longer tangled or burr-matted. He looked forbidding enough
so that it was easy to understand why the two track workers, seeing him
and thinking he was Jeff's, had decided to run. Even though they were
armed with pick handles, anyone at all might well hesitate to make rash
moves around this mammoth creature.
"Now we have to get wood, Pal," Jeff told his new friend. "The nights in
mountain country are apt to be on the cool side."
He cast around for driftwood that the creek had thrown onto its banks
and when he had an armful, he dumped it near the fire. Always the dog
padded beside or behind him, as though fearful he would lose this kind
master should he wander more than a foot from him. Jeff threw some wood
on the fire and a shower of sparks floated into the air. The dog curled
contentedly near when he lay down with his back against the boulder.
Jeff awakened at periodic intervals to throw more wood on the fire, and
in the misty gray of early morning he was aroused by the unmistakable
sound of a freight train making up. He listened intently; it paid to
understand freight trains. He hadn't known how far off Cressman was, but
he knew now. Judging by the sound of the freight train--the railroad
yards must be in Cressman--it was about one mile or twenty minutes' walk
away.
Without getting up, the dog bared his gleaming fangs in a cavernous
yawn. He rose, stretched, came to Jeff for a morning caress, and drank
from the creek. Jeff looked admiringly at him. The dog was one of the
biggest he'd ever seen, but he moved with all the grace of a much
smaller animal. Jeff dipped water, prodded his fire and put fresh coffee
on to brew. The dog looked expectantly at him.
"You ate it all last night," Jeff explained. "There isn't a thing left
unless maybe you like coffee."
The dog sniffed about to lick up splinters of bone and Jeff looked at
his big pocket watch. He lay back against the boulder, pillowing his
head on his hands and blinking into the rising sun.
"Quarter to six," he told his companion. "And we have to time our
arrival in this metropolis almost to the minute. Time waits for no man,
but we'll wait for time."
The freight labored toward them, rumbled over the bridge and sent a
shower of dust and cinder particles down. Sitting a little ways from the
fire, the dog did not even look up. Jeff poured a cup of black coffee,
sipped it, and the dog licked his chops. He was not as hungry as he had
been, for last night's meal was a satisfying one. But he had been so
long without food that he would have eaten had there been anything to
eat.
Jeff still lolled idly against the boulder. Dogs were welcome in some
towns and unwelcome in others, and Jeff had never been to Cressman. But
it was a county seat, there was sure to be a court house, and court
houses opened at nine sharp. Jeff wanted to be there at that time but
not before. If the dog had a license, even though some might protest his
presence, they could do nothing about it as long as he was accompanied
by Jeff.
Finishing his coffee, Jeff poured another cupful, drank it and dozed for
a while. Though he had had a long rest, it was well to sleep while he
could. Often Tarrant Enterprises, Ltd., walked into a situation where
there was no possibility of any rest. At exactly twenty minutes to nine,
with the dog beside him, Jeff started down the tracks.
Cressman, he saw when he entered its outskirts, was a good-sized town
and typical. Neat white houses framed both sides of the street. The
business section would be farther on, and naturally the large building
with a flag pole on top would be the court house. Jeff walked swiftly,
paying no attention to the stares directed at him. He had expected the
dog to arouse notice. The clock over its entrance pointed to nine when
he reached the court house.
The dog close beside him, Jeff entered and turned down a corridor where
a white-lettered black sign indicated that licenses might be had. He
paused beside a grilled window behind which was draped a lank,
black-haired, heavy-eyed, middle-aged clerk who looked as though he had
never been fully awake. Without glancing around, the clerk asked a
weary, "Yes?"
"I want a license."
"What kind?"
"What kinds do you have?"
"Hunting, fishing, marriage, building, auto, dog, store, café--"
"A wide-enough choice. I want a dog license."
Jeff took the yellow form and the pencil that were offered to him and
started to write. He turned the pencil sideways and pressed until the
lead broke. Jeff handed it back.
"This is no good. I'll use one of my own."
His hand stole into the pack and brought forth a mechanical pencil. Not
looking at the clerk, Jeff gave absorbed attention to the yellow form.
Under "sex" he wrote "male." When he came to "age" he looked shrewdly at
the dog and penciled in "3 yrs." "Breed" proved difficult, but not for
very long. Sure that nobody else would know it either, Jeff wrote
"Algerian boar hound." "Name" was simple. Happily Jeff wrote "Pal" and
shoved the slip back through the grill.