raced ahead, then back to him, barking with joy, leaping into his face
like the athlete he was, his eyes almost fierce with eagerness. On every
side frost-sparkling strawfields, horizoned by pine woods, shimmered in
the sun. The air came fresh like cold spring water. Hundreds of times
before on such mornings he and Prince had set out this way. Hundreds of
times they had come home in the gloaming, Prince trotting behind, Jim's
hunting coat bulging with birds.
But this was to be no such hunt. A mile up the road he called the old
setter to him. Prince came in with drooped ears and upraised, bewildered
eyes. That was what hurt. That was what was going to hurt more and
more--that Prince would never understand.
They turned in between the stone gate posts of the club and up the walk
toward the white columns of the portico. Jim remembered a picture in
Martha's Bible of an old high priest going to an altar with a sheep
following behind. This was his place of sacrifice, and old Prince,
suddenly subdued, was trotting at his heels.
The butler answered his knock at the door. Why, yes, he said in answer
to Jim's question, there was a man upstairs named Gordon. He was a
great dog man; he owned kennels up in Jersey. He just got in last
night--down for the field trials and a few days' shooting before going
to South America. Some big after-the-war business. He would call Mr.
Gordon.
Jim waited anxiously on the porch, twisting his scraggly gray moustache
and biting the ends. Beside him stood old Prince, looking up into his
grave face. At last the man came out, bareheaded--tall, ruddy,
clean-cut, a sportsman every inch. Jim would have spotted him in a crowd
and he would have spotted Jim--soul mates, as it were. The quick glance
he gave old Prince was full of admiration.
"What's his name?"
"Prince."
The man looked down appraisingly at the long, straight line of the back,
the white, wavy, silken hair, that glistened like satin in the sun, the
noble dome of the head with its one lemon-coloured ear, the
intelligence, courage, and high breeding in the upraised, fearless eyes.
"Where did you get him?"
Jim told him.
"Why, I knew Doctor Tolman well. A fine old gentleman. Gordon's my name.
Mr. Taylor, I'm glad to meet you. You know, I like the looks of Prince
here. He is--well, there are not many like him. Did Doctor Tolman leave
any record of his pedigree?"
Jim's hand trembled a bit as he reached in his pocket. It was almost
with regret that he saw the unmistakable pleasure in Gordon's eyes as he
glanced quickly down the record that told why Prince was what he was.
"I tell you what I'll do," said Gordon, handing the paper back, "I'll
get on my hunting things and we'll take a little round--just you and I
and Prince. Won't you come in?"
Jim shook his head. While Gordon was gone he sat down on the stone
steps, his gun between his knees. Yonder lay the sunlit country he and
Prince knew so well. Prince came to him and laid his head on his knee.
He knew when a man was in trouble, did Prince.
All day they hunted through a country of distant prospects, a country
that rolled like the sea, a country brown with broomstraw fields, green
with pine woods, gray with patches of bare winter oaks. Back and forth
ahead, sometimes so far they could hardly make him out, again so close
they could hear the pant of his breath, swept old Prince.
Sometimes they saw him stop short, a mere speck of white against a
distant hill. Again in creek bottoms, in the edges of woods, they found
him, erect, motionless, tail straight out, a living, breathing statue in
white. They advanced side by side; the staccato of their shots rang out
in the amber air; out of whirling coveys birds tumbled. And always here
came old Prince to them, bird in mouth, ears thrown back, fine old eyes
aglow with a sportsman's joy.
Not even Prince himself had ever done more brilliant work. He didn't
know that every covey he found, every bird he retrieved, was setting a
price as it were on his head, dooming him in his old age to exile under
a strange master in a strange land. But Jim knew, watching with sinking
heart the admiration in Gordon's eyes.
They ate Mary's lunch on a log in the woods, sitting side by side in the
democracy of the out of doors. They talked about hunting and dogs. They
took turns tossing biscuit to hungry old Prince, who sat at a distance
like the gentleman he was, and who caught them skillfully, then lay down
to eat them, his tail dragging gratefully across the dead leaves.
At last they rose from the log. Old Prince sprang to his feet, ears
pricked, eyes shining. A wave of Jim's hand and he was off in his
strong, steady gallop to new conquests. Their shots rang out in other
fields and woods. The sun dropped closer to the horizon. The shadows
crept farther out into the fields and deeper into the spirit of Jim
Taylor.
It was early dusk when they stood in front of the stone gate posts of
the club, and Gordon spoke about it at last.
"Are you sure you want to sell him, Taylor?"
Jim swallowed. "That's what I come for, Mr. Gordon."
"Well, I think two hundred and fifty would be a fair price at his age."
"That's fair enough," said Jim.
"All right. Come in and we'll fix it up."
They went up the walk together in silence and around the club to the
kennels. Close to his master's heels trotted old Prince, tired now, eyes
turned longingly down the road toward his home and his fire.
"You can chain him there," said Gordon.
"Here?" asked Jim, for things seemed suddenly to be swimming around.
"Yes--to that kennel. That's it. Now we'll go inside."
Jim knew he was in the wide hall before the fire, that he was shaking
hands with two or three men Gordon introduced him to, that he was
upstairs in Gordon's room, that Gordon had counted out twenty-odd crisp
bills on the table. But all these things were confused and blurred in
his mind. For out there as he turned away old Prince had looked at him
with drooped ears, and pleading eyes that for the first time in their
long relationship did not understand.
Gordon came downstairs with him. He was looking for a telegram calling
him away any hour now, he said. Old Prince would be well taken care of
while he was gone. He had an old groom who was a wizard with dogs. Out
on the porch they shook hands. In the growing darkness Jim trudged,
solitary, home. His problem was solved; Mary's home was saved. But in
front of that kennel Prince would be waiting for him to come back; and
as long as he lived, wherever he went, Prince would still be waiting for
him to come back. It was a faithful friend he had sold, one that would
have died for him. It was blood money that crackled in his pocket. Mary
was cooking supper when he appeared, solitary and gaunt, in the kitchen.
Old Prince was going to see something of the world now, he explained.
"Why, Jim!" she cried. "If you had only told me!"
She came to him and caught him by both shoulders. She looked up
pityingly into his face.
"Poor old Jim--why didn't you tell me?"
"Oh, well, there wasn't any use, Mary. Mr. Gordon knows how to treat a
dog like Prince. I didn't mind much."
So he spoke, boldly, in the kitchen. But as he went about his work in
the yard he missed the silent companionship of Prince at his heels. As
he ate supper, his eyes from force of habit wandered over the table for
scraps of food for Prince. While he sat smoking his pipe before the
bedroom fire he tried resolutely not to look at the empty rug in front
of the hearth. And when later he went out to draw water the yard was
desolate, and the moon risen over the fields looked at him in solemn
reproach.
Next day he rode to Greenville with Tom Jennings, a neighbouring farmer,
and bought a mule. They had passed the club before sunrise, sitting side
by side on the wagon seat in the cold morning air. No sound had come
from those white kennels which he could make out dimly in the back yard
like tombstones. Old Prince was not the kind of dog to whine or howl.
But all that morning while he went from one sales stable to another Jim
knew Prince would be pricking his ears at every footstep around the
club, and scanning every approaching face with hopeful, eager eyes. He
had known some bird dogs who were the property of any hunter who chanced
along with a gun, and others that stuck to one man, and one man alone.
Prince was a one man's dog.
He left town in the afternoon, sitting on a box in the rear of
Jennings's wagon, leading the mule by a halter. Before sunset they came
to the country where he and Prince had hunted a hundred times. On top of
that steep hill, yonder by that dead pine, Prince had held a covey an
hour one stormy day in a gale of wind that threatened to blow him off
his feet.
Into this swift creek, over whose bridge the wagon wheels rumbled,
Prince had plunged one icy morning and retrieved a wounded bird, the
water freezing on him as he stepped dripping out. These things and
others like them, in spite of himself, passed, along with the slowly
passing landscape, through the mind of Jim Taylor while the sun dropped
low over the hills and Tom Jennings talked about what a bargain the mule
was, and the mule pulled back, as mules always do, on the halter.
It was nearly dusk when they came in sight of the club, whose lights
twinkled through the trees, and Jennings spoke up suddenly:
"Hello! Ain't that your wife yonder?"
Jim glanced around. "Looks like her, Tom."
"She just left the club."
"Been to sell eggs, likely."
But when they caught up with her Jim saw that she was in her best black
dress with the black beaded bonnet, and when he helped her in the wagon
he noticed that her face was worried. She did not even seem to observe
the mule; and Jim, as he led his sleek new purchase to the barn, was
wondering what it all meant.
He was still wondering while he finished his lonely work about the yard.
As he stamped up the back steps he saw her through the kitchen window
rise suddenly from a chair. She had changed her dress, but she had not
started the fire or lit the lamp. He must have surprised her.
Oh, she was just tired, she said in reply to his anxious question. She
had been to the club to sell eggs.
"They must have been mighty fine eggs," he said, his eyes twinkling
kindly, "for you to dress up so. You must have toted 'em in your hands,
too, for you forgot your basket."
She sank into a chair, looking up helplessly at him.
"Sit down, Jim," she said. Then she went on: "I never meant to tell you,
Jim. I tried--I tried to buy him back."
"Buy him?"
"Yes, old Prince."
"Why, Mary, I thought I told you--he give me two hundred and fifty
dollars."
"I know. I offered him what he gave."
"You--you done what?"
She smiled a little at the amazement in his face, but her voice trembled
as she made her confession. For ten years she had been saving up on
chickens and eggs, a quarter here, a half-dollar there. In secret she
had dreamed and planned. They would have new furniture, she had thought,
when the house was theirs--new furniture and a parlour. She had meant to
surprise him, not to let him know till it came. She had the furniture
picked out in a catalogue.
"Jim," she concluded, "I've saved up two hundred and fifty-four dollars
and twenty cents!"
His arm was about her shoulders. "Poor gal," he said. "She would have
give it all up for me and Prince. Now, now--don't cry. It's all the
same--you tried."
She wiped her eyes on her apron and looked at him.
"I saw last night how hard hit you was. I never knew till then just how
much store you set on Prince. And I never knew how much I thought of
him, for what you love, I love. I made up my mind then, Jim. After
dinner I went to the club. I had to wait a long time, for he was out
hunting. When he came in I told him I'd give him what he gave you, and
four dollars more. Jim, I thought he understood, he looked so kind. He
made me set down there in the big room. Then, Jim, I told him--told him
how it was with us."
Jim's face grew suddenly stern. "You told him that?"
She nodded.
"And he turned you down?"
"Oh, he was nice enough, as nice as if I was his mother. He came out on
the porch with me; he wanted to send me home. But he said he didn't feel
like selling him--selling old Prince; that it was a bargain between you
and him. Jim, when he turned back, I went round the club house. He was
chained to a kennel. He knew me, Jim. He thought I had come after him!"
She was crying outright now, there beside her cold stove, and wiping her
eyes on her apron.
"Well," said Jim solemnly, "I've hunted with many a man. I never knew
one to be white in the field and black outside before."
They ate a silent supper. They went into the bedroom before the fire.
Above the mantel was a picture of a dog pointing, over the bed another
of a dog retrieving. And in Jim's mind was another of old Prince sitting
off at a distance like the gentleman he was, and a man on the log at his
own side eating Mary's lunch.
"God Almighty!" he said to himself.
Out in the night came the roar of the Florida Limited. It whistled once
long and melodiously, then twice in short staccatos. That meant
passengers for the club or passengers from the club for the train.
Maybe, right now, old Prince was waiting on the station platform in the
glare of the headlight, wondering what it all meant. Maybe by to-morrow
he would be hundreds of miles away.
Jim rose, picked up the bucket, and stepped out into the cold moonlight.
Even on a little trip like this Prince had always come with him. He
could imagine he saw him now, sitting on his haunches out there in the
yard, waiting for the water to be drawn. He had comforted himself with
the thought that Gordon would be kind to Prince, and now----
"A man that would treat a woman like that," he said bitterly, "would
kick a dog!"
He turned back to the house, his head bowed. As he went up the steps he
seemed to hear up the misty moonlit road that led to the club a faint
tinkle like that made by a running dog's collar. He stood listening for
a moment. The ghost of a sound had ceased. He went inside and closed the
door behind him.
Mary sat by the fire above the empty rug, her chin in her hand. He
placed the bucket on the stand and washed his face, smoothing back with
a big wet hand his heavy, iron-gray hair. He sat down and began to
undress in silence. He had taken off one shoe when he heard it
again--the tinkle, unmistakable this time, of a running dog's collar.
"What's that, Jim?" demanded Mary.
But he was already on his feet and halfway down the hall, Mary close
behind him.
"It's him!" he said grimly. "He run away!"
He threw the door open. Big, white, with shining eyes, old Prince was
jumping all over him, jumping up into his face, and into the face of
Mary. They turned back to the fire. He was running round and round the
room, looking at them over the table, his tail beating chair rungs and
bedstead. He was frantic with joy; his eyes were aglow with happiness,
the happiness of a dog that has come home.
"Get my hat, Mary."
"Why, Jim?"
"It was blood money bought him but I've got to take him back."
She pleaded with him. There was her money. Maybe he would take it now.
But Jim's face was set. "He turned you down once, gal. He'll never have
another chance!"
She brought him his hat, her face white.
"Come on, old man," he said, and started for the door.
But Prince hung back, ears drooped, eyes pleading.
"Come on, sir!"
He pretended not to understand. He sat down on his haunches. He lay down
humbly on the floor, head between his paws, tail dragging contritely
across the rag rug. He showed decided symptoms of an intention to crawl
under the bed, and Jim started grimly toward him. Then it was that Mary
saw.
"Hold on, Jim! What's this on him?"
She was down on the floor with the dog. She jerked something off his
collar.
"Light the lamp, Jim!" she cried.
With trembling hands he obeyed. She had risen now, so had Prince. He had
taken refuge behind her skirts, from which point of vantage he was
looking round her up into the face of his master. The light Jim held
over her shoulder showed writing on a piece of paper.
"Jim!" she cried, all out of breath, "Jim! It says: 'Compliments of Mr.
Gordon to Mrs. Taylor. You see, I couldn't sell him to you, but I want
you two to have him. I am leaving in a few minutes. No time for more.
The train is coming."
Jim set the lamp on the table. "Well, well!" he said and sank into a
chair. Before him the fire roared and crackled up the chimney. Prince's
head was on his knee. He saw a man sitting on a log beside him in the
woods. He looked into the man's clear sportsman's eyes.
Far in the north through the stillness of the night he heard the faint,
vanishing whistle of the Limited. He put his hand on Prince's silken
head, and Prince nestled close and sat down on his haunches. Jim's arm
was about the shoulders of Mary, who had knelt down beside him.
"Well, well!" he said again, and the fire grew dim and blurred before
his eyes.
XII
THE CALL OF HOME
Old Frank, Irish setter, crawled out of his clean warm kennel underneath
the back porch; stretched his long, keen muscles till they cracked;
yawned with a fog of frosted breath at the misty winter sun risen over
distant mountains; then trotted around the side of the big white house
called Freedom Hill--the house that was his master's home and his own.
As if a happy thought had struck him, he broke into a sudden burst of
speed. He ran up the front steps three at a bound. He scratched at the
side front doors with the fan-shaped transom above. He waited with ears
pricked and wagging tail, nose to the crack of the door.
For it was always interesting to speculate on who would open the doors
on this particular morning. Maybe it would be the master, Steve Earle,
maybe the mistress, Marian Earle, maybe the boy Tommy--maybe old Aunt
Cindy the cook. If it were the old black woman she would grumble. She
would declare she didn't have time to bother with a dog while her
breakfast waited on the stove. She would remind him that he was only a
dog. But she would let him in, for all that.
He scratched again. He didn't like to be kept expectant; he grew excited
when he had to wait. He had worn a place on the door where he scratched.
Suddenly he turned his head sideways, intently listening, for someone
had opened the living-room door. He began to pant, and his eyes glowed
with gratitude. That step coming down the hall--he would know it
anywhere. He could hardly wait now.
The door opened and he looked up past broad shoulders into kindly gray
eyes. His ears flattened with reverence, even while his eyes shone with
comradeship.
"Come in, old man," said Steve Earle--he always said just that.
Frank stopped before the living-room door, and looked up at his master.
He had to depend on human beings in matters like the opening of doors.
And now he was in the living room, where a fire of oak logs roared up
the chimney. Overwhelming joy seized him that he should be in here. He
ran to Marian Earle and laid his head on her lap, looking up into her
face; then to Tommy Earle, the boy, who caught hold of his heavy red
mane. They were all smiling at him.
He grew embarrassed and poked his head against the shirt bosom of the
boy. He sat down before his mistress and raised his paw to shake hands.
He wanted to show them in some way that he was grateful for all this.
Then he looked around the room and his long silken-red ears drooped.
For this morning was different from other mornings. People were looking
down at him in a different way. Not only that, but Lancaster, his
master's friend who lived in New York and who had driven out
unexpectedly yesterday from Breton Junction, stood before the fire,
overcoat over his arm, satchel at his feet. Then he saw on the table his
collar and chain. And now old Frank knew--knew he was going on a
journey.
But more than that he knew, for his was the wisdom of the seasoned bird
dog. Steve Earle's overcoat hung on the hat rack in the hall. His
favourite gun was over yonder in the corner, the hunting coat draped
over it. Steve Earle was not going.
It was this that made him look with vaguely troubled eyes into the faces
of master and mistress and boy. It was this which filled him with
foreboding.
"I don't believe," Lancaster was smiling down at him, "I don't believe
he's very keen about going, Steve."
"Oh, Frank'll be all right," laughed Earle. "He's a good scout. Just had
a sort of exiled feeling for a moment. He's a countryman like the rest
of us. He doesn't like to leave home. I'm glad for him to go. He'll see
something of the world."
So spoke Steve Earle, the master. But out in the spacious kitchen, hung
with pots and pans, where his mistress and Tommy put his pot of
breakfast before him and watched while he ate--out in the kitchen old
Aunt Cindy, the cook, raised her voice in protest.
"Ain't dey got no dogs up in New York whar dat man come from?" she
demanded. "Why don't he have a dog of his own, den? He rich enough to
buy a dozen. What he want to stop over here an' borry _our_ dog for?
What he gwine to take him to, Miss Marian? Fluridy, you say? Lordy,
lordy, dat a long way to take our dog, a powerful long way!"
"But he's goin' to bring him back, though!" cried Tommy.
"Well, honey, I don't know about dat. You never can tell. Dis here's
Friday, an' Friday a bad luck day. Sometimes folks, an' dogs, too, set
out on Friday, an' never do come back. Lordy, lordy, ain't I see things
like dat happen?"
Marian laughed.
"Don't scare the child, Aunt Cindy."
"I ain't skeerin' the chile, Miss Marian. I mean ev'y word I say, Miss.
Friday a bad day to start anywhere--a powerful bad day!"
And she went on wiping dishes and shaking her turbaned head.
It was winter when Steve Earle and Lancaster lifted Frank, without
protest on his part, into the baggage car at Breton Junction. It was
summer in the strange flat country where after two days and a night of
travel Lancaster lifted him, rejoicing in his freedom, out again. It was
old Frank's staunchness that brought calamity upon him. But that is
going ahead.
There had been three days of great shooting. The exiled feeling had left
him, and he and Lancaster had become comrades. Lancaster was a good shot
and that commanded his respect. Lancaster was a kind man and that
commanded his affection. At the lodge in the pines where they lived were
other men, hunters like Lancaster, and other dogs, bird dogs like
himself, a congenial crowd, sportsmen all.
Sometimes as he lay in the lodge, where if the night was cool a fire was
built, and while he listened to the talk and laughter of the men, he
thought of home--gravely, without repining, as a mature and
self-sufficient man does. Lancaster would take him back, that he knew.
If any doubts assailed him, a look into Lancaster's face and into the
faces of the other men dispelled them. These men were like his
master--men on whom a dog can depend.
On the morning of the fourth day Lancaster took him out alone, with only
a guide. Barking with joy, he leaped up into the face of his friend;
then started out on his swift strong gallop through the level fields of
broomstraw. In his eagerness to find birds he rounded a swamp. A wide,
free ranger, he drew quickly out of sight. In a clearing engirt by pines
he stopped abruptly--stopped just in time. Right before him, his nose
told him, were birds.
He stiffened into an earnest, beautiful point. He would not stir until
Lancaster came up behind him and ordered him on. And Lancaster with the
guide was far behind and on the other side of the swamp.
A fine sight he made in that lonely country, standing, head erect, tail
straight out, sun flashing on his silken red hair. So those two men,
driving in a dilapidated wagon along a sandy road in the edge of the
pines, must have thought. For the driver, a burly, sallow fellow,
pointed him out, pulled on the reins, and the wagon stopped. The two
talked for a while in guarded tones; next they stood up on the wagon
seat and looked all around; then they climbed out and came stealthily
across the field. The burly man held in his hand a rope.
Instinct alarmed the dog, warned him to turn. Professional pride held
him rigid, lest he flush those birds and be disgraced. Pride betrayed
him. A sudden grip cut his hind legs from under him, threw him flat on
his back just as the birds rose with a roar. A thumb and forefinger,
clamped in his mouth, pressed on his nose like a vise. He was squirming
powerfully in the sand, but a knee was on his throat and the sky was
growing black.