SHOT AND SING WUNG
Whether the Rowes should decide to go to Europe or not, the Bradstreets
were going; and Captain Bradstreet thought it high time to inform Paul
of the plan. The boy had not been well for some days, and for change of
air had been sent to the ranch of Mr. Keith, a relative, who had a warm
regard for himself and his sister Pauline.
“Kirke,” said the captain, driving up that afternoon after school, “I’m
going out to Mr. Keith’s to see Paul. Would you like to go with me?”
“Thank you, thank you, Captain Bradstreet, I’ll be ready in a second,”
cried Kirke, rushing for his hat.
The spirited horse had been reined up to the hedge, where he pawed and
champed the bit, till his passenger appeared and vaulted headlong into
the phaeton.
In his haste, Kirke had forgotten to tie Shot, the fox-terrier, into
his kennel.
“Weezy, Weezy,” he called over his shoulder, as the carriage started.
“Look out for Shot, please, Weezy; don’t let him follow us.”
“I won’t let him,” said Weezy; “I’ll keep him.” And she drew him into
the house and closed the door.
Having done this, she went back upon the veranda to finish her sewing.
She was making a golf cape for her pet doll to wear at sea; and the
work proved so absorbing that she failed to notice what Donald was
doing. Before she knew it, the child had opened the front door, and run
into the hall; and at the same time Shot had run out, and gone tearing
after the phaeton.
Kirke looked rather crestfallen when the little animal came barking
about the wheels.
“There’s that dog, after all. I didn’t mean he should come.”
“Send him home, then,” suggested the captain. “Why don’t you send him
home, Kirke?”
“Because he wouldn’t go,” answered the lad, in laughing confusion. “He
wouldn’t go, and I should only hurt his feelings for nothing.”
The ruddy-faced captain suppressed a smile, and listened patiently,
while Kirke proceeded to sing the praises of the graceful white
terrier, who would not obey his master.
“He loves me tremendously; he can’t bear to stay away from me: there’s
the trouble.”
And in truth a more affectionate dog than little Shot never lived. He
was a general favorite, which certainly could not have been said of
Zip, Donald’s Mexican cur that had died the preceding autumn.
As the phaeton whirled along, Shot darted first to one side of the road
and then to the other, to chase squirrels and gophers into their holes,
but without once losing sight of his beloved owner.
“I suppose, Kirke, you’re very fond of the little rascal,” observed the
captain, as they drew near the end of their drive.
“You’d better believe I am, Captain Bradstreet. I wouldn’t part with
him for a farm.”
“The lad’s in sober earnest,” thought the gentleman, peering from
beneath his white eyebrows at Kirke’s animated face. “I never knew a
boy more devoted to his friends.”
They were now spinning along the winding avenue leading to Mr. Keith’s
house. At their right was a green lawn, bordered with orange-trees; on
their left, a thrifty olive-orchard, in which a Chinaman was plowing.
“They’re always plowing somewhere,” commented the captain. “I
understand the soil has to be turned over pretty often to keep it light
and moist.”
“And it has to be irrigated, too, doesn’t it?” asked Kirke, watching
Shot, skipping nimbly across the field toward the mule-team.
“Irrigated? Oh, yes. But there’s not water enough at present to do the
thing thoroughly, and that is why Mr. Keith is having a new well dug
over yonder.”
“I see it,” said Kirke, glancing in the direction indicated by the
captain; “and he has got the curb up already.”
“So he has. Ah, here comes Paul. I”--
The sentence was cut short by a prolonged howl from Shot. The confiding
little creature had ventured too near the Chinaman’s heels, and Sing
Wung, suspecting him of evil intentions, had driven him away by a
vigorous kick.
“The old wretch!” cried Kirke, springing over the carriage-wheel. “He’s
been abusing my poor little Shot!”
And as the yelping dog ran up to him for protection, Kirke soothed him
as he would have soothed a baby.
Before Captain Bradstreet could hitch his horse to the post under the
pepper-tree, Paul was beside him, his face aglow with pleasure as well
as with sunburn. The sunburn caused him to look more than ever like his
father. Each had large, frank, blue eyes and a ruddy complexion; but
while the captain’s hair was snow-white, his son’s was flaxen, or, as
Pauline would have it, “a light _écru_.”
“How are you, Paul? How are you, my dear boy? Better, I hope?”
“Oh yes, papa, ever so much better, thank you. But why haven’t you come
before? I’ve looked for you and looked for you!”
Paul spoke with feeling. He and Pauline, though now fifteen years
of age, were not ashamed to show their love for their father. The
affection existing between Captain Bradstreet and his motherless twins
was something beautiful to behold.
Kirke was surprised to see how coolly Paul received the news of the
proposed trip to Europe. Though greatly pleased, he was by no means
as excited as Kirke had been that morning when the plan was first
mentioned. Paul was a quieter sort of boy than Kirke, and two years
older. Moreover, he had already been to sea several times, and the
novelty was pretty well worn off. Still, he wished to go again very
much, especially if the Rowes would go, too, for “that would make it a
good deal jollier.”
After chatting awhile, Captain Bradstreet went into the lemon-house to
speak with his cousin, Mr. Keith, leaving the boys to entertain each
other. Paul, acting as host, at once invited Kirke to visit the well
that had been begun; and they sauntered by the lemon-grove to a deep
hole sunk in the ground. Above the hole stood a windlass with a bucket
attached to it.
“Is anybody down there now?” asked Kirke, dropping upon his knees and
peering into the dark cavern.
“No, Yeck Wo is sick to-day; so Sing Wung left off working here, and is
cultivating in the orchard.”
“So it takes two to run this thing?”
“Yes. Sing Wung stays below to shovel earth into the bucket, and Yeck
Wo stays up here to turn the windlass and draw the bucket up into
daylight.”
“I see,” said Kirke, “and the Wo fellow tips the earth out of the
bucket on to this heap here, then sends the bucket back empty. It must
be fun to watch him.”
“It’ll be more fun, though, when they strike hard pan, for then they’ll
begin to blast.”
It was not Paul who said this, but Mr. Keith. He and Captain Bradstreet
had now joined the boys and were standing with them near the well.
“When they begin to blast, Kirke, you must come down here and make us a
little visit,” added Mr. Keith.
Kirke accepted the invitation eagerly, for, like most boys of thirteen,
he revelled in the explosion of gunpowder.
“Let’s see, can’t you come Saturday, bright and early? I’ve promised to
let Sing Wung go home Friday, and Paul will drive out for him Saturday
morning, and could bring you back with him as well as not.”
“O Mr. Keith, I _hope_ I can come,” said Kirke joyously, as he and the
captain took their departure.
But in repassing the olive-orchard the youth’s happy face clouded.
In the distance he caught a glimpse of Sing Wung in the very act of
flinging a stone at little Shot, who, forgetful of the recent repulse,
had frisked again into his neighborhood.
“If that old Chinaman wasn’t so far off I’d give him ‘Hail Columbia!’”
muttered he. “Mean creature! Wouldn’t I like to dump him into that new
well?”
“No; you certainly wouldn’t,” said the captain with an indulgent smile.
“On the contrary, I’ll wager that if he should fall in, you’d be the
first to help pull him out.”
Kirke was indignantly protesting that he “should do no such thing,”
when suddenly the horse, Pizarro, stumbled upon a rolling stone and
turned a half-somersault down the hill.
In an instant Captain Bradstreet and Kirke had leaped to the ground.
“Sit upon his head, Kirke,” ordered the captain. “So long as his head
is kept down he can’t flounder about.”
Kirke did as he was told, and while he was perched upon Pizarro’s broad
cheek, Captain Bradstreet unbuckled the harness and detached it from
the phaeton.
“The thill is broken, isn’t it?” asked Kirke.
“Yes, broken almost in two.”
Captain Bradstreet firmly grasped the horse’s bridle. “Now jump, Kirke,
and be quick about it.”
Kirke promptly obeyed, and Pizarro straightway struggled to his feet,
looking very much ashamed.
“He doesn’t seem to be injured anywhere,” said the captain, after
carefully feeling the horse’s limbs. “I wish the same could be said of
the phaeton. Have you a string about you, Kirke, to splice that shaft
with?”
For a wonder Kirke’s pocket to-day did not boast of even so much as a
fishing-line.
“I might run to the next ranch and beg a bit of rope,” he suggested.
“Wait a moment, my boy, here comes a greaser. Let’s see what he can do
for us.”
A “greaser” is the common name for a Mexican Indian.
“What an ugly, stupid-looking fellow,” thought Kirke; “I don’t believe
he knows a string from a rattlesnake.”
But, unpromising as he appeared, the Indian understood a little
English, and, on being offered a silver quarter, uncoiled from his
neck a long, narrow strip of deerskin, and with it tied together the
splintered ends of the thill.
“The greasers use those strips of deerhide when they tote bundles on
their backs,” explained the captain, when they were again on their way.
“He has spliced the shaft pretty firmly, Kirke, but it may draw apart.
You’d better keep close watch of it.”
The damaged thill was the one on Kirke’s side of the phaeton, and for
the rest of the drive he felt such a responsibility about it that he
forgot everything else; he even forgot his beloved little terrier.
They were entering the city before he noticed that Shot was nowhere in
sight. Then he remembered that he had not seen him since leaving Mr.
Keith’s ranch.
“Now I think of it, I haven’t seen him either,” said Captain
Bradstreet. “Maybe the little scamp took a notion to stay with Paul.”
“Oh, no, Captain Bradstreet, that wouldn’t be a bit like Shot!”
exclaimed Kirke vehemently. “Don’t you know how he’s always tagging
after me?”
“Yes, like a dory after a pilot boat,” said the captain, smiling.
“Where can he be, I wonder? Do you suppose--you _don’t_ suppose--that
hateful Chinaman can have lamed him or anything?”
Kirke looked so extremely troubled that the tender-hearted captain
hastened to reply, “No, indeed! I don’t suppose anything of the kind.
More likely Shot has picked a quarrel with a gopher and is bound to
have the last word. If he’s not at home by sunrise we’ll ride back to
the ranch to look him up.”
He fully expected to hear the dog’s merry bark at any moment, and was
quite disturbed the next morning when Kirke ran over to tell him that
the little terrier was still missing.
“Don’t worry, we’ll soon find him,” he said; and immediately telephoned
for the horse and surrey.
But when he and Kirke reached the ranch Shot was not there, nor had he
been there since the previous afternoon. “The very last I saw of him,
Sing Wung was shying a stone at him,” said Paul. “He hates dogs, that
Chinaman does. I believe he’s afraid of them.”
“He couldn’t have been afraid of my dear little innocent terrier,”
exclaimed Kirke savagely; “he stoned him just for meanness.”
On being interviewed, Sing Wung protested that the dog had followed the
carriage, and that was all he knew about him. But he spoke in such a
hesitating way that Kirke was sure he kept back the truth. The lad was
passing through a fiery ordeal and his heart was hot within him. “If
ever I saw lies I saw ’em to-day in those slanting eyes behind us,” he
said in Paul’s ear as they turned away from the suspected Celestial. “I
feel just as if he had killed poor little Shot and pitched him into the
cañon.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t do that, Kirke; ’twould take too much courage--Sing
Wung is a chicken-hearted creature.”
“Not too chicken-hearted to stone my dog, though.”
Paul could not gainsay this, but as he bade Kirke good-by, he remarked
cheerily,--
“I half believe you’ll find Shot at home waiting for you. I shall know
Saturday morning. Remember I’m coming for you Saturday morning at six
o’clock, sharp.”