when the first angus mackellar left his ancestral lochbuy moors he brought to america the big, shaggy, broad-headed collie dog he loved—the dog that had helped him herd his employer’s sheep for the past five years.
man and dog landed at castle garden a half century ago. from that time on, as for three hundred years earlier, no member of the mackellar family was without a collie; the best and wisest to be found.
evolution narrowed the heads and lightened the stocky frames of these collies, as the decades crawled past.
evolution changed the successive generations of mackellars not at all, except to rub smoother their highland burr and to make them serve america as ardently as ever their forefathers had served scotland. but not one of them lost his hereditary love for the dog of the moors.
which brings us by degrees to jamie mackellar, grandson 144of the emigrating angus. jamie was twenty-eight. his tough little body was so meagrely spare that his big heart and bigger soul were almost indecently exposed. for the rest, his speech still held an occasional word or two of handed-down ancestral dialect. in moments of excitement these inherited phrases came thicker; and with them a tang of scots accent.
jamie lived in the cheapest suburb of midwestburg, and in one of the suburb’s cheapest houses. but the house had a yard. and the yard harboured a glorious old collie, a rare prize winner in his day. the house in front of the yard, by the way, harboured jamie’s yorkshire wife and their two children, elspeth and donald.
jamie divided his home time between the house and the open. so—after true highland fashion—did the collie.
there were long rambles in the forests and the wild half-cleared land beyond the suburb; walks that meant as much to jamie as to the dog, after the scot had been driving a contractor’s truck six days of the week for a monthly wage of seventy-five dollars.
now, on seventy-five dollars a month many a family lives in comfort. but the sum leaves scant margin for the less practical luxuries of life. and in a sheepless and law-abiding region a high-quality collie is a nonpractical luxury. yet jamie would almost as soon have thought of selling one of his thick-legged children as of accepting any of the several good offers made him for the beautiful dog which had been his chum for so many years, the dog whose prize ribbons and cups from a score of local shows made gay the trophy corner of the mackellar kitchen-parlour.
then, on a late afternoon,—when the grand old collie was galloping delightedly across the street to meet his home-returning master,—a delivery motor car, driven by 145a speed-drunk boy, whizzed around the corner on the wrong side of the way.
the big dog died as he had lived—gallantly and without a whine. gathering himself up from the muck of the road he walked steadfastly forward to meet the fast-running mackellar. as jamie bent down to search the mired body for injuries, the collie licked his master’s dear hand, shivered slightly and fell limp across the man’s feet.
when the magistrate next morning heard that a mouth-foaming little scot had sprung upon the running board of a delivery car and had hauled therefrom a youth of twice his size and had hammered the said youth into 100 per cent. eligibility for a hospital cot, he listened gravely to the other side of the story and merely fined jamie one dollar.
the released prisoner returned with bent head and barked knuckles to a house which all at once had been left unto him desolate. for the first time in centuries a mackellar was without a collie.
during the next week the midwestburg kennel association’s annual dog show was held at the fourth regiment armory. this show was one of the banner events of the year throughout western dog circles. its rich cash specials and its prestige even drew breeders from the atlantic states to exhibit thereat the best their kennels afforded.
thither, still hot and sore of heart, fared jamie mackellar. always during the three days of the midwestburg dog show jamie took a triple holiday and haunted the collie section and the ringside. here more than once his dead chum had won blue ribbon and cash over the exhibits from larger and richer kennels. and at such times jamie mackellar had rejoiced with a joy that was too big for words, and which could express itself only in a furtive hug of his collie’s shaggy ruff.
146to-day, as usual, jamie entered the barnlike armory among the very first handful of spectators. to his ears the reverberant clangour of a thousand barks was as battle music; as it echoed from the girdered roof and yammered incessantly on the eardrums.
as ever, he made his way at once to the collie section. a famous new york judge was to pass upon this breed. and there was a turnout of nearly sixty collies; including no less than five from the east. four of these came from new jersey; which breeds more high-class collies than do any three other states in the union.
it was jamie’s rule to stroll through the whole section, for a casual glance over the collies, before stopping at any of the benches for a closer appraisal. but to-day he came to a halt, before he had traversed the first row of stalls. his pale-blue eyes were riveted on a single dog.
lying at lazily majestic ease on the straw of a double-size bench was a huge dark-sable collie. full twenty-six inches high at the shoulder and weighing perhaps seventy-five pounds, this dog gave no hint of coarseness or of oversize. he was moulded as by a super-sculptor. his well-sprung ribs and mighty chest and leonine shoulders were fit complements to the classically exquisite yet splendidly strong head.
his tawny coat was as heavy as a bison’s mane. the outer coat—save where it turned to spun silk, on the head—was harsh and wavy. the under coat was as impenetrably soft as the breast of an eider duck. from gladiator shoulders the gracefully powerful body sloped back to hips which spoke of lightning speed and endurance. the tulip ears had never known weights or pincers. the head was a true wedge, from every viewpoint. the deep-set dark eyes were unbelievably perfect in expression and placment.
147here was a collie! here was a dog whose sheer perfection made jamie mackellar catch his breath for wonder, and then begin pawing frantically at his show catalogue. he read, half aloud:
729: lochinvar kennels. champion lochinvar king. lochinvar peerless—lochinvar queen
followed the birth date and the words “breeder owner.”
jamie mackellar’s pale eyes opened yet wider and he stared on the collie with tenfold interest; an interest which held in it a splash of reverence. jamie was a faithful reader of the dog press. and for the past two years champion lochinvar king’s many pictures and infinitely more victories had stirred his admiration. he knew the dog, as a million americans know man-o’-war.
now eagerly he scanned the wonder collie. every detail,—from the level mouth and chiselled, wedge-shaped head and stern eyes with their true “look of eagles,” to the fox brush tail with its sidewise swirl at the tip—jamie scanned with the delight of an artist who comes for the first time on a velasquez of which he has read and dreamed. never in his dog-starred life had the little man beheld so perfect a collie. it was an education to him to study such a marvel.
two more men came up to the bench. one was wearing a linen duster; and fell to grooming king’s incredibly massive coat with expert hands. the other—a plump giant in exaggeratedly vivid clothes—chirped to the dog and ran careless fingers over the silken head. the collie waved his plumed tail in response to the caress. recalling how coldly king had ignored his own friendly advances, jamie mackellar addressed the plump man in deep respect.
148“excuse me, sir,” said he humbly, “but might you be mr. frayne—mr. lucius frayne?”
the man turned with insolent laziness, eyed the shabby little figure from head to foot, and nodded. then he went back to his inspection of king.
not to be rebuffed, mackellar continued:
“i remember reading about you when you started the lochinvar kennels, sir. that’ll be—let’s see—that’ll be the best part of eight years ago. and three years back you showed lochinvar peerless out here—this great feller’s sire. i’m proud to meet you, sir.”
frayne acknowledged this tribute by another nod, this time not even bothering to turn toward his admirer.
mackellar pattered on:
“peerless got americanbred and limit, that year; and he went to reserve winners. if i’d ’a’ been judging, i’d of gave him winners, over rivers pride, that topped him. pride was a good inch-and-a-half too short in the brush. and the sable grew away too far from his eyes. gave ’em a roundish, big look. he was just a wee peckle overshot too. and your peerless outshowed him, besides. but, good as peerless was, he wasn’t a patch on this son of his you’ve got here to-day. losh, but it sure looks like you was due to make a killing, mr. frayne.”
and now the eastern breeder deigned to face the man whose words were pattering so meekly into his heedless ears. frayne realised this little chap was not one of the ignorant bores who pester exhibitors at every big show; but that he spoke, and spoke well, the language of the initiate. no breeder is above catering to intelligent praise of his dog. and frayne warmed mildly toward the devotee.
“like him, do you?” he asked, indulgently.
“like him?” echoed mackellar. “like him? man, he’s 149fifty per cent. the best i’ve set eyes on. and i’ve seen a hantle of ’em.”
“take him down, roke,” frayne bade his linen-dustered kennel man. “let him move about a bit. you can get a real idea of him when you see his action,” he continued to the dazzled mackellar. “how about that? hey?”
at the unfastening of his chain, lochinvar king stepped majestically to the floor and for an instant stood gazing up at his master. he stood as might an idealised statue of a collie. mackellar caught his breath and stared. then with expert eyes he watched the dog’s perfect action as the kennel man led him up and down for half a dozen steps.
“he’s—he’s better even than i thought he could be,” sighed jamie. “he looked too good to be true. lord, it does tickle a man’s heartstrings to see such a dog! i—i lost a mighty fine collie a few days back,” he went on confidingly. “not in king’s class, of course, sir. but a grand old dog. and—and he was my chum, too. i’m fair sick with greeting over him. it kind of crumples a feller, don’t it, to lose a chum collie? one reason i wanted to come here early to-day was to look around and see were any of the for-sale ones inside my means. i’ve never been without a collie before. and i want to get me one—a reg’lar first-rater, like the old dog—as quick as i can. it’s lonesome-like not to have a collie laying at my feet, evening times; or running out to meet me.”
lucius frayne listened now with real interest to the little man’s timid plaint.
as mackellar paused, shamefaced at his own non-scottish show of feeling, the owner of the lochinvar kennels asked suavely:
“what were you counting on paying for a new dog? or hadn’t you made up your mind?”
150“once in a blue moon,” replied mackellar, “a pretty good one is for sale cheap. either before the judging or if the judge don’t happen to fancy his type. i—well, if i had to, i was willing to spend a hundred—if i could get the right dog. but i tholed maybe i could get one for less.”
still more interestedly did frayne beam down on the earnest little mackellar.
“it’s a pity you can’t go higher,” said he with elaborate nonconcern. “especially since king here has caught your fancy. you see, i’ve got a four-month pup of king’s, back home. out of my winning lochinvar lassie, at that. i sold all the other six in the litter. sold ’em at gilt-edge prices; on account of their breeding. this little four-monther i’m speaking about—he was so much the best of the lot that i was planning to keep him. he’s the dead image of what king was at his age. he’s got ‘future champion’ written all over him. but—well, since you’ve lost your chum dog and since you know enough of collies to treat him right—well, if you were back east where you could look him over, i’d—well, i’d listen to your offer for him.”
he turned toward his kennel man as if ending the talk. like a well-oiled phonograph, the linen dustered functionary spoke up.
“oh, mr. frayne!” he blithered, ceasing to groom king’s wondrous coat and clasping both dirty hands together. “you wouldn’t ever go and sell the little ’un? not lochinvar bobby, sir? not the best pup we ever bred? why, he’s 20 per cent. better than what king, here, was at his age. you’ll make a champion of him by the time he’s ten months old. just like doc burrows did with his queen betty. he’s a second howgill rival, that pup 151is;—a second sunnybank sigurd! you sure wouldn’t go selling him? not bobby?”
"there’ll be other lochinvar king pups along in a few weeks, roke," argued frayne conciliatingly. “and this man has just lost his only dog. if—what a pair of fools we are!” he broke off, laughing loudly. “here we go gabbling about selling bobby, and our friend, here, isn’t willing to go above a hundred dollars for a dog!”
the kennel man, visibly relieved, resumed operations on king with dandy-brush and cloth. but mackellar stood looking up at frayne as a hungry pup might plead dumbly with some human who had just taken from him his dinner bone.
“if—if he’s due to be a second lochinvar king,” faltered jamie, “i—i s’pose he’d be way beyond me. i’m a truck driver, you see, sir. and i’ve got a wife and a couple of kids. so i wouldn’t have any right to spend too much, just for a dog—even if i had the cash. but—gee, but it’s a chance!”
sighing softly in renunciation, he took another long and admiring gaze at the glorious lochinvar king; and then made as though to move away. but lucius frayne’s dog-loving heart evidently was touched by jamie’s admiration for the champion and by the hinted tale of his chum dog’s death. he stopped the sadly departing mackellar.
“tell me more about that collie you lost,” he urged. “how’d he die? what was his breeding? ever show him?”
now perhaps there breathes some collie man who can resist one of those three questions about his favourite dog. assuredly none lives who can resist all three. mackellar, in a brace of seconds, found himself prattling eagerly to this sympathetic giant; telling of his dog’s points and wisdom 152and lovableness, and of the prizes he had won; and, last of all, the tale of his ending.
frayne listened avidly, nodding his head and grunting consolation from time to time. at last he burst forth, on impulse:
“look here! you know dogs. you know collies. i see that. i’d rather have a lochinvar pup go to a man who can appreciate him, as you would, and who’d give him the sort of home you’d give him, than to sell him for three times as much, to some mucker. i’m in this game for love of the breed, not to skin my neighbours. lochinvar bobby is yours, friend, for a hundred and fifty dollars. i hope you’ll say no,” he added with his loud laugh, “because i’d rather part with one of my back teeth. but anyhow i feel decenter for making the offer.”
pop-eyed and scarlet and breathing fast, jamie mackellar did some mental arithmetic. one hundred and fifty dollars was a breath-taking sum. nobody knew it better than did he. but—oh, there stood lochinvar king! and king’s best pup could be jamie’s for that amount.
then mackellar bethought him of an extra job that was afloat just now in midwestburg—a job at trucking explosives by night from the tesladite factory, over on the heights, to the railroad. it was a job few people cared for. the roads were joggly. and tesladite was a ticklish explosive. even the company’s offer of fifty dollars a week, at short hours, had not brought forth many volunteer chauffeurs.
yet jamie was a careful driver. he knew he could minimise the risk. and by working three hours a night for three weeks he could clean up the price of the wonderful pup without going down into the family’s slim funds.
“you’re—you’re on!” he babbled, shaking all over with pure happiness. “in three weeks i’ll send you a money 153order. here’s—here’s—let’s see—here’s twenty-seven dollars to bind the bargain.”
“roke,” said frayne, ignoring his kennel man’s almost weeping protests, “scribble out a bill of sale for lochinvar bobby. and see he’s shipped here the day we get this gentleman’s money order for the balance of $150. and don’t forget to send him bobby’s papers at the same time. seeing it’s such a golden bargain for him, he’ll not grudge paying the expressage, too. i suppose i’m a wall-eyed fool, but—say! hasn’t a man got to do a generous action once in a while? besides, it’s all for the good of the breed.”
ten minutes later mackellar tore away his ardent eyes from inspection of the grand dog whose best pup he was so soon to earn, and pattered on down the collie section.
then and then only did lucius frayne and roke look at each other. long and earnestly they looked. and frayne reached out his thick hand and shook his kennel man’s soiled fingers. he shook them with much heartiness. he was a democratic sportsman, this owner of the famed lochinvar kennels. he did not disdain to grasp the toil-hardened hand of his honest servitor; especially at a time like this.
lochinvar king that day clove his path straight through “open, sable-and-white” and “open, any colour,” to “winners”; in a division of fifty-eight collies. then be annexed the cup and the forty dollars in cash awards for best of breed; also four other cash specials. and in the classic special for best dog in show he came as near to winning as ever a present-day collie can hope to at so large a show. jamie mackellar, with a vibrating pride and a sense of personal importance, watched and applauded every win of his pup’s matchless sire.
“in another year,” he mused raptly, “i’ll be scooping 154up them same specials with king’s gorgeous little son. this man frayne is sure one of the fellers that god made.”
four weeks and two days later, a past-worthy slatted crate, labelled “lochinvar collie kennels,” was delivered at jamie’s door. it arrived a bare ten minutes after mackellar came home from work. all the family gathered around it in the kitchen; while, with hands that would not stay steady, the head of the house proceeded to unfasten the clamps which held down its top.
it was jamie mackellar’ s great moment, and his wife and children were infected almost to hysteria by his long-sustained excitement.
back went the crate lid. out onto the kitchen floor shambled a dog.
for a long minute, as the new-arrived collie stood blinking and trembling in the light, everybody peered at him without word or motion. jamie’s jaw had gone slack, at first sight of him. and it still hung supine; making the man’s mouth look like a frog penny bank’s.
the puppy was undersized. he was scrawny and angular and all but shapeless. at a glance, he might have belonged to any breed or to many breeds or to none. his coat was sparse and short and kinky; and through it glared patches of lately-healed eczema. the coat’s colour was indeterminate, what there was of it. nor had four days in a tight crate improved its looks.
the puppy’s chest was pitifully narrow. the sprawly legs were out at elbow and cow-hocked. the shoulders were noteworthy by the absence of any visible sign of them. the brush was an almost hairless rat-tail. the spine was sagged and slightly awry.
but the head was the most direful part of the newcomer. its expressionless eyes were sore and dull. its ears hung limp as a setter’s. the nose and foreface were as snubbily 155broad as a saint bernard’s. the slack jaw was badly overshot. the jowls showed a marked tendency to cheekiness and the skull seemed to be developing an apple-shaped dome in place of the semi-platform which the top of a collie’s head ought to present.
breed dogs as carefully and as scientifically as you will; once in a way some such specimen will be born into even the most blue-blooded litter;—a specimen whose looks defy all laws of clean heredity; a specimen which it would be gross flattery to call a mutt.
one of three courses at such times can be followed by the luckless breeder: to kill the unfortunate misfit; to give it away to some child who may or may not maul it to death; or to swindle a buyer into paying a respectable price for it.
thriftily, lucius frayne had chosen the third course. and no law could touch him for the deal. he had played as safe, in his dirty trade, as does any vivisector.
mackellar had bought the dog, sight unseen. frayne had guaranteed nothing save the pedigree, which was flawless. he had said the creature was the image of king at the same age. but he had said it in the presence of no witness save his own kennel man. and the statement, in any event, was hard of refutal by law.
no; frayne, like many another shrewd professional dog breeder, had played safe. and he had annexed one hundred and fifty dollars, in peril-earned hoardings, for a beast whose true cash value was less than eight cents to any one. he had not even bothered to give the cur a high-sounding pedigree name.
there stood, or crouched, the trembling and whimpering wisp of worthlessness; while the mackellar family looked on in dumb horror. to add to the pup’s ludicrous aspect, an enormous collar hung dangling from his neck. 156frayne had been thrifty, in even this minor detail. following the letter of the transportation rules, he had “equipped the dog with suitable collar and chain.” but the chain, which jamie had unclasped in releasing the pup from the crate, had been a thing of rust and flimsiness. the collar had been outworn by some grown dog. to keep it from slipping off over the puppy’s head roke had fastened to it a twist of wire, whose other end was enmeshed in the scattering short hairs of the youngster’s neck. from this collar’s ring still swung the last year’s license tag of its former wearer.
it was little elspeth who broke the awful spell of silence.
"looks—looks kind of—of measly, don’t he?“ she volunteered.
”jamie mackellar!" shrilled her mother, finding voice and wrath in one swift gasp. “you—you went and gambled with your life on them explosion trucks—and never told me a word about it till it was over—just to earn money to buy—to buy—that!”
then jamie spoke. and at his first luridly sputtered sentence his wife shooed the children out of the room in scandalised haste. but from the cottage’s farthest end she could hear her spouse’s light voice still raised to shrill falsetto. he seemed to be in earnest converse with his maker, and the absence of his wife and children from the room lent lustre and scope to his vocabulary.
outside, the night was settling down bitterly chill. a drifting snow was sifting over the frozen earth. the winter’s worst cold spell was beginning. but in the firelit kitchen a hope-blasted and swindled man was gripped by a boiling rage that all the frigid outer world could not have cooled.
presently, through his sputtering soliloquy, mackellar 157found time and justice to note that lochinvar bobby was still shaking with the cold of his long wagon ride through the snow from the station. and sullenly the man went out to the refrigerator in the back areaway for milk to warm for the sufferer.
he left the door open behind him. into the kitchen seeped the deadly chill of night. it struck the miserable bobby and roused him from the apathy of fright into which his advent to the bright room had immersed him.
the fright remained, but the impotence to move was gone. fear had been born in his cringing soul, from the harsh treatment meted out to him in the place of his birth by kennel men who scoffed at his worthlessness. fear had increased fifty fold by his long and clangorous journey across half the continent. now, fear came to a climax.
he had cowered in helpless terror before these strangers, here in the closed room. he had sensed their hostility. but now for an instant the strangers had left him. yes, and the back door was standing ajar—the door to possible escape from the unknown dangers which beset him on all sides.
tucking his ratlike tail between his cow-hocks, bobby put down his head and bolted. through the doorway he scurried, dodging behind the legs of jamie mackellar as he fled through the refrigerator-blocked areaway. jamie heard the scrambling footfalls, and turned in time to make a belated grab for the fleeing dog.
he missed bobby by an inch; and the man’s gesture seemed to the pup a new menace. thus had roke and the other kennel men struck at him in early days; or had seized him by tail or hind leg as he fled in terror from their beatings.
out into the unfenced yard galloped the panic-driven 158bobby. and through the pitch blackness mackellar stumbled in utterly futile pursuit. the sound of jamie’s following feet lent new speed to the cowed youngster. instead of stopping, after a few moments, he galloped on, with his ridiculous wavering and sidewise gait.
mackellar lived on the outskirts of the suburb, which, in turn, was on the outskirts of the city. by chance or by instinct bobby struck ahead for the rocky ridge which divided denser civilisation from the uncleared wilderness and the patches of farm country to the north. nor did the puppy cease to run until he had topped, puffingly, the ridge’s summit. there he came to a shambling halt and peered fearfully around him.
on the ridge-crest, the wind was blowing with razor sharpness. it cut like a billion waxed whiplashes, through the sparse coat and against the sagging ribs of the pup. it drove the snow needles into his watering eyes, and it stung the blown-back insides of his sensitive ears. he cowered under its pitiless might, as under a thrashing; and again he began to whimper and to sob.
below him, from the direction whence he had wormed his slippery way up the ridge, lay the squalidly flat bit of plain with its sprinkle of mean houses; behind it, the straggling suburb whence he had escaped; and behind that, the far-reaching tangle of glare and blackness which was midwestburg, with miles of lurid light reflection on the low-hanging clouds.
turning, the puppy looked down the farther slope of his ridge to the rolling miles of forest and clearing, with wide-scattered farmsteads and cottages. the wilds seemed less actively and noisily terrifying than the glare and muffled roar of the city behind him. and, as anything was better than to cower freezing there in the wind’s 159full path, bobby slunk down the ridge’s northern flank and toward the naked black woodlands beyond its base.
the rock edges and the ice cut his uncalloused splay feet. even out of the wind, the chill gnawed through coat and skin. the world was a miserable place to do one’s living in. moreover, bobby had not eaten in more than twenty-four hours; although a pup of his age is supposed to be fed not less than four times a day.
the rock-strewn ridge having been passed, the going became easier. here, on the more level ground, a snow carpet made it softer, if colder. no longer running, but at a loose-jointed wolf trot, bobby entered the woods. a quarter mile farther on, he stopped again; at sight of something which loomed up at a height of perhaps three feet above the half-acre of cleared ground about it.
he had strayed into the once-popular blake’s woods picnic grove, and the thing which arrested his sick glance was the dancing platform which had been erected at the grove’s painfully geometrical centre.
years agone, blake’s woods had been a favourite outing ground for midwestburg’s workers. the coming of the interurban trolley, which brought boone lake beach within half an hour of the city, had turned these woods into a dead loss as far as local pleasure seekers were concerned. the benches had been split up or stolen or had rotted. the trim central patch of green sward had been left to grow successive unmown harvests of ragweed.
the dancing platform, with its once-smooth floor and the bright-painted lattice which ran around its base, was sharing the fate of the rest of the grove. the floor was sunken and holey. the laths of the lattice had fallen away in one or two places, and everywhere they had been washed free of their former gay paint.
bobby’s aimless course took him past one end of the 160platform, as soon as he discovered it was harmless and deserted. a furtive sidelong glance, midway of the latticed stretch, showed him a weed-masked hole some two feet square, where the laths had been ripped away or had been kicked in. the sight awoke vague submemories, centuries old, in the artificially reared pup. thus had his wolf forbears seen, and explored for den purposes, gaps between rocks or under windfalls. bobby, moving with scared caution, crept up to the opening, sniffed its musty interior; and, step by step, ventured in under the platform.
here it was still bitter cold; yet it was sensibly warmer than in the open. and, year after year, dead leaves had been wind-drifted through the gap. riffles of them lay ankle deep near the entrance. down into the thickest of the riffles the wretched puppy wiggled his shivering way. there he lay, still shaking, but gaining what scant comfort he might from the warmth of the leaves beneath and around him.
presently from sheer nervous fatigue he snoozed.
it was past midnight when bobby awoke. he was awakened less by cold than by ravening hunger. his was not the normal increase of appetite that had come upon him at such times as the lochinvar kennel men had been an hour or so late with his dinner. this was the first phase of famine.
fear and discomfort had robbed him of hunger throughout the train journey. but now he was safe away from the strangers who had seemed to menace his every move; and he had had a few hours of sleep to knit his frayed nerves. he was more than hungry. he was famished. all his nature cried out for food.
now, never in his brief life had lochinvar bobby found his own meals. never had he so much as caught a mouse 161or rifled a garbage pail. in sanitary man-made kennel run and hutch had he passed all his time. not his had been the human companionship which sharpens a collie’s brain as much as does stark need. and he had no experience of food, save that which had been served him in a tin dish. he did not know that food grows in any other form or place.
but here was no tin dish heaped with scientifically balanced, if uninspired, rations. here was no manner of food at all. bobby nosed about among the dead leaves and the mould of his new-found den. nothing was there which his sense of smell recognised as edible. and goaded by the scourge of hunger he ventured out again into the night. the wind had dropped. but the cold had only intensified; and a light snow was still sifting down.
bobby stood and sniffed. far off, his sensitive nostrils told him, was human habitation. presumably that meant food was there, too. humans and food, in bobby’s experience, always went together. the pup followed the command of his scent and trotted dubiously toward the distant man-reek.
in another quarter-hour the starving pup was sniffing about the locked kitchen door of a farmhouse. within, he could smell milk and meat and bread. but that was all the good it did him. timidly he skirted the house for ingress. almost had he completed the round when a stronger odour smote his senses. it was a smell which, of old he would have disregarded. but, with the primal impulse of famine, other atavistic traits were stirring in the back of his necessity-sharpened brain.
his new scent was not of prepared food, but of hot and living prey. bobby paused by the unlatched door of the farm chicken coop. tentatively he scratched at the white-washed panel. under the pressure the door swung inward. 162out gushed a pleasant warmth and a monstrously augmented repetition of the whiff which had drawn him to the henhouse.
just above him, well within reach, perched fifteen or twenty feathery balls of varicoloured fluff. and famine did the rest.
acting on some impulse wholly beyond his ken, bobby sprang aloft and drove his white milk teeth deep into the breast of a plymouth rock hen.
instantly, his ears were assailed by a most ungodly racket. the quiet hencoop was hideous with eldritch squawks and was alive with feathers. all bobby’s natural fear urged him to drop this flapping and squawking hen and to run for his life.
but something infinitely more potent than fear had taken hold upon him. through his fright surged a sensation of mad rapture. he had set teeth in live prey. blood was hot in his nostrils. quivering flesh was twisting and struggling between his tense jaws. for the moment he was a primitive forest beast.
still gripping his noisy five-pound burden, he galloped out of the hencoop and across the barnyard; heading instinctively for the lair in which he had found a soft bed and safety from human intruders. as he fled, he heard a man’s bellowing voice. a light showed in an upper window of the house. bobby ran the faster.
the hen was heavy, for so spindling a killer. but bobby’s overshot jaws held firm. he dared not pause to eat his kill, until he should be safe away from the shouting man.
stumbling into his platform den, half dead with hunger and fatigue, the dog sought his bed of leaves. and there he feasted, rather than ate. for never before had he known such a meal. and when the last edible morsel of 163it was gorged, he snuggled happily down in his nest and slept.
poultry bones are the worst and most dangerous fare for any domesticated dog. their slivers tear murderously at throat and stomach and intestines; and have claimed their slain victims by the hundred. yet, since the beginning of time, wild animals, as foxes and wolves, have fed with impunity on such bones. no naturalist knows just why. and for some reason bobby was no more the worse for his orgy of crunched chicken-bones than a coyote would have been.
he awoke, late in the morning. some newborn sense, in addition to his normal fear, warned him to stay in his den throughout the daylight hours. and he did so; sleeping part of the time and part of the time nosing about amid the flurry of feathers in vain search for some overlooked bone or fragment of meat.
dusk and hunger drove him forth again. and, as before, he sought the farmstead which had furnished him with so delicious a meal. but as he drew near, the sound of voices from indoors and the passing of an occasional silhouette across the bright window shades of the kitchen warned him of danger.
when, as the kitchen light was blown out, he ventured to the chicken coop he found the door too fast-barred to yield to his hardest scratch. miserably hungry and disappointed he slunk away.
three farms did bobby visit that night before he found another with an unlatched henhouse door. there the tragedy of the preceding evening was repeated. lugging an eight-pound dominic rooster, bobby made scramblingly for his mile-distant lair. behind him again raged sound and fury. the eight-pound bird with its dangling legs and tail feathers kept tripping up the fleeing dog; 164until, acting again on instinct, bobby slung the swaying body over his shoulder, fox-fashion, and thus made his way with less discomfort.
by the third night the collie had taken another long step in his journey backward to the wild. when a dog kills a chicken every one within a half mile is likely to be drawn by the sound. when a fox or wolf or coyote kills a chicken, the deed is done in dexterous silence; with no squawks or flurry of feathers to tell the story. nature teaches the killer this secret. and nature taught it to bobby; as she has taught it to other gone-wild dogs.
as a result, his depredations, thereafter, left no uproar behind them. also, he learned presently the vulpine art of hoarding;—in other words, when safety permitted, to stay on the ground until he had not only slain but eaten one chicken, and then to carry another bird back to his lair for future use. it cut down the peril of over-many trips to neighbouring coops.
in time, he learned to rely less and less on the close-guarded chickens in the vicinity of his den, and to quarter the farm country for a radius of ten or more miles in search of food. the same queer new instinct taught him infinite craft in keeping away from humans and in covering his tracks.
he was doing no more than are thousands of foxes throughout the world. there was no miracle in his new-found deftness as a forager. nature was merely telling her ancient and simple secrets to a wise little brain no longer too clogged by association with mankind to learn them.
there was a profitable side line to bobby’s chicken hunts. the wilder woods, back of midwestburg, abounded in rabbits for such as had the wit to find them. and bobby acquired the wit.
165incredibly soon, he learned the wolf’s art of tracking a cottontail and of stalking the prey until such moment as a lightning dash and a blood-streaked swirl in the snow marked the end of the chase. squirrels, too, and an occasional unwary partridge or smaller bird, were added to the collie’s menu. and more than once, as he grew stronger, bobby lugged homeward over his shoulder a twenty-pound lamb from some distant sheepfold.
nature had played a vilely cruel trick on lochinvar bobby by bringing him into the world as the puny and defective runt of a royal litter. she had threatened his life by casting him loose in the winter woods. but at that point nature seemed to repent of her unkindness to the poor helpless atom of colliehood. for she taught him the closest-guarded secrets of her awful live-on-one-another ritual.
as winter grew soggy at the far approach of spring, bobby found less and less trouble in making a nightly run of thirty miles in search of meals or in carrying back to his lair the heaviest of burdens.
feasting on raw meat—and plenty of it—living in the open, with the icy cold for his bedfellow, he was taking one of the only two courses left to those who must forage or die. readily enough he might have dwindled and starved. the chill weather might have snuffed out his gangling life. instead, the cold and the exposure, and the needful exercise, and the life according to forest nature, and the rich supply of meat that was his for the catching—all these had worked wonders on the spindling runt.
his narrow chest had filled out, from much lung work. his shoulders, from the same cause and from incessant night running, had taken on a splendid breadth. his gawkily shambling body grew rapidly. the overshot 166puppy jaw was levelling. and as his frame grew it shaped itself along lines of powerful grace, such as nature gives to the leopard and to the stag. incessant exposure to the cold had changed his sparse covering of hair to a coat whose thickness and length and texture would have been the wonder of the dog-show world. in brief, his mode of life was achieving for him what all the kennel experts and vets unhung could not have accomplished.
it had been a case of kill or cure. bobby was cured.
after the departure of the snows and the zero nights, and before the leafage made secret progress safe through forest and meadow, bobby knew a period of leanness. true, he foraged as before, but he did it at far greater risk and with less certainty of results.
for—he could not guess why—the countryside was infested nowadays with armed men; men who carried rifle or shot-gun and who not only scoured hill and valley by daylight but lurked outside chicken coops and sheepfolds by night.
of course, by day bobby could avoid them—and he did—by lying close in his den. and at night his amazingly keen sense of smell enabled him to skirt them, out of gun-shot range, as they waited at barn door or at fold gate. but such necessity for caution played havoc with his chances for easily acquired food. and for the most part he had to fall back on rabbit-catching or to travelling far afield. this, until the thickening of foliage made his hunting excursions safer from detection by human eye.
there was sufficient reason for all this patrolling of the district. during the past few months word had seeped through the farm country that a wolf was at large in the long wolfless region; and that he was slaughtering all manner of livestock, from pullets to newborn calves.
167no dog, it was argued, could be the killer. for no known dog could slay so silently and cover his tracks with such consummate skill. nor could a fox carry away a lamb of double its own weight. the marauder must be a wolf. and old-timers raked up yarns of the superhumanly clever exploits of lone wolves, in the days when populous midwestburg was a trading post.
the county grange took up the matter and offered a bounty of fifty dollars for the wolf’s scalp and ears. it was a slack time on the farms—the period between woodcutting and early planting. it was a slack time in midwestburg, too; several mills having shut down for a couple of months.
thus, farmers and operatives amused themselves by making a try for the fifty dollars and for the honour of potting the super-wolf. it was pleasant if profitless sport for the hunters. but it cut down bobby’s rations; until farm work and reopening mills called off the quest. then life went on as before; after a buckshot graze on the hip had taught the collie to beware of spring guns and to know their scent.
so the fat summer drowsed along. and so autumn brought again to the northern air the tang which started afresh the splendid luxuriance of the tawny coat which bobby had shed during the first weeks of spring.
late in december the dog had a narrow escape from death. a farmer, furious at the demise of his best jersey calf, went gunning afresh for the mysterious wolf. with him he took along a german police dog—this being before the days when that breed was de-germanised into the new title of “shepherd dog.” he had borrowed the police dog for the hunt, lured by its master’s tales of his pet’s invincible ferocity.
168man and dog had searched the woods in vain all day, some five miles to north of bobby’s cave. at early dusk they were heading homeward through a rock gulch.
the wind was setting strong from the north. midway through the gulch the police dog halted, back abristle, growling far down in his throat. the man looked up.
as he did so, bobby topped the cliff which formed the gulch’s northerly side. the collie was on his way to a farm in the valley beyond, which he had not visited for so long a time that its occupants might reasonably be supposed to have relaxed some of their unneighbourly vigilance. the wind from the north kept him from smelling or hearing the two in the gully a hundred feet to south of him.
yet, reaching the summit, bobby paused; his wonted caution bidding him search the lower grounds for sign of danger, before travelling farther by fading daylight in such an exposed position.
it was then that the farmer saw him clearly, for the best part of two seconds, silhouetted against the dying sunset. the man knew little enough of collies, and less of wolves. and his mental vision was set for a wolf. thus, to the best of his belief, a wolf was what he saw. but he saw also something he had not expected to see.
the last rays of the sun glinted on a bit of metal that swung beneath bobby’s shaggy throat; metal that had been worn bright by constant friction with the dog’s ruff.
thanks to the twist of wire which had been fastened into his hair, bobby had not slipped the leathern collar wherewith frayne had equipped him. and later his swelling muscular neck had been large enough to hold it on. from its ring the old license tag still dangled.
up went the farmer’s gun. he fired both barrels. as he pressed the two triggers at once, the police dog made a 169rush for the collie. the farmer chanced to be just in front of his canine companion. the police dog sought a short cut, to reach his foe, by diving between the marksman’s slightly spread legs. the two gun barrels were fired straight upward into the sky; and the tripped-up hunter sat down with extreme suddenness on a pointed jut of rock.
by the time he could focus his maddened gaze on the cliff-top again, bobby had vanished. the police dog was charging over the summit at express-train speed. the farmer shook an impotent fist after the disappearing spoiler of his aim.
“i hope he licks the life out of you if you ever catch up with him, you bunglin’ fool!” he bellowed.
his wish came true. next day, in a hollow, a mile farther on, the body of the police dog was found, a score of slashes on his greyish hide and one through his jugular. no police dog ever lived that could catch up with a galloping collie who did not want to be caught. bobby had varied a career of profit with a moment or two of real pleasure.
two days later, in the midwestburg herald, jamie mackellar read the account of this fragmentary drama. he scanned it with no deep interest. tales of the wolf had grown stale to herald readers. but suddenly his attention focused itself on the line:
“mr. gierson declares that a small disk of metal was suspended from the throat of the brute.”
jamie laid down the paper and went into executive session with his own inner consciousness. a disk of metal, suspended from the throat of an animal, means but one thing. it is a license tag. never has such a tag been fastened to a wolf.
back into mackellar’s memory came the picture of a 170poor shivering waif from whose meagre and almost naked throat hung a huge collar; a collar affixed by wire which was wound into such sparse strands of hair as could be made to support it.
on the morning after the next snowfall, jamie took a day off. carrying only a collar and chain and a muzzle, he fared forth into the woods. all day he hunted. he found nothing.
a week later came another snowfall in the night. next morning mackellar set forth again; this time letting his little son donald come along. he had told his family the far-fetched suspicion that had dawned upon him, and donald had clamoured to join the hunt.
on his first search, jamie had quartered the country to west of the ridge. to-day he climbed the rocks and made his way into the rolling land below. skirting blake’s woods, he was moving on toward the farms when, in the fresh snow, he came upon the tracks he sought. for an hour he followed them. apparently they led nowhere. at least, they doubled twice upon themselves and then vanished on a long outcrop of snowless rock which stretched back into blake’s woods.
tiring of this fruitless way of spending the morning, donald strayed from his father. into the woods he wandered. and presently he sighted the dancing platform amid its tangle of dead weeds. running over to it, the boy climbed thereon. then, striking an attitude, he began to harangue an invisible audience, from the platform edge; after the manner of a cart-tail political orator he had observed with emulous delight.
“my friends!” he shrilled, from memory, “our anc’st’rs fit fer the lib’ty we enjoy! are we goin’ to—? ouch! hey, daddy!”
one rhetorically stamping little foot had smashed 171through the rotten boarding. nor could donald draw it out. at the yell of fright, jamie came running. but, a few yards from his son, mackellar slid to a stop. his eyes were fixed on an opening just below the boy’s imprisoned foot; an opening from which the passage of donald’s advancing body had cleared aside some of the tangled weeds. from the tip of a ragged lath, at the edge of this aperture, fluttered a tuft of tawny hair.
pulling donald free, mackellar got down on all fours and peeped into the space beneath the platform. for a few seconds he could see nothing. then, as his eyes accustomed themselves to the dimness, he descried two greenish points of light turned toward him from the farthest corner of the lair.
“bobby?” called the man doubtfully.
the cornered dog heard the name. it roused vague half memories. the memories were not pleasant; though the voice had in it a friendliness that stirred the collie strangely.
bobby crouched the closer to earth and his lips writhed back from murderous white teeth. the man called again; in the same friendly, coaxing voice. then he began to crawl forward a foot or so. behind him the excited boy was blocking the only way out of the den.
the lochinvar bobby of ten months ago would have cowered whimperingly in his corner, waiting for capture. he might even have pleaded for mercy by rolling over on his back.
the lochinvar bobby of to-day was quite another creature. he laid out his plan of campaign, and then in the wink of an eye he carried it into effect.
with a rabid snarl he charged the advancing man. as jamie braced himself to fend off the ravening jaws, the dog veered sharply to one side and dashed for the opening. 172instinct told him the boy would be easier to break past than the man.
but it was not jamie mackellar’s first experience with fighting or playing dogs. as bobby veered, jamie slewed his own prostrate body to the same side and made a grab for the fast-flying collie. his fingers closed and tightened around bobby’s left hind leg, just below the hock.
with a snarl, bobby wheeled and drove his jaws at the captor’s wrist; in a slash which might well have severed an artery. but, expecting just such a move, jamie was ready with his free hand. its fingers buried themselves in the avalanche of fur to one side of bobby’s throat. the slashing eye-teeth barely grazed the pinioning wrist. and bobby thrashed furiously from side to side, to free himself and to rend his enemy.
mackellar’ s expert hands found grips to either side of the whirling jaws, and he held on. bit by bit, bracing himself with all his wiry strength, he backed out; dragging the frantic beast behind him.
five minutes later, at the expense of a few half-averted bites, he had the muzzle tight-bound in place and was leading the exhausted and foaming collie toward midwestburg. bobby held back, he flung himself against the chain, he fought with futile madness against the gentle skill of his master.
then shuddering all over he gave up the fight. head and tail a-droop, he suffered himself to be led to prison.
“it’s lochinvar bobby, all right!” the wondering jamie was saying to his son in intervals of lavishing kindly talk and pats on the luckless dog. "the collar and tag prove that. but if it wasn’t for them, i’d swear it couldn’t be the same. it’s—it’s enough to take a body’s breath away, donald! i’ve followed the dog game from the time i was born, but i never set eyes on such a collie in all my 173days. just run your hand through that coat! was there ever another like it? and did you ever see such bone and head? he’s—lord, to think how he looked when that frayne crook sawed him off on me! it’s a miracle he lived through the first winter. i never heard of but one other case like it. and that happened up in toronto, if i remember right.
“now, listen, sonny: i’m not honing to be sued for damages by every farmer in the county. so let’ em keep on looking for their wolf. this is a dog i bought last year. he’s been away in the country till now. that’s the truth. and the rest is nobody’s business. but—but if it keeps me speiring for a week, to figger it out, i’m going to hit on some way to let mr. lucius frayne, esquire, see he hasn’t stung me so hard as he thought he did!”
for two days bobby refused to eat or drink. in the stout inclosure built for him in mackellar’s back yard he stood, head and tail a-droop, every now and then shivering as if with ague. then, little by little, jamie’s skilled attentions did their work. the wondrous lure of human fellowship, the joy of cooked food, and the sense of security against harm, and, above all, a collie’s ancestral love for the one man he chooses for his god—these wrought their work.
in less than a fortnight bobby was once more a collie. the spirit of the wild beast had departed from him; and he took his rightful place as the chum of the soft-voiced little scot he was learning to worship. yes, and he was happy,—happier than ever before;—happy with a new and strangely sweet contentment. he had come into a collie’s eternal heritage.
the westminster kennel club’s annual dog show at madison square garden, in new york, is the foremost 174canine classic of america and, in late years, of the whole world.
a month before that year’s westminster show, lucius frayne received a letter which made the wontedly saturnine sportsman laugh till the tears spattered down his nose. the joke was too good to keep to himself. so he shouted for roke, and bade the kennel man share the fun of it with him.
he read aloud, cacklingly, to the listening roke:
mr. lucius frayne,
my dear sir:
last year, out to the midwestburg show, here, you sold me a fine puppy of your ch. lochinvar king. and as soon as i could raise the price you sent him on here to me. i would of written to you when i got him, to thank you and to say how pleased i was with him and how all my friends praised him. but i figured you’re a busy man and you haven’t got any waste time to spend in reading letters about how good your dogs are. because you know it already. and so i didn’t write to you. but i am writing to you now. because this is business.
you know what a grand pup bobby was when you sent him to me? well to my way of thinking he has developed even better than he gave promise to. and some of my friends say the same. to my way of thinking he is the grandest collie in north america or anywhere else to-day. he is sure one grand dog. he turned out every bit as good as you said he would. he’s better now than he was at five months.
i want to thank you for letting me have such a dog, mr. frayne. just as you said, he is of champion timber. now this brings me to the business i spoke about.
175granther used to tell me how the gentry on the other side would bet with each other on their dogs at the shows. six months ago my aunt marjorie died and she willed me nine hundred dollars ($900). it is in bank waiting for a good investment for it. now here is an investment that seems to me a mighty safe one. me knowing bobby as i do. a fine sporting investment. and i hope it may please you as well. i am entering bobby for westminster. i read in dog news that you are expecting to enter champion lochinvar king there, with others of your string. so here is my proposition.
i propose you enter king for “open, sable-and-white” and “open, any colour,” these being the only regular classes a sable champion is eligible for. i will enter bobby in the same classes, instead of “novice” as i was going to. and i will wager you six hundred dollars ($600) even, that the judge will place bobby above king. i am making this offer knowing how fine king is but thinking my dog is even better. for bobby has really improved since a pup. my wife thinks so too.
if this offer pleases you, will you deposit a certified check of six hundred dollars ($600) with the editor of dog news? he is a square man as every one knows and he will see fair play. he has promised me he will hold the stakes. i am ready to deposit my certified check for six hundred dollars ($600) at once. i would like to bet the whole nine hundred dollars ($900). knowing it a safe investment. knowing bobby like i do. but my wife doesn’t want me to bet it at all and so we are compromising on six hundred dollars ($600).
please let me hear from you on this, mr. frayne. and i thank you again for how you treated me as regards 176bobby. i hope to repay you at westminster by letting you see him for yourself.
your ob’t servant,
james a. mackellar.
yes, it was a long letter. yet frayne skipped no word of it. and roke listened, as to heavenly music.
“talk about lochinvar luck!” chortled frayne as he finished. “the worst pup we ever bred; and we sold him for one-fifty! and now he is due to fetch us another six hundred, in dividends. he—”
“you’re going to cover his bet?” queried roke. “good! i was afraid maybe you’d feel kind of sorry for the poor cuss, and—”
“unless i break both wrists, in the next hour,” announced frayne, “that certified check will start for the dog news office by noon. it’s the same old wheeze: a dub has picked up a smattering of dog talk; he thinks he knows it all. he buys a bum pup with a thundering pedigree. the pedigree makes him think the pup is a humdinger. he brags about it to his folks. they think anything that costs so much must be the best ever, no matter how it looks. and he gets to believing he’s got a world beater. then—”
“but, boss,” put in roke with happy unction, “just shut your eyes and try to remember how that poor mutt looked! and the boob says he’s ‘even better than he gave promise to be.’ do you get that? yet you hear a lot about scotchmen being shrewd! gee, but i wish you’d let me have a slice of that $600 bet! i’d—”
“no,” said frayne judicially. “that’s my own meat. it was caught in my trap. but i tell you what you can do: wait till i send my check and till it’s covered, and then write to mackellar and ask him if he’s willing to bet 177another $150, on the side, with you. from the way he sounds, you ought to have it easy in getting him to make the side bet. he needn’t tell his wife. try it anyhow; if you like.”
roke tried it. and, after ridiculously small objection on jamie’s part, the side bet was recorded and its checks were posted with the editor of dog news. once more lucius frayne and his faithful kennel man shook hands in perfect happiness.
to the topmost steel rafters, where the grey february shadows hung, old madison square garden echoed and reverberated with the multi-keyed barks of some two thousand dogs. the four-day show had been opened at ten o’clock of a slushy wednesday morning. and as usual the collies were to be judged on the first day.
promptly at eleven o’clock the clean-cut collie judge followed his steward into the ring. the leather-lunged runner passed down the double ranks of collie benches, bawling the numbers for the male puppy class.
the judge had a reputation for quickness, as well as for accuracy and honesty. the open classes, for male dogs, were certain to come up for verdict within an hour, at most.
seven benches had been thrown into one, for the frayne dogs. at its back ran a strip of red silk, lettered in silver: “lochinvar collie kennels.” seven high-quality dogs lay or sat in this space de luxe. in the centre—his name on a bronze plate above his head—reclined lochinvar king.
in full majesty of conscious perfection he lay there; magnificent as a numidian lion, the target for all eyes. conditioned and groomed to the minute, he stood out from his high-class kennel-mates like a swan among cygnets.
178frayne, more than once in the show’s first hour or so, left his much-admired benches; for a glance at a near-by unoccupied space, numbered 568. here, according to the catalogue, should be benched lochinvar bobby.
but bobby was nowhere to be seen.
congratulating himself on his own craft in having inserted a forfeit clause in the bet agreement, frayne was none the less disappointed that the fifth-rate mutt had not shown up.
he longed for a chance to hear the titter of the railbirds; when the out-at-elbow, gangling, semi-hairless little nondescript should shamble into the ring. bobby’s presence would add zest to his own oft-told tale of the wager.
according to american kennel club rules, a dog must be on its bench from the moment the exhibition opens until the close, excepting only when it is in the ring or at stated exercise periods. that rule, until recently, has been most flagrantly disregarded by many exhibitors. in view of this, frayne made a trip to the exercise room and then through the dim-lit stalls under the main floor.
as he came back from a fruitless search for bobby or for mackellar, he passed the collie ring. “limit; dogs,” was chalked on the blackboard. two classes more—“open, merle,” and "open, tricolour"—and then king must enter the ring for “open, sable.” frayne hurried to the lochinvar benches, where roke and another kennel man were fast at work putting finishing touches to king’s toilet.
the great dog was on his feet, tense and eager for the coming clash. close behind the unseeing roke, and studying king with grave admiration, stood jamie mackellar.
“hello, there!” boomed frayne with loud cordiality, bearing down upon the little man. “get cold feet? i 179see your dog’s absent. remember, you forfeit by absence.”
“yes, sir,” said jamie with meekness, taking off his hat to the renowned sportsman, and too confused in fumbling with its wabbly brim to see the hand which frayne held out to him. “yes, sir. i remember the forfeit clause, sir. i’m not forfeiting. bobby is here.”
“here? where? i looked all over the—”
“i hired one of the cubby-hole rooms upstairs, sir; to keep him in, nights, while he’s here. and i haven’t brought him down to his bench yet. you see, he—he ain’t seen many strangers. and you’ll remember, maybe, that he used to be just a wee peckle shy. so i’m keeping him there till it is time to show him. my boy, donald, is up, now, getting him ready. they’ll be down presently, sir. i think you’ll be real pleased with how bobby looks.”
"i’m counting on a heap of pleasure," was frayne’s cryptic reply, as he turned away to mask a grin of utter joy.
five grey dogs were coming down the aisle to their benches. the merle class had been judged and the tricolours were in the ring. there were but four of these.
in another handful of minutes the “open, sable” class was called. it was the strongest class of the day. it contained no less than three champions; in addition to four less famous dogs, like bobby;—seven entries in all.
six of these dogs were marched into the ring. the judge looked at the steward, for the “all-here” signal. as he did so, the seventh entrant made his way past the gate crowd and was piloted into the ring by a small and cheaply clad man.
while the attendant was slipping the number board on mackellar’s arm, lucius frayne’s eyes fell upon lochinvar bobby. so did those of the impatient judge and the ninety out of every hundred of the railbirds.
180through the close-packed ranks of onlookers ran a queer little wordless mutter—the most instinctive and therefore the highest praise that can be accorded.
alertly calm of nerve, heedless of his surroundings so long as his worshipped god was crooning reassurances to him, bobby stood at mackellar’s side.
his incredible coat was burnished like old bronze. his head was calmly erect, his mighty frame steady. his eyes, with true eagle look, surveyed the staring throng.
never before, in all the westminster club’s forty-odd shows, had such a collie been led into the ring. eugenic breeding, wise rationing and tireless human care had gone to the perfecting of other dogs. but mother nature herself had made lochinvar bobby what he was. she had fed him bountifully upon the all-strengthening ration of the primal beast; and she had given him the exercise-born appetite to eat and profit by it. her pitiless winter winds had combed and winnowed his coat as could no mortal hand, giving it thickness and length and richness beyond belief. and she had moulded his growing young body into the peerless model of the wild.
then, because he had the loyal heart of a collie and not the incurable savagery of the wolf, she had awakened his soul and made him bask rapturously in the friendship of a true dog-man. the combination was unmatchable.
“walk your dogs, please,” ordered the judge, coming out of his momentary daze.
before the end of the ring’s first turn, he had motioned frayne and mackellar to take their dogs into one corner. he proceeded to study the five others; awarding to two of them the yellow third-prize ribbon and the white reserve, and then ordering the quintet from the ring. after which he beckoned bobby and king to the judging block.
181in the interim, frayne had been staring goggle-eyed at the midwestburg collie. he tried to speak; but he could not. a hundred thoughts were racing dumbly through his bemused brain. he stood agape, foolish of face.
jamie mackellar was pleasantly talkative.
“a grand class, this,” he confided to his voiceless comrade. “but, first crack, judge breese had the eye to single out our two as so much the best that he won’t size ’em up with the others. how do you like bobby, sir? is he very bad? don’t you think, maybe, he’s picked up, just a trifle, since you shipped him to me? he’s no worse, anyhow, than he was then, is he?”
frayne gobbled, wordlessly.
“this is the last time i’ll show him, for a while, mr. frayne,” continued jamie, a grasping note coming into his timid voice. “the cash i’m due to collect from you and mr. roke will make enough, with the legacy and what i’ve saved, to start me in business with a truck of my own. bobby and i are going into partnership. and we’re going to clean up. bobby is putting seven hundred and fifty dollars and to-day’s cash prizes into the firm. he and i are getting out of the show-end of collie breeding, for a time. the more we see of some of you professionals, the better we like cesspools. if dogs weren’t the grandest animals the good lord ever put on earth, a few of the folks who exploit them would have killed the dog game long ago. it—. judge breese is beckoning for us!”
side by side, the two glorious collies advanced to the judging block. side by, side, at their handlers’ gestures, they mounted it. and again from the railbirds arose that queer wordless hum. sire and son, shoulder to shoulder, faced the judge.
and, for the first time in his unbroken career of conquest, 182lochinvar king looked almost shabby; beside the wondrous young giant he had sired. his every good point—and he had no others—was bettered by bobby.
as a matter of form, breese went over both dogs with meticulous care; testing coat-texture, spring of ribs, action, soundness of bone, carriage, facial expression, and the myriad other details which go into the judging of a show dog. long he faced them, crouching low and staring into their deep-set eyes; marking the set and carriage of the tulip ears; comparing point with point; as becomes a man who is about to give victory to an unknown over a hitherto invincible.
then with a jerk of his head he summoned the steward with the judging book and ribbons. and, amid a spontaneous rattle of applause, jamie mackellar led his splendid dog to the far end of the ring, with one hand; while in the fingers of the other fluttered a strip of gold-lettered dark blue ribbon.
back came both collies for the “open, any colour class,” and the verdict was repeated; as it was repeated in the supreme “winners’” class which followed. “winners’” class carried, with its rosette and cash specials, a guerdon of five points toward bobby’s championship.
then followed the rich harvest of other cash specials in the collie division, including $25 for “best of breed,” and for the next three days even fatter gleanings from among the variety classes and unclassified specials. these last awards ranged from five dollars to twenty-five dollars apiece; apart from a valiseful of silver cups and like trophies which are more beautiful than pawnable.
on saturday, jamie mackellar and bobby took the midnight train for midwestburg; richer by almost nine hundred dollars for their new york sojourn.
rolling sweetly around in jamie’s memory was a brief 183talk he had had with roke, an hour before the close of the show. sent as emissary by frayne, the kennel manager had offered mackellar a flat two thousand dollars for the sensational young prize winner.
“we’re not parting company, bobby and i,” jamie had made civil answer. “thanking you and your boss just as much. but tell mr. frayne if ever i breed a pup as good as bobby was when he came to me, he can have it for an even hundred and fifty. i wouldn’t want such a fine chap to think i’m not just as clean a sportsman as what he is!”
