never a home-coming of the children that he, as well as Tom, was not at
the station to meet them; never a choice bit on the table after
Thanksgiving and Christmas but that a portion of it was laid aside for
his plate.
And so his days and years passed and Mac grew old--not feeble, but a bit
slow and a little doting, as old setters become. He would lay his head
on Tom's knee and, unless Tom moved or pushed him away, keep it there
for hours. The same was true of Martha; sometimes when she was churning
he would stay until the butter came. It was as if he knew he didn't have
very much longer to abide.
Then Frank Jennings came home, a doctor, with his degree. That was in
the fall, just before bird season. Because of the deficiencies of his
early education he had had to spend the summer making up certain courses
in biology.
He was now a fine, tall, grave young fellow of twenty-eight; even
handsome and distinguished. His ambition, he told his father, was to be
a surgeon in children's deformities. To this end he hoped to get an
appointment as assistant to a certain surgeon, the most famous
children's surgeon in the world.
Frank was a quiet fellow; "hoped" was the word he used, but the father
knew it was more than hope--it was ardent desire. He thought maybe he
had attracted some attention, Frank said, and that his work had reached
the ears of the surgeon. If he could get the appointment he felt that
his future was secure.
"What do you want to be a child's surgeon for?" asked the father. "To
make money?"
Frank looked at him quietly and shook his head, and that was all they
said.
He left soon after that. Tom drove him to the station, the blind dog
sitting in the foot of the buggy.
"Don't you and Mother let your hopes get too high," warned the young
man. "There'll be a hundred applicants besides myself. I'll telegraph
the result."
A few days afterward bird season opened and Tom Jennings and Mac set off
after dinner. There had been three or four days of heavy rains but now
the weather had cleared. It was a silent, gorgeous afternoon, high
colours everywhere, gold in the sky and in the frosty air.
As he walked along Tom was thinking of his boy and of his girls; for if
Mac was growing a bit doting, so, perhaps, was he. Before him old Mac,
head high, circled slowly, with ever-wagging tail. Suddenly, not very
far from the river, he stopped, and his tail stiffened.
"Comin', ol' boy," said Tom.
The birds rose and the gun barked twice. One bird tumbled dead. The
other, only winged, recovered itself and, fluttering across the field,
came down near the bank of the river. Mac brought the dead bird, and Tom
Jennings, stooping first to pat his head, dropped it in his pocket. Then
they went on after the wounded one, which had come down near the river.
Even now Tom was thinking in a mooning sort of way of his children.
The river made a sharp curve inward near the point where the bird had
gone down. Then, forming the remainder of a letter S, it swept out again
and around a curve. Below this curve it tumbled over extensive and
dangerous shoals of rock. The rains had swollen it. And now the roar
from these shoals filled the air.
It was this roar, together with a chance feather that had got into the
whistle, that drowned out the frantic signal Tom Jennings tried to give.
For ahead of him a terrible thing was about to happen. The wounded bird,
frightened at the approach of the dog, rose, fluttered along the ground
toward the river, and stopped near the shore. And old Mac, his nose
telling him exactly what had occurred, was following with wagging tail
and pricked ears--following toward that sharp inward curve of the river,
where the banks had caved in and were very steep, and where the current
below made a sudden swerve, then swept outward again.
Again, after shaking it, Tom tried to blow his whistle; but the feather
had not been dislodged and the roar drowned out the muffled sound.
"Mac!" he yelled. "Mac! Come in!"
But the old fellow must not have heard. For Tom, hurrying along, his
face crimson, saw the bird rise once more and flutter over the
brink--and then, over the same brink, went Mac.
At first, when the man reached the river, he gave a gasp of relief. Mac
was swimming smoothly toward the bird which had floated into an eddy.
Maybe he would recover it there, and would not get caught in the
current.
Only for a moment, though, did the hope last. The bird began to float
more and more swiftly, and old Mac to swim more swiftly. Then the
current caught them, swept them far out and, with ever-increasing speed,
around the curve.
Tom Jennings's heart must have improved during these years of
comparative rest. Certainly he forgot that he had one now. By cutting
across the bottoms he could reach the next inward bulge of the river,
where it tumbled over the shoals. Even as he ran, in the hope that
someone would hear, he shouted:
"Help! Help here! Help!"
But the roar of the shoals filled the air, and the lofty, richly
foliaged trees rose above him as in scorn. Out of breath, he reached the
rocks and looked out over the foaming and tumbling waters. Then he made
Mac out, way out there. He was trying to crawl up on a rock, like a
white seal, and in his mouth he held something.
But only his paws caught hold. Then he slipped. Then he was lost from
sight, and appeared again, and was lost again. And Tom knew--he was
being beaten to death against those rocks.
Below the shoals was a deep pool, with eddies; and here at last Tom,
standing on the shore, saw him right himself and come swimming slowly,
his head almost submerged, toward the shore.
"Mac!" cried the man. "Here I am! Here I am, Mac!"
He came on, and at last, Tom, lying flat on a rock and reaching down,
caught first the back of the neck, then the paws, and pulled him out. As
he did so old Mac gave a little cry and, once out, staggered, fell on
his side.
Then Tom saw that in his mouth he held the bird and that it was the last
bird he would ever retrieve; for it was his own blood, not the bird's,
that oozed from his mouth.
He was sitting with the dog's head in his lap when the boy who worked
around the railroad station at Breton Junction found him.
"Got a telegram for you," he cried. "I went by the house an' there
wasn't anybody at home. I heard you shoot just now and come to find you.
Is the dog hurt much?"
"Run to the house," cried Tom. "Tell one of them men to fetch a wagon
quick. Tell him to put a mattress and spring on it. Quick, son--quick.
Tell 'em they can drive across the fields. Bring 'em yourself."
The lad's face went white. He turned and began to run. The wagon came in
a short time. Old Mac was lifted and placed on the mattress. By the
easiest route they could pick they drove him home. They sent in haste to
Breton Junction for a doctor--not a dog doctor but a people's doctor.
But one of the rocks against which he had been hurled had driven a rib
into old Mac's side. And at eleven o'clock that night, almost at the
hour when the hand of God had smitten him, and in the parlour itself,
blind Mac, at a call of his name by his master, tapped the floor with
his tail for the last time.
It was an hour later that Martha discovered the telegram in the pocket
of her husband's hunting coat, which he had thrown over a chair; and
there in the presence of the body they opened it and read:
Got the appointment. Love to you and Mother and old Mac.
(signed) FRANK.
It was Tom Jennings who had the stone put up, where it stands now at the
head of the grave, in the edge of the garden. It was Tom who had the
words put on--with the help of a sympathetic carver who knew old Mac's
story as nearly everybody in the country knew it.
TO THE MEMORY OF MAC
A SETTER DOG
WHO, BLIND FROM AN EARLY AGE,
YET DID HIS WORK IN THE WORLD
FAITHFULLY AND CHEERFULLY
THE WORLD IS BETTER BECAUSE HE LIVED.
VI
COMET
No puppy ever came into the world under more favourable auspices than
Comet. He was descended from a famous line of pointers. Both his father
and mother were champions. Before he opened his eyes and while he was
crawling about over his brothers and sisters, blind as puppies are at
birth, Jim Thompson, Mr. Devant's kennel master, picked him out.
"I believe that's the best 'un in the bunch," he said.
On the day the puppies opened their eyes and first gazed with wonder at
this world into which they had been cast, Jim stooped down and snapped
his fingers. There was a general scampering back to the protection of
the mother by all but one. That was Comet. Even then he toddled toward
the smiling man, in a groggy way, wagging his miniature tail.
At the age of one month he pointed a butterfly that lit in the kennel
yard.
"Come here, Janie," yelled the delighted Thompson who saw it.
"Pointed--the damn little cuss!"
When Jim started taking the growing pups out of the yard and into the
fields to the side of Devant's great Southern winter home, Oak Hill, it
was Comet who strayed farthest from the man's protecting care. While at
sight of a tree stump or a cow or some other monstrous object his
brothers and sisters would scamper back to the man, Comet would venture
toward it, provided it were not too far, to see what it was. If a cow he
would bark, anxious little yelps, to show how brave he was. Then he
would turn and run back--but not until he had first barked.
Over and over Jim, speaking of him to his wife--they looked after Oak
Hill in the summer--would say with conviction:
"He's goin' to make a great dog!"
It looked as if Jim's prophecy would be fulfilled. Comet grew to be
handsomer than his brothers and sisters. When Jim taught them to follow
when he said "Heel!" to drop when he said "Drop!" and to stand stock
still when he said "Ho!" Comet learned more quickly than the others. In
everything he was favoured, even in temperament. Now and then he
quarrelled with his brothers, who grew jealous of him, and sometimes the
quarrel ended in a fight. But the fight over, he never sulked even if he
were beaten, but was a loving brother two minutes afterward.
His height he gained quickly, like tall beanpole boys, and though big,
his bones were shapely, and the muscles began to stand out on his lank,
handsome body. At six months he was a stripling youth, two thirds pup,
one third grown dog. Though he still romped with the others, it was
plain to the practised eye that he was different. Sometimes he lay in
the shade a long time and thoughtfully gazed into the distance, dreaming
as serious-minded youths dream the world over. But all Comet's dreams
were centred in fields of broomstraw where birds lay hid and in the
thrillings his nose told him there.
At six months he set his first covey of quail, and though he was
trembling with the excited joy of one who knows he has found his life's
work, still he remained staunch several minutes. And though when the
birds flushed he chased them, he came quickly and obediently back at
Jim's command.
Everything--size, contour, nose, muscle, intelligence, spirit--pointed
to a great dog. Yes--Comet was one of the favoured of the gods.
One day after the leaves had turned red and brown and the mornings grown
chilly and pungent, a crowd of people, strangers to Comet, came to the
big house at Oak Hill. With them were automobiles, trunks, horses. All
this was tremendously exciting, and with noses pressed against the
chicken wire of their yard Comet and his brothers and sisters watched
these goings-on.
Then out of the house with Thompson came a big man in tweeds, and the
two walked straight to the curious young dogs who were watching them
with shining eyes and wagging tails.
"Well, Thompson," said the big man, "which is the future champion you've
been writing me about?"
"Pick him out yourself, sir," said Thompson.
They talked a long time, planning the future of Comet. His yard training
was over--Thompson was only yard trainer--and he must be sent to a man
experienced in training and handling for field trials. His grade-school
days were past. He must go off to college. He must be prepared for the
thrilling life of the field-trial dog.
"Larsen's the man to bring him out," said the big man in tweeds, who was
George Devant himself. "I saw his dogs work in the Canadian Derbies. I
like his methods."
Thompson spoke hesitatingly, as if he disliked to bring the matter up.
"Mr. Devant--you remember, sir, a long time ago Larsen sued us for old
Ben, saying the dog was his by rights?"
"Yes, Thompson, I remember--now you speak of it."
"Well, you remember the court decided against him, which was the only
thing it could do, for Larsen didn't have any more right to that dog
than the Sultan of Turkey. But, Mr. Devant, I was there. I saw Larsen's
face, sir, when the case went against him."
Devant looked keenly at Thompson.
"Another thing, Mr. Devant," Thompson went on, still hesitatingly.
"Larsen had a chance to get hold of this breed of pointers. He lost out
because he dickered too long and acted cheesy. Now they've turned out to
be famous. Some men never forget a thing like that, sir. Larsen's been
talking these pointers down ever since. At least, that's what folks tell
me. He's staked his reputation on his own breed of dogs. Calls 'em the
Larsen strain."
"Go on," said Devant.
"I know Larsen's a good trainer. But it'll mean a long trip for the
young dog. It'll be hard to keep in touch with him, too. Now there's an
old trainer lives near here, old Wade Swygert. Used to train dogs in
England. He's been out of the game a long time--rheumatism. He wants to
get back in. He's all right now. I know he never made a big name, but
there never was a straighter man than him. He's had bad luck----"
Devant smiled. "Thompson, I admire your loyalty to your friends, but I
don't think much of your judgment. We'll turn some of the other puppies
over to Swygert if he wants them, but Comet must have the best. I'll
write Larsen to-night. To-morrow, crate Comet and send him off."
Just as no dog ever came into the world under more favourable auspices,
so no dog ever had a bigger "send-off" than Comet. Even the ladies in
the house came out to exclaim over him, and Marian Devant, pretty,
eighteen, and a sportswoman, stooped down, caught his head between her
hands, looked into his fine eyes, and wished him "Good luck, old man."
In the living room men laughingly drank toasts to his future, and from
the high-columned front porch Marian Devant waved him good-bye as he was
driven off to the station, a bewildered young dog in a padded crate.
Two days and two nights he travelled. At noon of the third, at a dreary
railroad station in a vast prairie country, he was lifted, crate and
all, off the train. A man, tall, lean, pale-eyed, came down the platform
toward him.
"Some beauty here, Mr. Larsen," said the station agent.
"Yes," drawled Larsen in a meditative, sanctimonious voice. "Pretty to
the eye, but he looks scared--er--timid."
"Of course he's scared!" protested the agent. "So would you be if I was
to put you in some kind of whale of a balloon and ship you off to Mars."
The station agent poked his hand through the slats and stroked the young
dog's head. Comet was grateful, for everything was strange. He had not
whined or complained on the trip--but his heart had pounded fast and he
had been homesick and bewildered.
And everything continued to be strange: the treeless country through
which he was driven, a country of vast swells, like a motionless sea;
the bald house, the group of huge red barns where he was lifted out and
the crate door opened; the dogs, setters and pointers, who crowded about
him when he was turned into the kennel yard.
They eyed him with enmity, these dogs; they walked round and round him
with stiffened tails; but he stood his ground staunchly for a youngster,
returning fierce look for fierce look, growl for growl, until Larsen
called him sharply and chained him to his own kennel.
He wagged his tail, eager for friendship, as the man stooped to do so.
He pushed his nose against the man's knee, but receiving no word of
encouragement, he crawled with dignity into his box. There he lay,
panting with the strangeness of it all, and wondering.
"One of George Devant's pointers," drawled Larsen to his assistant.
"Pretty to look at but--er--timid about the eyes. I never did think much
of that breed."
For days Comet remained chained to the kennel, a stranger in a strange
land. A hundred times at the click of the gate announcing Larsen's
entrance he sprang to his feet and stared hungrily at the man for the
light he was accustomed to see in human eyes. But with just a glance at
him, Larsen always turned one or more of the other dogs loose and rode
off to train them.
This he could not understand. Yet he was not without friends of his own
kind. He alone was chained up; and now and then another young dog
strolled his way with wagging tail and lay down near by, in that strange
bond of sympathy which is not confined to man. At these times Comet's
spirit returned; he would want to play, for he was still half puppy.
Sometimes he picked up a stick, shook it, and his partner caught the
other end. So they tugged and growled in mock ferocity, then lay down
and looked at each other curiously.
Had any attention been paid him by Larsen, Comet would have gotten over
his homesickness. He was no milksop. He was like an overgrown boy off at
college, or in some foreign city, sensitive, not sure of himself or his
place in the order of things. Had Larsen gained his confidence, it would
all have been different. And as for Larsen, he knew that perfectly well.
One brisk sunny afternoon Larsen entered the yard, came straight to him,
and turned him loose. So great was his joy at freedom that he did not
see the shrewd light in the man's eyes. In the exuberance of his spirit
he ran round and round the yard barking into the faces of his friends.
Larsen let him out of the yard, mounted his horse, and commanded him to
heel. He obeyed with wagging tail.
A mile or two down the road Larsen turned into the fields. Across his
saddle was something the young pointer had had no experience with--a
gun. That part of his education Thompson had neglected, or at least
postponed, for he had not expected that Comet would be sent away so
soon. That was where Thompson had made a mistake.
At the command "Hie on!" the young pointer ran eagerly around the horse,
looking up into the man's face to be sure he had heard aright. Something
he saw there made him momentarily droop his ears and tail. Again there
came over him the feeling of strangeness, of homesickness, mingled this
time with dismay. Larsen's eyes were slits of blue glass. His mouth was
set in a thin line.
Had Comet seen a different expression, had he received a single word of
encouragement, there would have been no calamity that day. If he had
trusted the man, he would have withstood the shock his nerves were about
to receive. But he did not trust this pale man with the strange eyes and
the hard-set mouth.
At a second command, though, he galloped swiftly, boldly into the field.
Once he turned for direction and Larsen waved him on. Round and round
the extensive field he circled, forgetting any feeling of strangeness,
every fibre of his being intent on the hunt. Larsen, from his horse,
watched with appraising eyes.
Suddenly to the young dog's nose came the smell, strong, pungent,
compelling, of game birds. He stiffened into an earnest beautiful point.
Heretofore, in the little training he had gone through, Thompson had
come up behind him, flushed the birds and made him drop. And now Larsen,
having quickly dismounted and tied his horse, hurried toward him as
Thompson had done--except that in Larsen's hand was the gun.
The old-fashioned black powder of a generation ago makes a loud
explosion. It sounds like a cannon compared with the modern smokeless
powder used for almost a generation by nearly all hunters. Perhaps it
was merely accident that had caused Larsen before he left the house to
load his pump gun with black-powder shells.
As for Comet, he only knew that the birds rose with a whirr, and that
then, above his head, burst an awful roar, almost splitting his ear
drums, shocking every sensitive nerve, filling him with terror such as
he had never felt before. Even then in the confusion and horror of the
noise he turned to the man, ears ringing, eyes dilated. As for Larsen,
he declared afterward, to others and to himself even, that he noticed
no nervousness in the dog, that he was intent only on getting several
birds for breakfast.
Twice, three times, four times the pump gun bellowed its cannon-like
roar, piercing the ear drums, shattering the nerves. Comet turned. One
more glance backward at a face, pale, exultant. Then the puppy in him
conquered. Tail tucked, he ran away from that blasting noise.
There is this in fear, that once man or dog turns, fear increases.
Witness the panic of armies, of theatre audiences when the cry of fire
is given. Faster and faster from that terror that seemed following him
Comet sped. Miles and miles he ran. Now and then, stumbling over briars,
he yelped. His tail was tucked, his eyes crazy with fear. Seeing a
farmhouse, he made for that. It was noon hour and a group of men
loitered about the yard. With the cry "Mad dog!" one ran into the house
for a gun. When he came out the others told him that the dog was under
the porch, and must only have had a fit. And under the porch, in fact,
was Comet. Pressed against the wall in the comparative darkness, the
magnificent pointer with the quivering soul waited, panting, eyes
gleaming, horror still ringing in his ears.
Here Larsen found him that afternoon. A boy crawled underneath and
dragged him forth. He who had started life favoured of the gods, who
that morning had been full of high spirit and pride, who had circled
his first field like a champion, was a shrinking, cringing creature,
like a homeless cur.
The men laughed at the spectacle he made. To many people a gun-shy dog
is, in his terror, a sight for mirth. Perhaps he is. Certainly he is as
much so as a dog with a can tied to his tail. But some day neither sight
will be funny to any human soul.
As for Larsen, he kept repeating in sanctimonious tones that he had
never been more astonished in his life, though to tell the truth he had
never thought much of this breed of pointers. He was very sorry, he
said, very sorry. But any one, peering at him from the bushes as he rode
home, a dog with tucked tail at his horse's heels, would have seen a
shrewd smile on his face.
And thus it happened that Comet came home in disgrace--a coward expelled
from college, not for some youthful prank, but because he was yellow.
And he knew he was disgraced. He saw it in the face of the big man
Devant, who looked at him in the yard where he had spent his happy
puppyhood, then turned away. He knew it because of what he saw in the
face of Jim Thompson.
In the house was a long plausible letter, explaining how it had
happened. "I did everything I could. I never was as much surprised in my
life. The dog is hopeless."
As for the other inhabitants of the big house, their minds were full of
the events of the season--de-luxe hunting parties, more society events
than hunts; lunches served in the woods by uniformed butlers; launch
rides up the river; arriving and departing guests. Only one of them
except Devant gave the gun-shy dog a thought. Marian Devant visited him
in his disgrace. She stooped before him as she had done on that other
and happier day, and caught his head between her hands. But his eyes did
not meet hers, for in his dim way he knew he was not now what he had
been.
"I don't believe he's yellow--inside!" she declared and looked at
Thompson.
Thompson shook his head. "I tried him with a gun, Miss Marian. Just
showed it to him. He ran into his kennel."
"I'll go get mine. I don't believe he will run again."
But at sight of her small gun it all came back. Again he seemed to hear
the explosion that had shattered his nerves. The terror had entered his
soul. In spite of her pleading he made for his kennel. Even the girl
turned away. And as he lay panting in the shelter of his box he knew
that never again would men look at him as they had looked, nor life be
sweet to him as it had been.
Then came to Oak Hill an old man to see Thompson. He had been on many
seas, had fought in a dozen wars, and had settled at last on a truck
farm near by. Somewhere in a life full of adventure and odd jobs he had
trained dogs and horses. His face was lined, his hair white, his eyes
piercing, blue, and kind. Wade Swygert was his name.
"I'll take him if you're goin' to give him away," he said to Thompson.
Give him away--who had been championship hope!