appraisingly.
"Can you cure him?" she demanded.
"I doubt it," was the sturdy answer.
"You will try?"
"I'll try."
"Then you can have him. And if there's any expense----"
"Come, Comet," said the old man.
That night, in a neat, humble house, Comet ate supper placed before him
by a stout old woman, who had followed this old man to the ends of the
world. That night he slept before their fire. Next day he followed the
man all about the place. Several days and nights passed this way, then,
while he lay before the fire, old Swygert came in with a gun. At sight
of it Comet sprang to his feet. He tried to rush out of the room, but
the doors were closed. Finally, he crawled under the bed.
Every night after that Swygert got out the gun, until he crawled under
the bed no more. Finally, one day the man fastened the dog to a tree in
the yard, then came out with a gun. A sparrow lit in a tree, and he shot
it. Comet tried to break the rope. All his panic had returned, but the
report had not shattered him as that other did, for the gun was loaded
light.
After that, frequently the old man shot a bird in his sight, loading the
gun more and more heavily, and each time, after the shot, coming to him,
showing him the bird, and speaking to him kindly, gently. But for all
that the terror remained in his heart.
One afternoon Marian Devant, a young man with her, rode over on
horseback. Swygert met her at the gate.
"I don't know," he said, "whether I'm getting anywhere or not."
"I don't believe he's yellow. Not deep down. Do you?"
"No," said Swygert. "Just his ears, I think. They've been jolted beyond
what's common. I don't know how. The spirit is willin', but the ears are
weak. I might deefen him. Punch 'em with a knife----"
"That would be running away!" said the girl.
Swygert looked at her keenly, on his face the approbation of an old man
who has seen much.
That night Mrs. Swygert told him she thought he had better give it up.
It wasn't worth the time and worry. The dog was just yellow.
Swygert pondered a long time. "When I was a kid," he said at last,
"there came up a terrible thunderstorm. It was in South America. I was
water boy for a railroad gang, and the storm drove us in a shack. While
lightnin' was hittin' all around, one of the grown men told me it always
picked out boys with red hair. My hair was red, an' I was little and
ignorant. For years I was skeered of lightnin'. I never have quite got
over it. But no man ever said I was yellow."
Again he was silent for a while. Then he went on: "I don't seem to be
makin' much headway, I admit that. I'm lettin' him run away as far as he
can. Now I've got to shoot an' make him come toward the gun himself,
right while I'm shootin' it."
Next day Comet was tied up and fasted, and the next, until he was gaunt
and famished. Then, on the afternoon of the third day, Mrs. Swygert, at
her husband's direction, placed before him, within reach of his chain,
some raw beefsteak. As he started for it, Swygert shot. He drew back,
panting, then, hunger getting the better of him, started again. Again
Swygert shot.
After that for days Comet "ate to music," as Swygert expressed it.
"Now," he said, "he's got to come toward the gun when he's not even tied
up."
Not far from Swygert's house is a small pond, and on one side the banks
are perpendicular. Toward this pond the old man, with the gun under his
arm and the dog following, went. Here in the silence of the woods, with
just the two of them together, was to be a final test.
On the shelving bank Swygert picked up a stick and tossed it into the
middle of the pond with the command to "fetch." Comet sprang eagerly in
and retrieved it. Twice this was repeated. But the third time, as the
dog approached the shore, Swygert picked up the gun and fired.
Quickly the dog dropped the stick, then turned and swam toward the other
shore. Here, so precipitous were the banks, he could not get a foothold.
He turned once more and struck out diagonally across the pond. Swygert
met him and fired.
Over and over it happened. Each time, after he fired, the old man
stooped down with extended hand and begged him to come on. His face was
grim, and though the day was cool sweat stood out on his brow. "You'll
face the music," he said, "or you'll drown. Better be dead than called
yellow."
The dog was growing weary. His head was barely above water. His efforts
to clamber up the opposite bank were feeble, frantic. Yet, each time as
he drew near the shore Swygert fired.
He was not using light loads now. He was using the regular load of the
bird hunter. Time had passed for temporizing. The sweat was standing out
all over his face. The sternness in his eyes was terrible to see, for
it was the sternness of a man who is suffering.
A dog can swim a long time. The sun dropped over the trees. Still the
firing went on, regularly, like a minute gun.
Just before the sun set an exhausted dog staggered toward an old man,
almost as exhausted as he. The dog had been too near death and was too
faint to care for the gun that was being fired over his head. On and on
he came, toward the man, disregarding the noise of the gun. It would not
hurt him, that he knew at last. He might have many enemies, but the gun,
in the hands of this man, was not one of them. Suddenly old Swygert sank
down and took the dripping dog in his arms.
"Old boy," he said, "old boy."
That night Comet lay before the fire, and looked straight into the eyes
of a man, as he used to look in the old days.
Next season, Larsen, glancing over his sporting papers, was astonished
to see that among promising Derbys the fall trials had called forth was
a pointer named Comet. He would have thought it some other dog than the
one who had disappointed him so by turning out gun-shy, in spite of all
his efforts to prevent, had it not been for the fact that the entry was
booked as Comet; owner, Miss Marian Devant; handler, Wade Swygert.
Next year he was still more astonished to see in the same paper that
Comet, handled by Swygert, had won first place in a Western trial, and
was prominently spoken of as a National Championship possibility. As for
him, he had no young entries to offer, but was staking everything on the
National Championship, where he was to enter Larsen's Peerless II.
It was strange how things fell out--but things have a habit of turning
out strangely in field trials, as well as elsewhere. When Larsen reached
Breton Junction where the National Championship was to be run, there on
the street, straining at the leash held by old Swygert, whom he used to
know, was a seasoned young pointer, with a white body, a brown head, and
a brown saddle spot--the same pointer he had seen two years before turn
tail and run in that terror a dog never quite overcomes.
But the strangest thing of all happened that night at the drawing, when,
according to the slips taken at random from a hat, it was declared that
on the following Wednesday, Comet, the pointer, was to run with Peerless
II.
It gave Larsen a strange thrill, this announcement.
He left the meeting and went straightway to his room. There for a long
time he sat pondering. Next day at a hardware store he bought some black
powder and some shells.
The race was to be run next day, and that night in his room he loaded
half-a-dozen shells. It would have been a study in faces to watch him
as he bent over his work, on his lips a smile. Into the shells he packed
all the powder they could stand, all the powder his trusted gun could
stand, without bursting. It was a load big enough to kill a bear, to
bring down a buffalo. It was a load that would echo and reecho in the
hills.
On the morning that Larsen walked out in front of the judges and the
field, Peerless II at the leash, old Swygert with Comet at his side, he
glanced around at the "field," or spectators. Among them was a handsome
young woman and with her, to his amazement, George Devant. He could not
help chuckling inside himself as he thought of what would happen that
day, for once a gun-shy dog, always a gun-shy dog--that was _his_
experience.
As for Comet, he faced the strawfields eagerly, confidently, already a
veteran. Long ago fear of the gun had left him, for the most part. There
were times, when at a report above his head, he still trembled and the
shocked nerves in his ear gave a twinge like that of a bad tooth. But
always at the quiet voice of the old man, his god, he grew steady, and
remained staunch.
Some disturbing memory did start within him to-day as he glanced at the
man with the other dog. It seemed to him as if in another and an evil
world he had seen that face. His heart began to pound fast and his tail
drooped for a moment. Within an hour it was all to come back to
him--the terror, the panic, the agony of that far-away time.
He looked up at old Swygert, who was his god, and to whom his soul
belonged, though he was booked as the property of Miss Marian Devant. Of
the arrangements he could know nothing, being a dog. Old Swygert, having
cured him, could not meet the expenses of taking him to field trials.
The girl had come to the old man's assistance, an assistance which he
had accepted only under condition that the dog should be entered as
hers, with himself as handler.
"Are you ready, gentlemen?" the judges asked.
"Ready," said Larsen and old Swygert.
And Comet and Peerless II were speeding away across that field, and
behind them came handlers and judges and spectators, all mounted.
It was a race people still talk about, and for a reason, for strange
things happened that day. At first there was nothing unusual. It was
like any other field trial. Comet found birds and Swygert, his handler,
flushed them and shot. Comet remained steady. Then Peerless II found a
covey and Larsen flushed them and shot. And so for an hour it went.
Then Comet disappeared, and old Swygert, riding hard and looking for
him, went out of sight over a hill. But Comet had not gone far. As a
matter of fact, he was near by, hidden in some high straw, pointing a
covey of birds. One of the spectators spied him, and called the judges'
attention to him. Everybody, including Larsen, rode up to him, but still
Swygert had not come back.
They called him, but the old man was a little deaf. Some of the men rode
to the top of the hill but could not see him. In his zeal, he had got a
considerable distance away. Meanwhile, here was his dog, pointed.
If any one had looked at Larsen's face he would have seen the exultation
there, for now his chance had come--the very chance he had been looking
for. It's a courtesy one handler sometimes extends another who is absent
from the spot, to go in and flush his dog's birds.
"I'll handle this covey for Mr. Swygert," said Larsen to the judges, his
voice smooth and plausible, on his face a smile.
And thus it happened that Comet faced his supreme ordeal without the
steadying voice of his god. He only knew that ahead of him were birds,
and that behind him a man was coming through the straw, and that behind
the man a crowd of people on horseback were watching him. He had become
used to that but when, out of the corner of his eye he saw the face of
the advancing man, his soul began to tremble.
"Call your dog in, Mr. Larsen," directed the judge. "Make him
backstand."
Only a moment was lost while Peerless, a young dog himself, came
running in and at a command from Larsen stopped in his tracks behind
Comet, and pointed. Larsen's dogs always obeyed, quickly, mechanically.
Without ever gaining their confidence, Larsen had a way of turning them
into finished field-trial dogs. They obeyed because they were afraid not
to.
According to the rules the man handling the dog has to shoot as the
birds rise. This is done in order to test the dog's steadiness when a
gun is fired over him. No specification is made as to the size of the
shotgun to be used. Usually, however, small-gauge guns are carried. The
one in Larsen's hands was a twelve-gauge, and consequently large.
All morning he had been using it over his own dog. Nobody had paid any
attention to it, because he shot smokeless powder. But now, as he
advanced, he reached into the left-hand pocket of his hunting coat,
where six shells rattled as he hurried along. Two of these he took out
and rammed into the barrels.
As for Comet, still standing rigid, statuesque, he heard, as has been
said, the brush of steps through the straw, glimpsed a face, and
trembled. But only for a moment. Then he steadied, head high, tail
straight out. The birds rose with a whirr--and then was repeated that
horror of his youth. Above his ears, ears that would always be tender,
broke a great roar. Either because of his excitement, or because of a
sudden wave of revenge, or of a determination to make sure of the dog's
flight, Larsen had pulled both triggers at once. The combined report
shattered through the dog's ear drums, it shivered through his nerves,
he sank in agony into the straw.
Then the old impulse to flee was upon him, and he sprang to his feet,
and looked about wildly. But from somewhere in that crowd behind him
came to his tingling ears a voice--clear, ringing, deep, the voice of a
woman--a woman he knew--pleading as his master used to plead, calling on
him not to run but to stand.
"Steady," it said. "Steady, Comet!"
It called him to himself, it soothed him, it calmed him, and he turned
and looked toward the crowd. With the roar of the shotgun the usual
order observed in field trials was broken up. All rules seemed to have
been suspended. Ordinarily, no one belonging to "the field" is allowed
to speak to a dog. Yet the girl had spoken to him. Ordinarily, the
spectators must remain in the rear of the judges. Yet one of the judges
had himself wheeled his horse about and was galloping off, and Marian
Devant had pushed through the crowd and was riding toward the bewildered
dog.
He stood staunch where he was, though in his ears was still a throbbing
pain, and though all about him was this growing confusion he could not
understand. The man he feared was running across the field yonder, in
the direction taken by the judge. He was blowing his whistle as he ran.
Through the crowd, his face terrible to see, his own master was coming.
Both the old man and the girl had dismounted now and were running toward
him.
"I heard," old Swygert was saying to her. "I heard it! I might 'a'
known! I might 'a' known!"
"He stood," she panted, "like a rock--oh, the brave, beautiful thing!"
"Where is that----" Swygert suddenly checked himself and looked around.
A man in the crowd (they had all gathered about now) laughed.
"He's gone after his dog," he said. "Peerless has run away!"
VII
THE CRISIS IN 25
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us
He made and loveth all.
Something was wrong with little Tommy Earle. Consequently, something was
wrong with the whole Earle plantation. Frank, the Earle dog--a stately
Irish setter, rich in the wisdom and devotion of the nobly bred bird
dog--Frank had sensed it yesterday afternoon. The boy had not come out
of the house until long after dinner. Then he had strolled off forlornly
and in silence toward the garage. His frowsy head had been bowed as if
he were studying his own little shadow at his feet. His wide blue
eyes--they were exactly on a level with the dog's anxiously inquiring
ones--had had in them a suggestion of pain and helplessness, of
dependence on things bigger than himself.
He had made no outcry; Tommy was something of a stoic. In fact, he had
said nothing at all. But that look had gone straight to the dog's
heart. Since hunting season was over he had been self-appointed guardian
of this boy. The two had come to understand one another as boys and dogs
understand. There was no need of words now. Frank understood; something
hurt the boy inside.
The young mother had run out, her face anxious, and had taken Tommy in
out of the sun. He had not seemed to mind going in, and that would have
been enough of itself. Frank had followed them up on the porch; the
screen door had slammed in his face. He had strolled off, tail
depressed; he had lain down in the shade of the front-walk hedge, his
ears pricked toward the big white house with the columned porch. It had
remained ominously silent inside. The boy had not come out again. The
long June afternoon had passed brooding and vacant, as if it were Sunday
and all the people on the plantation had gone to church.
Now another morning was here. But instead of the boy running out to
greet it a man in a car was driving up the heavy shaded avenue of oaks
that led from the big road. Frank met him as he got out of his car,
looked up anxiously into his spectacled face, whiffed the
strange-smelling satchel he carried, escorted him gravely up the steps.
Steve Earle, the boy's father, the dog's master, shook hands with the
man and led him into the house. Again the screen door banged in the
dog's face.
Nose pressed against it, he watched the two men go down the wide cool
hall and turn into the bedroom. He heard the spectacled man talking in
there, then Steve Earle, then Marian Earle, the boy's mother, but not
the boy, prick his ears as he would. He sat down on his haunches,
panting and whining softly to himself. He lay down, head between his
paws, agate-brown eyes deep with worry. Still no sound of the boy. He
got up and fumbled at the screen door with his paw, fumbled sternly, all
concentration on his task.
It was not the first time he had turned the trick. He managed to catch
the lower frame with his claw, and, before the door sprang shut, to
insert his nose. The rest was easy and he went silently down the hall.
He stopped in the bedroom doorway. The boy was the centre of attention:
he was sitting on his mother's lap; the spectacled man, satchel at his
feet, was leaning forward toward him; Steve Earle stood above them,
looking down.
The dog's ears drooped. Usually where the boy was, there was also noise.
But this room was very quiet. The shades had been partly pulled; in
contrast with the brilliant out of doors it looked dim in here, like
late afternoon. The mother was smoothing the boy's hair back from his
forehead. There was something helpless in the head leaned against the
mother's breast and in the dangling, listless feet.
Frank took a tentative step forward. In winter he was welcomed always
to the fire, but in summer they said he brought in flies. Now no one
seemed to notice him, though he was a big fellow and red. He took
another step into the room, his eyes fastened longingly on the boy's
flushed face. Suddenly his long tail began to beat an eager tattoo
against the bureau. The boy's eyes had looked straight into his.
"F'ank?"
The mother glanced round. "I told Frank he mustn't come into the house,
dear."
"Why can't he stay wif me, Mama?"
The voice was complaining, as if Tommy were about to cry, and Tommy
seldom cried. Then he seemed to forget, and usually when he wanted
anything he kept on till he got it. The dog watched closely while Steve
Earle lifted him out of the mother's lap and placed him on the bed. Then
he made his way to the foot of the bed and lay down firmly and with an
air of quiet finality. He would stay here until this strangeness passed
away.
But Earle, following the spectacled man out of the room, stopped in the
doorway.
"Come on, Frank!"
He raised his eyes beseechingly to his master's face, then dropped his
head between his paws, his bushy tail dragging underneath the bed.
"Come on, old man!"
He got slowly to his feet; he looked regretfully at the sturdy little
figure on the bed; he tried to catch the mother's eye--sometimes she
interposed in his behalf. A little sullenly he followed the two men out
of the house.
"That's my advice, Earle," the spectacled man said as he climbed into
his car. "They can take better care of him there. The roads are
good--you can drive slowly. I wouldn't put it off; I would go right
away."
Earle went into the house and the dog strolled through the back yard,
past the cabin of Aunt Cindy the cook to the shaded side of the garage.
Here under the eaves was a ditch the boy had been digging to take off
water. He had worked on it all one rainy morning shortly before, a cool,
gusty morning, the last gasp of spring before the present first hot
spell of summer. Aunt Cindy had discovered him wet to the skin and made
a great fuss about it.
Now the shovel was stuck up where the boy had been forced to leave off
and the little wagon, partly filled with dirt, stood near by, its idle
tongue on the ground. Tail wagging, the dog whiffed the shovel, the
ditch, the wagon. Then he lay down beside the wagon, and looked off over
the hills and bottoms of the plantation quivering in the morning heat.
At the hum of the car out of the garage he sprang up and followed it to
the side of the porch. Earle ran up the steps into the house. When he
presently returned Marian and Aunt Cindy were with him and he carried
the boy in his arms. He laid him gently on the back seat of the car with
his mother. They were going to Greenville, the father said. When they
came back he could sit on the front seat like a man. Aunt Cindy handed
in the valise; just a glimpse the dog got of the little upturned sandals
on the back seat, and Earle had closed the door. The car drove slowly
off down the avenue, the sunlight that pierced the foliage flashing at
intervals on its top. The dog looked up into Aunt Cindy's ample black
face. She shook her head and went back into the house.
He sat down on his haunches, panting, then swallowing, then panting
again. He had never been allowed to follow the car. He watched it turn
into the road; the woods hid it from sight. He got to his feet and
looked round. A curtain upstairs was waving out in the slight breeze,
but from all the windows came no sound. He trotted down the avenue and
stopped, nose pointed in the direction in which the car had gone. He
galloped to the shining road. Up the hill beyond the creek bottoms he
made out the car, crawling slowly. He pricked his ears toward it; his
eyes grew stern; where were they taking that boy? A moment he stood
hesitating, then bounded off after the car.
Miles away he caught up and galloped softly behind, trying to take
advantage of the slight shade it offered. His tongue was hanging out,
dust was caked in his eyes, the sun baked down on his heavy red coat,
the road flew dizzily underneath. He could not stand this pace much
longer on such a day--he could not stand it at all if Earle took a
notion to drive as he usually drove. When the car slowed up at a hill he
ran round it, looking up into his master's face. The car stopped and
Earle leaned over the door, his eyes stern.
"Go back home, sir!"
The dog stood his ground, panting like an engine.
The command was repeated.
Dizzy with heat, he sat down, eyes half closed, fangs showing with the
contraction of his panting, frothing chops, saliva dripping in the road.
Earle turned round, smiling grimly. "What had we best do, Marian?"
"Mama"--it was the boy's voice--"is it F'ank?"
"Yes, dear; you must lie still now."
"Let him go, Mama."
She spoke quickly: "Take him in, Steve."
It was midday when they reached the city. Sitting upright on the seat
beside his master, the dog forgot everything else in the procession of
crowding wagons and cars and people--strange sights to his country eyes.
He lost all sense of direction when, honking, feeling his way, Earle
turned down this street and that, the crowd, the noise, the life ever
increasing. Eyes aglow, the dog looked behind at the boy. Tommy was
trying to sit up. Everything was all right now.
But excitement quickly gave place to apprehension. In front of a long
building set up on a terrace, with white porches running across the
front, Earle lifted the boy out of the car and Marian got out with the
valise. Earle turned half around and under his broad panama hat looked
at the dog with masterful eyes.
"You stay there!"
Head hanging over the door of the car, eyes a little resentful, the dog
watched Earle bear the helpless boy up those steps shining in the sun,
saw a woman in white meet them, take Earle's hat off his head and shade
the boy's face, saw the three disappear through the wide door. People
were passing, wagons clattering, cars honking; but he kept his eyes
fastened on the door. A breath of air brought to his nose from the
building a smell unlike any that rises from woods or fields. Nose
quivering, he noted it carefully, catalogued in it that strange variety
of things his nose told him. He would never forget that smell or its
associations.