wall, his eyes full of fight. They would have to throw him down and beat
him into insensibility. To the end he would cling to his gun, asking no
quarter, making no explanations. And thus they found him--Aunt Cindy
first, then his father and his mother. He glanced sullenly at them and
said nothing.
"Hiding, old man?" asked his father.
At something kind and comradely in the tones he looked up with sudden
hope beyond the belt and the shirt into the clean-cut face and gray,
twinkling eyes bent down upon him.
"No, sir," he said. "I wasn't hidin'."
"Well, who killed Pete?"
His heart began to pound in his ears; the eyes of his father held him;
he had almost owned up; then it came over him, as all such things come,
by inspiration. There stood old Frank, gently wagging his tail. Frank
had nothing to lose; nothing would be done to Frank. Frank's reputation
was spotless; it could stand a stain or two. Eagerly he smiled up into
his father's face.
"F'ank killed him!" he said.
For a moment the air was electric with uncertainty. Then his mother
spoke, her eyes full of pain and reproach.
"Why, dear!"
"Honey, honey!" remonstrated Aunt Cindy, "you know dat dawg----!"
But a quick glance from his father silenced this feminine outburst. "All
right, old scout," said Earle gravely. "Just as you say. We'll go back
to the house now; and we'll see to it that Frank doesn't kill any more
chickens."
Tommy took a deep breath; he could hardly believe his ears. He had
braced himself for fight, prepared himself to defend his assertion, and
now there wasn't going to be any fight at all. At first he thought his
father must have understood and become _particeps_ in the secret with
him and Frank and the gun. Then it dawned on his delighted mind--his
father actually believed what he had said!
He went back to the yard with them, profoundly relieved, as if he were
walking on air. He even had for a moment a virtuous feeling as if Frank
had really killed the rooster, and he had only spoken the truth. Then he
began to feel proud in a secret sort of way. It had been quite a stroke.
He had never experimented sufficiently with this method of getting out
of trouble. It was really quite simple. He would try it again some time.
He had a vague idea that something had hurt his mother, and he was
sorry for that. But she would get over it; he would be unusually loving
to her. Really, all one had to do was to make a statement, and grown
people would swallow it. They were easy marks.
Yet, somehow, though he had won out by superior intelligence, he wasn't
as happy as he should have been. He felt some of the loneliness of
genius. And when in the back yard his father turned and called Frank
sternly to him, he began to fear that the affair might not be so simple
after all.
With growing uneasiness he watched old Frank go to Earle, tail
depressed, eyes troubled. Earle led him to the kennel at the side of the
house and chained him up. Frank sat down on his haunches and looked up
into his master's face.
"Now," said Earle, "I'm going to give you time to think about it. Then
I'm going to wear you out!"
"Pete ate my crumbs, Papa!" cried the boy, the blood rushing to his
face.
His father turned and spoke to him confidentially, as man to man. They
would have to cure Frank, right now, before killing chickens got to be a
habit. They couldn't afford to have a chicken-killing dog on the
place--it was too expensive.
And that was just the beginning of his troubles and complications. Every
afternoon since he could remember, he and his father and Frank had gone
to the pasture to see about the cattle. But now old Frank was chained
up. And when his father asked _him_ to come along, he shook his head. He
didn't want to be alone with his father. He had an idea that it would be
terribly and silently embarrassing down there with no one around but the
two of them.
"I don't want to go," he declared.
"Very well," said Earle, and went off alone, through the lot and into
the corn.
And he got no comfort whatever out of the talk he had with his mother a
little later in the living room, though she smiled at him when he
entered, and put her sewing aside.
Encouraged, he went to her and leaned against her knee; she brushed his
hair back off his forehead, just as she always did.
"What is it, dear?" she asked.
"Papa ain't goin' to whip F'ank, is he, Mama?"
"Why, yes--he has to."
"I tol' F'ank to kill him!"
"But Frank's a grown dog--he knew better."
He grew suddenly angry--angry at her very simplicity.
"F'ank won't kill any more chickens!"
"How do you know?"
"I know!" he cried, and stamped his foot. "I know!"
He came away from this futile interview in a suppressed rage. From the
hall he saw old Aunt Cindy waddling about in the dining room. No use to
appeal to her. She knew too much, anyhow, that old woman. There was in
her nature none of the simple credulity that characterized his parents.
She was worldly wise, like himself.
He avoided her, therefore, his face turned over his shoulder, afraid she
would see and call him. He went out on the front porch, down the steps,
and, gun under his arm, sauntered round the house to the kennel. Old
Frank came to meet him as far as the chain would allow. Frank thought he
was going to be turned loose now--his eyes showed it. There was a log of
wood beside the kennel, and the boy sat down on it. Frank nestled close
to him, tail dragging across the ground.
Suddenly the boy was all attention, and Frank had pricked his ears.
Steve Earle had come from the pasture, gone up the back steps, and into
the room with the boy's mother. Through the open window just above the
kennel he could hear them talking in a confidential sort of way, as
grown folks talk when they think no one is listening.
"Where's the boy?" asked Earle.
"I don't know, Steve--he went out just now."
She was silent a while, then she spoke, with a little laugh that didn't
sound like a laugh:
"Steve--it's pitiful, pitiful!"
"It's drastic, Mother--but it's the best way."
"But, Steve--suppose it doesn't work?"
It was his father who was silent now.
"Then that will be pretty tough, Mother," he said at last.
They talked some more--meaningless grown folks' talk that didn't get
anywhere. It didn't seem to bear even remotely on the essential question
in hand, which was whether or not Frank was to be whipped. They weren't
even interested enough in the matter to speak of it. They just
talked--that was all. They didn't care anything about him and Frank, or
what became of them. They thought more of roosters than of anything
else. They were all against him and Frank and the gun. All right--he and
Frank and the gun would look out for themselves!
Once more his mind filled with visions of a wild life, in which escape
and vengeance were mingled in proper and satisfying proportions. In the
woods beyond the pasture was a cave, which he and Frank could reach
before dark. Then they would ring the farm bell and raise a great
hullabaloo, but he and Frank, safe within the dark cavern, would live
their own lives.
The more he thought of it, the more enticing it became, and his eyes
filled with a caveman's fire. The entrance to the cave was pretty dark
and "snaky"; maybe he would compromise and not go in. But the woods
round about were thick, and there were plenty of hiding places.
He left Frank, and, heart pounding, went round the side of the house,
looking up at the familiar windows high overhead. There came over him a
scorn of the civilized existence these people led, and he wondered that
he had endured it so long. He went quietly up the back steps, peeped
into the kitchen, then entered softly.
Old Aunt Cindy was in the dining room, which was separated from the
kitchen by a passageway. He could hear the rattle of dishes in there as
she set the table for supper. Well, there would be one seat empty this
night, and maybe through a good many nights to come. He got up on a
chair in front of the cupboard and filled his pockets with biscuits.
All excited, he came out of the house, hurried to the kennel, and turned
Frank loose. Frank had caught the contagion. Frank knew there was
something _sub rosa_ about what was going on, and his eyes were glowing.
Likely they would shine like a cat's eyes in the dark cave at night--and
maybe there would be other wild eyes shining in the recesses that led
off here and there and dripped with water!
He hesitated a moment, trying to think of some other spot where they
might run, some spot less suggestive of shining eyes. And while he
hesitated there came steps on the front porch, and around the house,
pipe in mouth, his father sauntered, as fathers have a way of
sauntering, just at the wrong time.
"What're you doing there, Tommy?" he demanded.
The cave and the wild life vanished like a bubble that has burst.
"Pete ate my crumbs, Papa!" he cried.
For a moment his father hesitated, looking down into his eyes as if he
were perplexed and worried and did not know what to do. Then once more
he chained Frank up.
"You mustn't turn him loose again," he said sternly.
"I tol' him to kill Pete! I tol' him to!"
"And he did it?"
The eyes which the boy raised to the man's face were full of fight. He
had said it, and he was going to stick to it. It was no longer only a
matter of saving the gun; it was a question of principle now.
But his father did not press the question. With just a queer look into
the boy's defiant eyes, he turned away and walked across the yard toward
the garage, head bowed. Tommy watched him. No doubt his father thought
he would follow. He had always liked to hang about the garage, he and
Frank, and watch his father tinker with the car. It had been one of the
high lights of their daily life. But now old Frank was chained up--and
as for him, he didn't care anything about automobiles.
Frank had sat down on his haunches, in his fine old eyes, as he watched
his master's retiring form, that disconsolate look of a dog whose
feelings are deeply wounded. A moment Tommy regarded his offended
friend. No use to think of turning him loose again with his father
within hearing. Tommy hardened his heart. All right--so be it--he had
done his part. Things would just have to take their course. Gun under
arm, face set and grim, he walked round the house, and left old Frank to
his fate.
There was a side porch around here, where his mother sometimes sat in
the mornings, but which was deserted the rest of the day. On the step he
took his seat, a solitary little figure, his gun between his knees. Here
he would stay until the beating was over, here where he could not see
it, and could not hear it--very plainly.
He was full to the brim of rebellious thoughts. He wished Pete were
alive so he could shoot him again. He thought of boys he knew whose
parents let them alone, and he envied them their lot in life. Maybe he
would go and live with some of them, go where he would be appreciated.
He would take Frank with him, of course; that went without saying: life
would be a void without Frank.
Yonder was the apple orchard, with the gold of the setting sun glancing
through the tree trunks, and yonder in it was the brush pile where, on
that memorable morning, he and Frank had "almost" caught a rabbit.
Beyond were the woods where another afternoon never to be forgotten
Frank had jumped a red fox bent on mischief, who, his father said, would
have got some chickens that very night if Frank hadn't chased him far
into the distant hills.
Then there was the time down in the creek bottoms when he had sat down
on a log, and Frank had rushed toward him, leaped the log, and jerked
the life out of a big copperhead moccasin coiled just behind him in the
grass. And not very long ago, at the country store up the road, when a
big boy had tried to bully him, Frank had come to his side and growled,
and the boy had backed off, his face white. Frank had always stuck to
him.
His face grew solemn, a lump rose in his throat. He could not sit here
any longer with Frank chained up around yonder waiting a beating. He got
up and started once more around the house. He was just in time to see
his father cross the yard and stop in front of a bush.
He stood where he was, watching with alarmed eyes. When his father
turned he had a switch in his hand. At sight of it the blood rushed to
the boy's face, and every nerve tingled. He had doubted it a little bit
up to this time; now there was no doubt left. His father was going to
whip Frank.
Once at Tom Belcher's store he had seen a man whip a dog. The dog had
writhed rather comically on the ground, and his cries had filled the
air. He himself had stood on the store porch and watched the
performance in a detached, judicial frame of mind. It had been a
spectacle, and nothing more; but this was vastly different. That had
been an old hound, and this was Frank.
That was a big switch his father had cut, and his father was very
strong. It would hurt, hurt even through Frank's long hair, hurt
terribly. Frank would writhe on the ground, Frank's cries would fill the
air. He watched his father's face as Earle came toward him. It was
serious and grim, so serious that it almost hurt. Maybe his father
didn't want to whip Frank; maybe he was doing it because he thought, in
his ignorance and simplicity, that he ought to; maybe his father hated
to do it.
He thought of retreating once more to the side porch where he could not
see, of hurrying beyond it to the orchard and there crying, perhaps. But
he could not do that. Breathing fast, he followed his father, led by the
fascination of horror. Anybody looking at him, unless it was his mother,
would have thought he was going out of curiosity, to see the thing well
done. But there was a humming sound in his ears; the lump was choking
him cruelly; the whole yard was swimming round, and everything looked
strange.
As they drew near the kennel, Frank rose quickly to his feet, his tail
tapping the taut chain, his eyes eager and glowing as he looked from one
friend to another. Frank thought they had come to turn him loose and
give him his supper in his tin plate on the back steps. Then he saw, and
his ears drooped--saw the look on their faces, saw the switch, and he
sank down on his stomach and laid his big head humbly between his paws
at his master's feet.
"Don't!" shrieked the boy. "Papa, Papa, don't!"
In the midst of the whirling yard and barns and things, his father had
turned and looked down at him with strange burning eyes.
"I can't let him kill chickens, son."
It all happened in a flash. He hadn't intended doing any such thing. His
last resolve, even as he came around the house, had been to stick to his
spoken word. But now passionately he threw the air rifle away from him,
and stood looking up at his father with dilated eyes and heaving, sturdy
chest.
"Take the old gun!" he cried. "I don't want it! I killed Pete--F'ank
never done it. I shot him through the head!"
His father had stooped down now, and he was in strong arms. His cheek
was pressed against his father's cheek, and over a broad shoulder,
through a haze of tears, he looked miserably into the red glow of the
setting sun.
"I tol' F'ank to kill him," he sobbed brokenly, "an' he wouldn't. I
drove--drove him off, an' he kept comin' back. I killed him--I shot him
through the head!"
The arms tightened about him, the cheek pressed closer to his cheek.
"That's all right, old man," said his father. "I understand."
Gradually the sobs ceased, for he fought them down like a little man.
And when at last Earle rose, Tommy looked up clear-eyed into his
father's face, as he used to look before he ate of his forbidden fruit.
Then his father went to the gun, picked it up, and came back to him.
"It's yours," he said gently.
For the second time that day Tommy could hardly believe his ears; his
eyes were uncomprehending, for he had never expected to own the gun
again.
"You've earned it," said Earle, with a smile.
Then, within the house, swung lustily by old Aunt Cindy's strong wrist,
the supper bell rang. At the top of the kitchen steps the mother waited
with happy face. And up these steps, the sinking sun shining upon them,
went father and boy and dog together.
III
THE BOLTER
One January afternoon there got off the train at a straggling little
Southern town a massive man past middle age, with a craggy face and
deep-set eyes, and the looks and manner of one with power and wealth.
His name was William Burton, manufacturer of the famous Burton ploughs,
and he could have bought this town out, lock, stock, and barrel, and the
county in which the town sat, and a very considerable portion of the
state itself. What he had come to buy, though, was a dog.
During the trip down, in his stateroom, instead of examining financial
reports or reading the latest magazines, old Burton had studied, with
the aid of his spectacles and of Ferris, his professional dog handler,
the pedigree of a young pointer that lived in this town. He had noted
how at recurrent intervals in the family tree occurred the word
Champion. Already, in the years since he entered, as a hobby, the
field-trial game, he had bought, at the recommendation of handlers, some
hundreds of bird dogs. All of them had been disappointments. Now he had
taken the matter into his own hands. Usually when he took charge of a
thing, that thing succeeded.
A lazy Negro at the dreary railroad station showed him and Ferris the
way to Jim Arnold's place--a neat, modest cottage on the edge of the
town from whose back yard, as they approached, came a challenging bark.
A telegram had preceded them, and Jim Arnold himself, veteran bird-dog
trainer, owner of the young pointer, came out to meet them, hobbling
painfully on a stick.
Ferris could have explained the hobble and the stick. It's the kind of
thing you see now and then among field-trial men. Earlier in the season,
while running in a field trial the very dog who had brought the visitors
here, his horse had fallen, crushing Arnold's knee. Jim Arnold could
never ride a horse again. Consequently, Jim Arnold could never again run
a dog in a National Championship race.
With the crippled man came his daughter Jessie, a slim, dark-eyed girl,
pretty in a serious sort of way. Burton was hardly conscious of her, but
Ferris respectfully raised his hat. Dog men knew Jessie Arnold because
she sometimes rode with her father and helped him handle. She had been
with him when his knee was crushed, and had held his head in her lap
till the doctor came.
After the briefest of greetings the three men, followed by the girl,
went around to the rear yard. Here, in a lot enclosed by a high wire
fence, wagging his tail like any other dog, was the National
Championship hope.
Great dogs, like great men, do not always look the part. This one did.
He was a big white fellow, his ears and a portion of his head liver
brown. His head was nobly carved, his back long and straight, his legs
rangy, clean-cut, his tail thin, like a lance; he was all a pointer of
the highest breeding ought to be. But to the man who knows dogs there
was in his eyes something wild, headstrong, untamed, the kind of thing
you see in the eyes of young aviators.
"Let him out, Jess," said Arnold.
The girl opened the gate and he sprang out. He ran eagerly around the
yard, inspecting the familiar premises to see if there had been any
other dog there recently. Every motion showed unbounded power, as if the
yard, and even the town itself, were too small for him. Not until Arnold
called him twice, and severely, did he come to them. But he had no
attention to bestow upon his distinguished visitor. His eyes sought
first his master's face, then the face of the girl. There they rested a
moment in adoration. Then he reared gently up against her, ears thrown
back, upraised eyes affectionately searching her face.
Old Burton had been looking on with impassive countenance. But from the
moment his eyes rested on this dog he wanted him. His hunch told him
that here was a champion, and he went by hunches. He looked at Ferris,
quickly, significantly. Ferris nodded in a way which indicated that he
would like to speak in private. Millionaire and handler withdrew a few
steps from father and daughter and dog.
"I don't like that look in his eyes!" whispered Ferris vehemently.
"I do!" said old Burton.
In Arnold's little over-furnished parlour the business was transacted.
But neither the young pointer out there, nor the girl who remained with
him, were to know anything about it. So far as the dog was concerned,
man, his master and god, moves in mysterious ways. As for the girl, it
was her father who requested that the trade be kept a secret from her.
"She sets a lot of store by Drake," he explained. "She picked him out
from the litter when he was a pup. She's fed him and raised him. People
are always comin' to see him. She thinks that's the reason you
come--just to look at him."
Burton glanced at the crippled trainer with slightly hardened eyes. He
resented this intrusion of the human element into a deal, particularly
when that human element was a girl. It has a way of breaking things up.
However, for a while, things went smoothly, though the conversation was
carried on in lowered tones. Three thousand was the price agreed upon.
It was a good price for Arnold to get if the dog did not win the
championship. It was a poor price if he did.
For to own a national champion means a steady income from his puppies.
It brings fame to the owner and to the trainer. He has trained one
champion--maybe he can train another. Men send him their dogs; his price
goes up, like that of the teacher who had turned out a prima donna. To
own and train a national champion may put a man like Arnold on the map.
And now he was gambling with the chance. His face showed the strain he
was under. However, it was he who set the price. But when Burton,
thinking the matter closed, got out his check book, again the crippled
trainer introduced the element of mystery.
"One minute, sir," he said. "There's something I ought to tell you. I'm
sellin' Drake because I can't afford to take chances on his winnin'. But
I want him to win, sir, just the same as if he was goin' to be mine."
"Well?" said Burton.
"There's one thing goin' to stand in his way. After this year I think
he'll settle down. But right now, I'll be honest with you, Drake's a
bolter. You know what a bolter is, I guess. He's a dog that won't keep
in the course, that will run away. Drake's one of 'em. When you turn him
loose in the field he forgets there's such things as human bein's on
this planet. Don't I know him? I won the Southern Championship with him.
I managed to keep up and hold him in. But I come mighty nigh ridin' a
horse to death. Here's the price I paid myself, sir," and he tenderly
felt his warped and shattered knee, "paid it the last five minutes of
the race."
Burton was silent. Arnold went on:
"There's two people in the world Drake will listen to: One's me an' the
other's Jessie. I can't run him, I'm stove up. Jess is expectin' to run
him. If she does, he may win. If she don't, he won't win. I tell you, I
know. I know that dog inside and out. Nobody but me or the girl can stop
him when he gets started. He'll hunt where he darn pleases, or he'll
strike a bee line for the next state. You know what that means, Mr.
Burton. If you don't, Ferris does. The judges will rule him out."
But old Burton wanted that big young pointer though there were a _score_
of wild devils in him. He wanted him worse than ever now he had heard.
He had been a bolter himself when young--had run away from home. He
liked bolters. But, also, he wanted to win the championship.
"Let the girl run him, then," he said. "Suits me. I'll pay her, and pay
her well. If the dog wins, she'll get the stake."
Arnold flushed. "She'll run the dog, sir; but not for you. I mean, she
won't run him if she knows it's for you. She's a high-strung girl--and
proud; she mustn't know a thing about this deal. She must think she's
runnin' her dog an' mine."
"Then you mean to deceive her in the matter?" demanded Burton.