 CHAPTER III. THE ORDEAL By dawn on Labor Day, Link Ferris was a stir. A series of discomforting baths and repeated currying with the dandy brush had made Chum's grand coat stand out in shimmering fluffiness. A course of carefully conducted circular promenades on the end of a chain had taught the dog to walk gaily and unrestrainedly in leash, and any of several cryptic words relating to hypothetical rats and so forth were quite enough to send up his ears. It was sheer excitement that brought Link broad awake before sunrise on that day of days. Ferris was infected with the most virulent form of that weird melody known as dog-showitis. At first he had been tempted solely by the hope of winning the $100 prize, but laterally the urge of victory had gotten into his blood, and he yearned too to let the world see what a marvellous dog was his. He hurried through the morning chores, then dressed himself in his shabby best and hitched his horse to the antiquated conquered buggy, a vehicle he had been washing for the state occasion almost as vehemently as he had scrubbed Chum. After a gobbled breakfast, Ferris mounted to the seat of the aged buggy, signaled Chum to leap to the battered cushion at his side and set off for Craigswald. Long before ten o'clock his horse was safely stable at the Craigswald livery, and Ferris was leading Chum proudly through the wicket gate leading into the country-club grounds. All happened as the postmaster had foretold. The clerk at the wicket asked him his name, fumbled through a ledger and a pile of envelopes, and presently handed Ferris a numbered tag. "'65,' read the clerk for Link's benefit. That's down at the extreme right, almost the last bench to the right. Into the hallowed precinct Link piloted the much-interested Chum. There he paused for a dazzled instant. The putting-green and the forlorn in front of the field-stone clubhouse had been covered with a mass of wooden alleyways, each lined with a double row of stalls about two feet from the ground, carpeted with straw and having individual zinc water-trops in front of them. In nearly every one of these benches was tied a dog. There were more dogs than Link Ferris had seen before in all his quasi-dogless life, and all of them seemed to be barking or yelping. The din was egregious. Along the alleyways men and women in sport clothes were drifting in survey of the chained exhibits. In a central space among the lines of benches was a large square enclosure roped off except for one aperture. In the middle of this space, which Link rightly guessed to be the judging-ring, stood a very low wooden platform. At one side of the ring were a chair and a table, where sat a steward in a palm-beach suit, fussily turning over the leaves of a ledger and assorting a heap of high-packed and vericolored ribbons. Link, mindful of instructions, bore to the right in search of a stall labeled Sixty-Five. As he went, he noted that the dogs were benched in such a way that each breed had a section to itself. Thus, while he was still some distance away from his designated bench, he saw that he was coming into a section of dogs which, in general aspect, resembled chum. Above this aggregation, as over others, hung a lettered sign, and this a special sign read Kali section. So, chum was a Kali, whatever that might be. Link took it to be a fancy term for bird-dog. He had seen the word before somewhere, and he remembered now that it had been in the advertisement that offered seventy-five dollars for the return of a lost sable and white Kali. Yes, and Dominic Jansen had said sable meant black. Link felt a glow of relief that the advertisement had not said a brown and white Kali. Chum was viewing his new surroundings with much attention, looking up now and then into his master's face as they moved along the rackety line, as though to gain reassurance that all was well. To a high strung and sensitive dog a show was a terrific ordeal. But chum, like the aristocrat he was, bore its preliminaries with debonair calm. Arriving at bench sixty-five in the Kali section, Link enthroned his dog there, fastening the chain's free end to a ring in the stall's corner. Then, after seeing that the water-pan was where chum could reach it, in case he were thirsty, and that the straw made a comfortable couch for him, Ferris once more padded the worried dog and told him everything was all right. After which Link proceeded to take a survey of the neighbouring Kali's, the sixteen dogs which were to be chum's competitors. His first appraising glance of the double row of Kali's caused the furrow between his eyes to vanish, and brought a grin of complacent satisfaction to his thin lips. For he did not see a single entrant that, in his eyes, seemed to have a ghost of a chance against his idolised pet, not a dog as handsome or with half the look of intelligence, or with the proudly gay bearing of chum. Of the sixteen other Kali's the majority were sables of diverse shades. There were three tricolours and two mist-hued murals. Over nearly all the section's occupants a swarm of owners and handlers were just now busy with brush and cloth. For word had come that Kali's were to be the second breed judged that day. The first breed was to be the Great Danes. As there were but three Danes in the show their judging would be brief, and to behoove the Kali's attendants to have their entries ready. Link, following the example of those around him, took from his pocket the molting dandy brush and set to work once more on Chum's coat. He observed that the rest were brushing their dogs fur against the grain to make it fluff up. And he reversed his own former process in imitation of them. He had supposed until now that a Kali's hair, like a man's, ought to be slick down smooth for state occasions. And it troubled him to find that Chum's coat rebelled against such treatment. Now, under the reverse process, it stood out in wavy freedom. At the adjoining stall to the left a decidedly pretty girl was watching a groom put the finishing touches to the toilet of her tricolor Kali. Link heard her exclaim in protest as the groom removed from the dog's collar a huge cerise bow she had just affixed there. Sorry, Miss, Ferris heard the groom explain. But it's again rules for a dog to go in the ring with a ribbon on. If the judge thinks he's good enough for a ribbon, he'll award him one. But—oh, he simply can't help awarding one to Morven here, broke in the girl. Can he stokes? Hard to say, Miss, answered the groom imperturbably as he wrought with brush and cloth. Judges has their own ideas. We'll have to hope for the best for him and not be too sick if he gets gated. Gated, echoed the girl, an evident newcomer to the realm of Shodam. Yes, Miss, expounded the groom. Gated means shown the gate. Some judges thins out a class that way by sending the poorest dogs out of the ring first. Then again some judges. Oh, I'm glad I wore this dress, sighed the girl. It goes so well with Morven's color. Perhaps the judge— Excuse me, Miss, put in the groom, trying not to laugh, but the Kali judge today is Fred Layton. He bred the great Howgill rival, you know, and when he's in the ring he hasn't got eyes for anything but the dogs themselves. Bigging your pardon, he wouldn't notice if you were to wear a horse blanket. At that, Layton's the squarist and the best— Look! whispered the girl, whose attention had wandered and whose roving gaze had settled on Chum. Look at that dog in the next bench! Isn't he magnificent? Link swelled with pride at the low-spoken praise, and turning away to hide his satisfaction, he saw that quite a sizable knot of spectators had gathered in front of Chum's bench. They were inspecting the Kali with manifest approval. Chum, embarrassed by the unaccustomed notice, had moved as far as possible from his admirers, and was nuzzling his head into Ferris's hand for refuge. Puppy-class, male scotch-collies, droned a ring attendant appearing for a moment at the far end of the section. Numbers sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two. Three youngsters, ranging in age from seven to eleven months, were coaxed down from their straw couches by three excited owners, and were convoyed fussily toward the ring. Novice-class next, miss! Link heard the groom saying to the girl at the adjoining bench, Got his ring-leash ready? Ring-leash! This was a new one to Ferris. His eyes followed the trio of puppies shuffling ringward. He saw that all three were on leather leashes, and that their chains had been left in the stalls. Presumably there was a law against chains in the ring, and Link had no leash. For an instant he was in a quandary. Then his brow cleared. True, he had no leash. Yet if chains, like bows of ribbon, were barred from the ring, he could maneuver chum every bit as well with his voice as with any leash, so that problem was solved. A minute later the three pups reappeared at the end of the section, and behind them came the attendant intoning, Novice-class! Male scotch-collies! Numbers! Sixty-four! Sixty-five! Sixty-six! Sixty-seven! There was an absurd throbbing in Link Ferris's meridian. His calloused hands shook as he unchanged chum and motioned him to leap from the bench to the ground. Chum obeyed, but with evident uneasiness. His odd surroundings were getting on the collies' nerves. Link bent over him under pretense of giving him a farewell rub with the brush. It's all right, chummy, he crooned soothingly. It's all right. I'm here, and nobody's going to bother you, nun. You're helping me win that hundred, and you're letting these gold-shirt folks see what a clam, gorgeous dog you be! Come along, old friend! Under the comfort of his god's voice Chum's nervousness fled. Safe in his sublime trust that his master would let no harm befall him, the collie trotted toward the ring at Ferris's heels. Three other novice dogs were already in the ring when Link arrived at the narrow opening. The steward was sitting at the table as before. At the corner of the ring, alongside the platform, stood a man in tweeds, unlighted pipe in mouth, half-shut shrewd eyes studying the dogs as they filed in through the gap in the ropes. The inscrutable eyes flickered ever so little at sight of Chum, but at once resumed their former disinterested gaze. Walk close! whispered Link as the parade started. Chum, hearing a command he had long since learned, ranged himself at Ferris's side and paced majestically in the procession of four. Two of the other novice dogs were straining at their leashes. The third was hanging back and pawing frantically to break away. Chum, unleashed, guided only by the voice, drew every eye to him by his rare beauty and his lofty self-possession. But he was not allowed to finish the parade. Stepping up to Ferris, Judge Layton tapped him on the arm. Take your dog over to that corner, he ordered, and keep him there. Link fought back a yearning to punch the judge, and certainly he obeyed the mandate. Into his memory jumped the things the groom had said about a dog being gated. If that judge thought for one second that any of those mutts could hold a candle to Chum, again he yearned to enforce with his two willing fists his opinion of the judge. As he well knew, to start a fight in this plutocratic assemblage would mean a jail term. And in such case what would befall the deserted Chum? For the dog's sake he restrained himself, and he began to edge surreptitiously toward the ring exit with a view to sliding out unperceived with his splendid underrated dog. But Ferris did not reach the gate unchecked. Judge Layton had ended the parade and had stood the three dogs, one by one and then two at a time, on the platform while he studied them. Then he had crossed to the table and picked up the judging-book and four ribbons, one blue, one red, one yellow, and one white. Three of these ribbons he handed to the three contestants' handlers. Then he stepped across the ring to where Ferris was edging his way toward the exit, and handed Link the remaining ribbon. It was dark blue with gilt lettering. Layton did not so much as subject Chum to the handling and close inspection he had lavished on the three others. One expert glance had told the judge that the dark sable collie, led by this loudish countryman, was better fitted to clean up prizes at Madison Square Garden than to appear in a society dog show in the North Jersey hinterland. Layton had viewed Chum as a bored musician listening to the piano antics of defective children might have regarded the playing of a disguised patyruski. Wherefore he had waved the dog to one side while he judged the entrance, and then had given him the merited first prize ribbon. Link, in a daze of bliss, stalked back to the bench, with Chum capering along at his side. The queer sixth sense of a collie told Chum his god was deliriously happy, and that Chum himself had somehow had a share in making him so. Hence the dog's former gloomy pacing changed to a series of static little dance steps, and he kept thrusting his cold muzzle into the cup of Ferris's palm. Again Bench 65 was surrounded by an admiring clump of spectators. Chum and Link vied each other in their icy aloofness toward these admirers, but with a difference. Chum was unaffectedly bothered by so much unwelcome attention from strangers. Ferris, on the other hand, reveled in the knowledge that his beloved pet was the center of more adulation than was any other dog in all the section. Class after class went to be judged. Link was sorry he had not spent more money and entered Chum in every class. The initial victory had gone to his head. He had not known he could be so serenely happy. After a while he started up at the attendance droning announcement of Winners' Class Male Scots Collies Numbers 62 65 68 70 73 Again Link and Chum set out for the ring. Link's glee had merged into an all-consuming nervousness, comparable only to a maiden-hunter's buck Agu. Chum, once more sensing Ferris's state of mind, lost his own glad buoyancy and paced solemnly alongside, peering worriedly up into Link's face at every few steps. All five entrants filed into the ring and began their parade. Layton, in view of the importance of this crowning event, did not single out any one dog as before to stand to one side, nor did he gait any. He gave owners and spectators their full due by a thorough inspection of all five contestants. But as a result of his examination he ended the suspense by handing Link Ferris a purple rosette, whereon was blazoned in guilt the legend winners. A salvo of hand-claps greeted the eminently just decision, and Chum left the ring to find a score of gratulatory hands stretched forth to Padham. Quite a little crowd escorted him back to his bench. A dozen people picked acquaintance with Link. They asked him all sorts of questions as to his dog. Link made monosyllabic and non-committal replies to all of these, even when the great colonel Cyrus Martin himself deigned to come over to the collie section and stare at Chum, accompanying his scrutiny with a volley of patronizing inquiries. From the bystanders Link learned something of real interest, namely that one of the specials was a big silver cup to be awarded to the best collie of either sex, and that after the female should have been judged the winning female and Chum must appear in the ring together to compete for this trophy. Sure enough, in less than thirty minutes Chum was summoned to the ring. There, awaiting him, was a dainty and temperamental mural of the Caswell strain. Exquisite and hybrid as was this female competitor, Judge Layton wasted little time on the examination before giving Faris a tricolored ribbon whose possession entitled him to one of the shimmering silver mugs in the nearby trophy case. After receiving full assurance that the big cup should be his at the close of the show, Link returned to Chum's bench in ecstasy and sat down beside his tired dog with one arm thrown lovingly around the collie's ruff. Chum nestled against his triumphant master as Link fondled his bunch of ribbons and went over mentally every move of his triumphal morning. The milling and changing groups of spectators in front of Bench 65 did not dwindle. Indeed, as the morning went on, they increased. People kept coming back to the bench and bringing others with them. Some of these people whispered together. Some merely stared and went away. Some asked Faris carefully worded questions to which the shyly happy mountaineer replied with sheepish grunts. The long period of judging came at last to an end, and the best dog and show special was called. Into the ring Faris escorted Chum amid a multitude of fellow winners, representing one male or female of every breed exhibited. Layton and another judge stood in the ring's center and around them billowed the heterogeneous array. The two went at their gargantuan task with an expert swiftness. Mercilessly dog after dog was weeded out and gated. At last Chum and two others were all remaining of the many which had thronged the ring. The spectators were banked five deep and breathless round the ropes. The two judges went into brief executive session in one corner. Then Layton crossed to Link for the fourth time that day and gave him the gaudy rosette which proclaimed Chum best dog in the show. A roar of applause went up. Link felt dizzy and numb. Then with a gasp of rapture he stooped and gathered the bored Chum in his long arms in a bear-like ecstatic hug. We'd done it, Chummy! he chortled. We'd done it! Still in a daze he followed the steward to the trophy case where he received not only the shining silver cup but a sovereign purse wherein were ensconced ten ten-dollar gold pieces. It was all a dream, a wonder-dream from which presently he must awaken. Link was sure of that. But while the golden dream lasted he knew the nameless joys of paradise. Chum close at his side he made his way through the congratulating crowd toward the outer gate of the country-club grounds. He had almost reached the wicket when someone touched him with unnecessary firmness on the shoulder. Not relishing the familiarity, Link turned a scowling visage on the interrupter of his triumphal homeward progress. At his elbow stood a stockily-built man dressed with severe plainness. Your Lincoln Ferris! queried the stranger, more as if stating aggressively a fact than making an inquiry. Yep! said Link, crossed at this annoying break-in upon his trance of happiness. What do you want? he added. Please step back to the clubhouse a minute with me. Returned the stranger, civilly enough, but with the same bossy firmness in his tone that had jarred Ferris in his touch. One or two people want to speak to you. Bring along your dog. Link glowered. He fancied he knew what was in store. Some of the ultra-select had gathered in the holy interior of the clubhouse and wanted a private view of Chum, unsullied by the noisy presence of the crowd outside. They would talk patronizingly to Link and perhaps even try to coax him into selling Chum. The thought decided Ferris. I'm going home, he said roughly. You're coming with me, contradicted the man in that same quiet voice, but slipping his muscular arm into Link's. With his other hand he shifted the lapel of his coat, displaying a police badge on its reverse. Still avoiding any outward appearance of force he turned about with his arm locked in Ferris's and started toward the clubhouse. Here, expostulated poor Link with all a true mountaineer's horror of the police. What's all this? I ain't broke no law. I—an ugly growl from Chum punctuated his sacred plea. Noting the terror in his master's tone and the grip of the stranger on Link's arm, Chum had spun round to face the two. The collie's eyes were fixed grimly upon the plainclothesman's temptingly thick throat. One corner of Chum's upper lip was curled back, displaying a likeness like if snowy fang. His head was lowered. Deep in his furry throat a succession of legato growls were born. The plainclothesman knew much about dogs. He knew, for example, that when a dog holds his head high and barks, there is no special danger to be feared from him. But he also knew that when a dog lowers his head and growls, showing his eye-tooth, he means business. And the man shrank from the menace. One hand crept back instinctively toward his hip pocket. Link saw the purely involuntary gesture, and he shook in his boot. It was thus a Hampton constable had once reached back when a stray curse snapped at him. And that constable had completed the movement by drawing a pistol and shooting the cur. Perhaps this nonuniform stranger meant to do the same thing. Hold on, begged Link, intervening between the man and the dog. I'll go along with you, peaceful. Quit, Chum, it's all right. The dog still looked undecided. He did not like this new note in his god's voice. But he obeyed the injunction and fell into step at Link's side as usual. Ferris suffered himself to be piloted, unresisting, through the tattered remnant of the crowd and up the clubhouse steps. There his conductor led him through the sacred portals and down a wide hallway to the door of a committee room. Throwing open the door he ushered in his captive and the dog, entering behind them and re-closing the heavy door. The room round a table sat several persons, all men except one. The exception was the girl whose collie had had the bench next to Chum's. At the table-head, looking very magisterial indeed, sat Colonel Marden. Beside him lounged a larger and older man in a plaid sports suit. Link's escort ranged his prisoners at the foot of the table, Chum standing tight against Ferris's knee as if to guard him from possible harm. Link stood glowering in sullen perplexity at the Colonel. Marden cleared his voice pompously, then spoke. Ferris, he began with much impressiveness, I am a magistrate of this county, as you perhaps know. You may consider yourself before the Bar of Justice and reply to my questions accordingly. Odd by this thundered preamble, Ferris made shift to mutter. I broke no laws. What do you want of me, anyhow? First of all, proceeded Marden. Where did you get that dog? Chum here, said Ferris. Why, I come across him early last spring on the patch of road just outside of Hampton. He was laying in a ditch with his leg-bust. Threwed off an auto, I figured it. I took him home and... He paused as the sports-suited man next to Marden, nodded excitedly to the girl and then whispered to the Colonel. You took him home, pursued Marden. Couldn't you see he was a valuable dog? I could see he was a suffering and dying dog, retorted Link. I could see he was a goner, lest I took him home and tended him. If you're aiming at finding out why I went on keeping him after that, I'd done so because no one claimed him. I put up notices about him. I put one up at the post office here, too. He did, interrupted the girl. That's true. I saw it. Only the notice said it was a bird-dog. That's why we didn't follow it up. He, Miss Galt, suggested Marden in lofty reproof, suppose you leave the interrogatory to me, if you please? Yes, I recollect that notice. My attention was called to it at the time. But, again addressing Link, why did you call Glenmere Cavalier a bird-dog? Was it to throw us off the track, or... Don't know, no. What's his name, Cavalier? snapped Ferris. This dog's name is Chum. Like you can see in my entry blank, what's laying on the table in front of you. I advertised Chum as a bird-dog, because I suppose he was a bird-dog. I ain't a sharp on dogs. He's the first one I ever had. If he ain't a bird-dog, taint my fault. He looks more like one than Totherbreed's I'd seen, so I called him one. There's no need to raise your voice at me, rebuked the colonel. I am disposed to accept your explanation. But if you read the local papers, you must have seen... I did read them, said Ferris. I read them steady for a month or more, to see was there was advertisement for a lost dog. Nary and advertisement did I see, except one for a Sable Collie. Sable means black. I know, because our Domini told me so. I asked him when I see that piece in the paper. Chum ain't black, nor nowhere's near black. So I know that it couldn't be him. Would you want him me anyhow? He demanded once more. Again I am disposed to credit your explanation. Boomed the colonel, frowning down a ripple of giggles at its rise in Miss Galt. And I am disposed to acquit you of consciously dishonest intent. I am glad to do so. Here is the situation. Early last spring Mr. Galt, indicating the sports suit wearer at his left, brought from the famous Glenmere Collie kennels on the Hudson an unusually fine young Collie, a dog for which connoisseurs predicted a great future in the show-ring. He purchased it as a gift for his daughter, Miss Marion Galt. Then he inclined his head slightly toward the girl, then proceeded. As Mr. Glenmere was disbanding his kennel, Mr. Galt was able to secure the dog, Glenmere Cavalier. He started for Craigswold with the dog in the rear seat of the car. At first he kept a hand on the dog's collar, but as the Collie made no attempt to escape he soon turned around, he was in the front seat, and paid no more attention to him. Just outside of suffering he looked back to find Cavalier had disappeared. He advertised and made all possible efforts to locate the dog, but he could get no clue to him until today. Seeing this dog of yours in the show-ring he recognized him at once. The pompously booming voice with its stilted diction ceased. All eyes were upon Link Ferris. The mountaineer, stung to life by the silence and the multiple gaze, came out of his trance of shock. Then, then, he stuttered, forcing the words from a throat sanded by sudden dread. Then Chum rightly belongs to this man? Quite so, assented Martin, in some relief. I am glad you grasped the point so readily. Mr. Galt has taken the matter over with me, and he is taking a remarkably broad and generous view of the case, if I may say so. He is not only willing that you should keep the cup and the cash prize which you have won today, but he is also ready to pay to you the $75 reward he offered for the return of Glenmure Cavalier. I repeat, this strikes me as most generous— No! yelled Link, a spasm of foreseen loneliness sweeping over him. No! He can't have him. Nobody can. Wait, Chum's my dog. I've learned him to fetch cows and shake hands and—and everything. And he's drugged me out of the lake when I was a drowning. And he's done a heap more than that for me. He's drugged me up to my feet, out in wealthlessness, too. And he's learned me that living is worthwhile. He's my—my—he's my dog. He finished lamely, his scared eyes swimming the circle of faces in panic appeal. That'll do, Ferris, coldly exhorted the colonel. We wish no scenes here. You will take this $75 check which Mr. Galt has so kindly made out for you, and you will go. Leave and chum behind! babbled Ferris aghast. Not leave and chum behind! Please not! He pulled himself together with an effort that drove his nails bitingly into his palms and left his face gray. He saw the uselessness of pleading with these people of polished iron who could not understand his fearful loss. For the sake of chum, for the sake of the self-respecting man he himself had become, he would not let himself go to pieces. Forcing his shaken voice to a dry steadiness, he addressed the uneasily squirming Galt. Would you pay for chum when you bought him off in that Hudson River feller, that Glamir chap, he demanded? Why, as a matter of fact, responded Galt, as Colonel Martin has told you, I couldn't have hoped to get such a promising callee at any price at— Would you pay for him? He insisted, Link, his voice harsh and unconsciously domineering, as a vague new hope dawned on his troubled mind. I paid six hundred dollars, answered Galt shortly in annoyance at the borer's manor. Good! approved, Link. That gives us something to go on. I'll pay you six hundred dollars for him back. Six hundred dollars in gold, and this your silver cup and seven dollars more I got with me to bind the bargain. And a second mortgage on my farm for the rest. For as much of the rest, he amended, as I ain't got ready cash for. In his stark earnestness Link's rough voice sounded more hectoring and unpleasant than before. Galt, unused to such talk from the alleged peasantry, resolved to cut short the haggling. Sell for six hundred a dog that's cleaned up best in the show? He rasped. No, thank you. Layton says Cavalier will go far. One man ten minutes ago offered me a thousand for him. A thousand, repeated Ferris, scared at the magnitude of the sum. Then, rallying, he asked, What will you let me have him for then? Set a price, can't you? The dog is not for sale, curtly replied Galt, busying himself with the lighting of a cigarette. Take, Mr. Galt's check and go, commanded Martin, thrusting the slip of paper at Link. I think there is nothing more to say. I have an appointment at— He hesitated. Regardless of the other's presence, Ferris dropped to one knee beside the uncomprehending dog. With his arm about Chum's neck, he bent close to the collie's ear and whispered, Good-bye, Chummy. It's good-bye for keeps, too. Don't you get to thinkin' I've gone and deserted you, nor got tired of you, nor nothin', Chum, because I'd a damn sight rather leave one of my two legs here than to leave you. I—I guess only God rightly knows all you've done for me, Chum. But I ain't a goin' to forget none of it. Lord, but it's going to be pretty terrible to home without you. He got to his feet, winking back a mist from his red eyes and turning blindly toward the door. Here, boomed Martin after him, you've forgotten your check. I don't aim to take no measly money for givin' up the only friend I got, snarled Link over his shoulder. Keep it for a tip. It was a good exit line. But it was spoiled. Because as Ferris reached the door and groped for its knob, Chum was beside him, glad to get out of this uncongenial assembly and to be alone with the master who seemed so unhappy and so direly in need of consolation. Link stiffened to his full height. With one hand lovingly laid on the collie's silken head he gulled. No, Chum, you can't come along. Back, boy. Stay here. Lowering at galt he added, he ain't never been hit nor yet swore at, and he don't need to be. Treat him nice like he's used to be entreated. And don't get sore at him if he mopes for me, just at fussed. Because he's sure to. Dogs ain't like folks. They got hearts. Folks has only got souls. I guess dogs has the best of it at that. Ferris swung open the door and stumbled out, not trusting himself for a backward glance at the wistfully grieved dog he had left behind. Lurchingly he made off across the lawn and out through the wicket. He was numb and sick. He moved mechanically and with no conscious power of thought or of locomotion. Out in the high road a homing instinct guided his leaden feet in the direction of Hampton, and he plotted daisily the interminable four miles that separated him from his desolate farm. As he turned in at his own gate he was aware of a poignant dread that pierced his numbness, and he knew it was for a dread of watering the house and of finding no one to welcome him. Setting his teeth he went forward, unlocked the door and stamped into the silent kitchen. Upon the table he dumped the paper-swathed cup he had been carrying unnoticed under his arm. Beside it he threw the little purse full of gold pieces and the wad of prize ribbons. Stepping back his foot struck something. He looked down and saw it was a gay-colored rubber ball he had bought months ago for Chum, the dog's favorite plaything. His face twisting, Link snatched up the ball and went out into the steps to throw it far out of sight, that it might no more remind him of the pet who had so often coaxed him to toss it for retrieval. Boris hurled the ball far out into the garden. As the missile left his hand an exultant bark re-echoed through the silence of the sunset. Chum, who had been trotting demurely up the walk, sprang gleefully in pursuit of the ball and presently came galloping back to the daisily incredulous Link with the many-colored sphere of rubber between his jaws. Chum had had no trouble at all in catching his master's trail and following at home. He would have overtaken the slow slouching ferris had he been able to slip out of the clubhouse sooner, and now it pleased him to be welcomed by this evident invitation to a game of ball. Link gave a gulping cry and buried both hands in the collies rough, staring down at the dancing dog in an agony of rapture. Then, all at once, his muscles tensed, and his newly flushed face went green-white again. I... I guess we gotta play it square, Chum. He muttered aloud with something like a groan. I was blatant to him up there how you'd made a white man of me. And regular white man don't keep what ain't his own property. Come along, Chummy. His jaw very tense, his back painfully stiff. Link strode heavily down the lane and out into the high road. Chum, always eager for a walk with his god, frisked about him in delight. He had traversed the bulk of the distance to Craigswold, the dog hid him, when he remembered that he had left his horse and buggy at the livery stable there in the morning. Well, that would save his aching feet a four-mile walk home. In the meantime, he and Chum stepped to the roadside to avoid a fast-traveling little motor-car which was bearing down on them from the direction of Craigswold. The car did not pass them. Instead, it came to a gear-racking halt close beside Ferris. Link, glancing up in dull lack of interest, beheld Galt and the latter's daughter staring down at him. Chum came home, said Ferris, scowling at them. He trailed me. Don't lick him for it. He's only a dog and he didn't know no better. I was bringing him back to you. The girl looked sharply at her father. Galt fidgeted uneasily as he had done once or twice that afternoon in the clubhouse, and he avoided his daughter's gaze. So she turned her level eyes on Link. Mr. Ferris, she said very quietly, do you mean to say when this dog came back to you, you were actually going to return him to us instead of hiding him somewhere till the search was over? I'm here, ain't I? counted Ferris defiantly. But why, she insisted. Why? Because I'm a fool, I suppose, he growled. I guess Chum wouldn't care much about living with the thief. Take him up there with you in the seat. Don't let him fall out. And, his voice scaling a half octave in its pain, keep him to home after this. I ain't no measly angel. I can't swear I'd have the grit to fetch him back another time. He stopped to note a curious phenomenon. There were actually tears in the girl's big grave eyes. Link wondered why. Then she said, Cavalier isn't my father's dog. He's mine. My father gave him to me when he bought him last spring. Colonel Martin seemed to have forgotten that today, and I didn't want to start a squabble by reminding him of it. After all, it's my father's affair and mine. Nobody else's. My father got me another collie last spring to take Cavalier's place. A collie I'm ever so fond of. So I don't need Cavalier. I don't want him. I tried to find you to tell you so, but you had gone. So I got my father to drive me to your place. We'd have started sooner, but Cavalier got away, and we waited to look for him to bring him along. Bring him along! mutteringly echoed the blank-brained link. What fur? Why, laughed the girl, because your house is where he belongs and where he's going to live, just as he has been living all summer. Ferris caught his breath in a choked wheeze of unbelieving ecstasy. God! he breathed. God! then he stammered brokenly. They don't seem no right words to thank you, ma'am. But maybe you understand what I'd want to say if I could. Yes, she said gently. I think I understand. I understood from the minute I saw you and the dog together. That's why I decided I didn't want him. That's why I— And you'll get that thousand dollars! cried Lank, his fingers buried rapturously in Chum's fur. Every cent of it! I—I think— interrupted the girl, winking very fast. I think I've got what I wanted already. My father doesn't want the money either. Do ya, dad? Oh, for heaven's sake, stop rubbing it in, fumed galt. Come on home. It's getting cold. I ought to thank the Lord for not having you anywhere near me in Wall Street, girl. You'd send me under the hammer in a week. He kicked the accelerator, and the little car whizzed off in the twilight. Chum! observed Ferris, gaping after it. Chum! I guess the good Lord built that gal the same day he built you. If he did, well, he sure had done one grand day's work. End of chapter 3. Recording by Roger Maline. Chapter 4 of His Dog This Liberbox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline. His Dog by Albert Payson Turhune. Chapter 4. The Choice Luck had come at last to the Ferris Farm. Link's cash went into improvements on the place instead of going into the deteriorating of his inner man. And he worked the better. A sulky man is ever prone to be an inefficient man, and Link no longer sulked. All this, combined with a wholesome boom in local agriculture and a specialing in truck gardening, had wrought wonders in Link's farm and in Link's bank account. Within three years of Ferris's meeting with Chum, the place's last mortgage was wiped out and the score of needed repairs and improvements were installed. Also the man had a small but steadily growing sum to his credit in a Patterson Savings Bank. Life on the farm was mighty pleasant nowadays. Work was hard, of course, but it was bringing results that made it more than worthwhile. Ferris and his dog were living on the fat of the land, and they were happy. Then came the interruption that had been inevitable from the very first. A taciturn and eternally dead broke man in a rural region need not fear intrusion on his privacy. Convivial folk make detours around him, as if he were a mud puddle. Thriftier and more respectable neighbors eye him a scant, or eye him not at all. But when a mead of permanent success comes to such a man, he need no longer be lonely unless he so wills. Which is not cynicism, but common sense. The convivial element will still fight shy of him, but he is welcomed into the circle of the respectable. So it was with Link Ferris. Of old he had been known as a shiftless and hard-drinking mountaineer with a sour farm that was plastered with mortgages. Now he had cleared off his mortgages and had cleaned up his farm, and he in his home exuded an increasing prosperity. People meeting him in the nearby village of Hampton, or at church, began to treat him with a consideration that the longaloo farmer found bewildering. Yet he liked it rather than not, being at heart a gregarious soul. And with gruff friendliness he met the advances of well-to-do neighbors who in old days had scarce favored him with a nod. The gradual change from the isolated life of former years did not make any sort of a hit with chum. The collie had been well content to wander through the day's work at his master's heels, to bring in the sheep and the cattle from pasture, to guard the farm from intruders, human or otherwise. In the evenings it had been sweet to lounge at Link's feet on the little white porch in the summer dusk, or to lie in drowsy content in front of the glowing kitchen stove on icy nights, when the gale screeched through the naked boughs of the door-yard trees and the snow scratched hungrily at the window-panes. Now the dog's sensitive brain was aware of a subtle alteration. He did not object very much to the occasional visits at the house of other farmers and townsfolk during the erstwhile quiet evenings, although he had been happier in the years of peaceful seclusion. But he grieved at his master's increasingly frequent absences from home. Nowadays, once or twice a week, Link was wont to dress himself in his best as soon as the day's work was done, and fair forth to Hampton for the evening. Sometimes he let chum go with him on these outings. Oftener of late he had said, as he started out, Not to-night, chummy, stay here. Obediently the big dog would lay himself down with a sigh in the porch-edge, his head between his white little forepaws, his sorrowful brown eyes following the progress of his master down the lane to the high-road. But he grieved, as only a sensitive hybrid dog can grieve, a dog who asks nothing better of life than permission to live and to die at the side of the man he has chosen as his god, to follow that god out into rain or chill, to starve with him, if need be, to suffer at his hands. In short, to do or to be anything except to be separated from him. Link Ferris had gotten into the habit of leaving chum alone at home, oftener and oftener of late, as his own evening absences from the farm grew more and more frequent. He left chum at home because she did not like dogs. She was Dorcas Chatham, the daughter of Hampton's postmaster and general storekeeper. Old man Chatham, in former days, would have welcomed Cal Whitson, the official village south, to his home as readily as he would have admitted the near-dwell Link Ferris to that sanctuary. But of late he had noted the growing improvement in Link's fortunes, as evidenced by his larger store trade, his invariable cash payments, and the frequent money orders which went in his name to the Patterson Savings Bank. Wherefore, when Dorcas met Link at a church sociable and again on a straw ride, and asked him to come and see her some time, her sire made no objection. Indeed he welcomed the bashful caller with something like an approach to cordiality. Dorcas was a calm-eyed, efficient damsel, more than a little pretty, and with much repose of manner. Link Ferris, from the first, eyed her with a certain awe. When a mystic growing attraction was added to this, and when it in turn merged into love, the sense of awe was not lost. Rather it was strengthened. In all his thirty-one lean and lonely years Link had never before fallen in love. At the age when most youths are sighing over some wonder-girl, he had been too busy fighting off bankruptcy and starvation to have time or thought for such things. Wherefore, when love at last smote him, it smote him hard, and it found him woefully unprepared for the battle. He knew nothing of women. He did not know, for example, what the average youth finds out in his teens, that grave eyes and silent aloofness and lofty self-will and icy pietism in a maiden do not always signify that she is a saint and that she must be worshipped as such. Ferris had no one to tell him that far offiner these signs point merely to stupid narrowness and to lack of ideas. Dorcas was clever at housework. She was quietly self-assured. She was good to look upon. She was not like any of the few girls Link had met. Wherefore, he built for her a sacred shrine in his innermost heart, and he knelt before her image there. If Ferris found her different from the other Hampton girls, Dorcas found him equally different from the local swain she knew. She recognized his hidden strength. The maternal element in her nature sympathized with his loneliness and with the marks it had left upon his soul. For the rest he was neither a village cut up like Con Scurly, nor a solemn mass of conceit like Royal Cruz, nor patronizing like young lawyer Wetherall, nor vaguely repulsive like old Captain Baldi Todd, who came furtively according her. Link was different, and she liked him. She liked him more and more. Once her parents took Dorcas and her five-year-old sister Olive on a Sunday afternoon ramble, which led eventually to the Ferris Farm. Link welcomed the chants callers gladly and showed them over the place. Dorcas's house-wifely eye rejoiced in the well-kept house, even while she frowned inwardly at its thousand signs of bachelor inefficiency. The stock and the crops, too, spoke of solid industry. But she shrank back in sudden revolt as a huge Tony Collie came bounding toward her from the fold where he had just marshaled the sheep for the night. The dog was beautiful, and he meant her no harm. He even tried shyly to make friends with the tall and gravide guest. Dorcas saw all that, yet she shrank from him with instinctive fear in spite of it. As a child she had been bitten and bitten badly by a nondescript mongrel that had been chased into the Chatham backyard by a crowd of stone-throwing boys and which she had sought to oust with a stick from its hiding-place under the steps. Since then Dorcas had had an unconquerable fear and dislike of dogs. The feeling was unconquerable because she had made no effort to conquer it. She had henceforth judged all dogs by the one whose teeth marks had left a lifelong scar on her white forearm. She had the good breeding not to let Ferris see her distaste for his pet that he was just then exhibiting so proudly to the guests. Her shrinking was imperceptible even to a lover's solicitous eye. But Chum noted it, and with a Collie's odd sixth sense he knew this intruder did not like him. Not that her aversion troubled Chum at all, but it puzzled him. People as a rule were effusively eager to make friends with Chum. And being ultra-conservative, like the best type of Collie, he found their handling and other attentions annoying. He had taken a liking to Dorcas at sight, but since she did not return to this liking Chum was well content to keep away from her. He was the more content because five-year-old Olive had flung herself with loud squeals of rapture bodily on the dog, and had clasped her fat little arms adoringly round his massive furry throat in an ecstasy of delight. Chum had never before been brought into such close contact with a child, and Link watched with some slight perturbation the baby's onslaught. But in a moment Ferris' mind was at rest. At first touch of the baby's fingers the Collie had become once and for all Olive's slave. He fairly reveled in the discomfortingly tight caress. The tug of the little hands in his sensitive neck fur was bliss to him. Wiggling all over with happiness he sought to lick the chubby face pressed so tight against his rough. From that instant Chum had a divided allegiance. His human god was Ferris, but this fluffy pink-and-white youngster was a mighty close second in his list of deities. Dorcas looked on, trembling with fear, as her little sister romped with the adoring dog, and she heaved a sigh of relief when, at last, they were clear of the farm without mishap to the baby. For Olive had been dearer to Dorcas from birth than any one or anything else on earth. To the baby sister alone Dorcas ceased to be the grave-eyed and self-assured lady of quality, and became a meek and worshipping devotee. When Link Ferris at last mustered courage to ask Dorcas Chatham to marry him his form of proposal would have been ruled out of any novel or play. It consisted chiefly of a mouthful of half-swallowed, half-exploded words, spoken all in one panic breath to the accompaniment of a mortal fear that shook him to the marrow. Any other words, thus mild and gargled, would have required a full college of languages to translate them. But the speech was along a line perfectly familiar to every woman since Eve, and Dorcas understood. She would have understood had Link voiced his proposal in the Choctaw dialect instead of a slurringly mumbled travesty on English. The man's stark earnestness of entreaty sent a queer flutter to the very depths of her calm soul. But the flutter failed to reach or to titillate the steady eyes. Nor did it creep into the level and self-possessed voice as Dorcas made quiet answer. Yes, I like you better than any other man I know, and I'll marry you if you're perfectly sure you care for me that way. No, it was not the sort of reply Juliet made to the same question. It was more than doubtful that Cleopatra answered thus, when Antony offered to throw away the world for her sake. But it was a wholly correct and self-respecting response, and Dorcas had been rehearsing it for nearly a week. Moreover, words are of use merely as they affect their hearers, and all the passion-poetry of men and of angels could not have thrilled Link Farris as did Dorcas's correct and demure assent to his frenziedly gabbled plea. It went through the lovesick man's brain and heart like the breath of God. And thus the couple became engaged. With only a slight diminishing of his earlier fear did Link seek out old man Chatham to obtain his consent to the match. Dizzy with joy and relief, he listened to that villageworthy's ungracious assent also secretly rehearsed for some days. For the best part of a month thereafter Link Farris floated through a universe of rosy at lights and soft music. Then came the jar of awakening. It was one Saturday evening, a week or so before the date set for the wedding. Dorcas broached a theme which had been much in her mind since the beginning of the engagement. She approached it very tactfully indeed, leading up to it in true feminine fashion by means of a cunningly devised series of levels which would have been the despair of a mining engineer. Having paved the way, she remarked carelessly, John Englehart was at the store today, father says. He's crazy about that big collie of yours. Instantly Link was full of glad interest. It had been a sorrow to him that Dorcas did not like dogs. She had explained her dislike, purely on general principles, early in their acquaintance, and had told him of its origin. Link was certain she would come to love Chum on intimate acquaintance. In the interim he did not seek to force her liking by bringing the collie to the Chatham House when he called. Link did not believe in crossing a bridge until he came to it. There would be plenty of time for Dorcas to make friends with Chum in the long and happy days to come. Yet now he rejoiced that she herself should have been the first to broach the subject. Father says John is wild about Chum, went on the girl unconcernedly, adding, By the way, John asked father to tell you he'd be glad to pay you a hundred dollars for the dog. It's a splendid offer, isn't it? Think of all the things we can get for the house with a hundred dollars, Link. Why, it seems almost providential, doesn't it? Father says John is in earnest about it, too. He— In earnest, hey! snapped Ferris, finding his voice after an instant of utter amazement. In earnest? Well, that's real grand of him, ain't it? I'd be in earnest, too, if I was to bid ten cents for the best farm in Passaic County. But the feller who owned the farm wouldn't be in earnest. He'd be taking it as a fine joke. Like I do, when Johnny Englehart has the nerve to offer a hundred dollars for a dog that wouldn't be worth a cent less than six hundred, even if he was for sale. Why, that cally am I— If he is worth six hundred dollars, suggested Dorcas, icily, you'd better not lose any time before you find someone who'll pay that for him. He's no use to us, and six hundred dollars is too much money to carry on four legs. He— No use to us, echoed Link. Why, chums worth the pay of a hired man to me, besides all the fondness I've got for him. He handles the sheep, and he— So you've told me, interposed Dorcas, with no show of interest. I remember the first few times you came to see me, you didn't talk of anything else hardly, except that dog. Everybody says the same thing. It's a joke all through Hampton, the silly way you're forever singing his praises. Why shouldn't I, demanded Link, sturdily? Not a dandier, better pal anywhere than what chums been to me. He— Yes, yes, assented Dorcas. I know. I don't doubt it. But, after all, he's only a dog, you know, and if you can get a good price for him, as you say, then the only thing to do is to sell him. In hard times like these— Times ain't hard, denied Link, tersely. And chum ain't for sale. That's all there is to it. If one of her father's sleek cart-horses had suddenly walked out of its stall with a shouted demand that it be allowed to do the driving, henceforth, and that its owners do the hauling, Dorcas Chatham could not have been much more surprised than at this un-look-for speech from her humble suitor. Up to now, Link Ferris had treated the girl as though he were unworthy to breathe the same air as herself. He had been pathetically eager to concede any and every mooted point to her, with a servile abasement which had roused her contempt, even while it had gratified her sense of power. She had approached with tact the subject of chum's disposal, but she had done so with the view to the saving of Link's feelings, not with the faintest idea that her love-bemused slave could venture to oppose her. She knew his fondness for the dog, and she had not wished to bring matters to an issue if tact would serve as well. To punish her surf and to crush rebellion once and for all, as well as to be avenged for her wasted diplomacy, Dorcas cast aside her kindlier intent and drove straight to the point. Her calm temper was ruffled, and she spoke with a new heat. There is something you and I may as well settle here and now, Link," she said. It will save bickering and misunderstandings later on. I've told you how I hate dogs. Their savage and treacherous and chum ain't," declared Link stoutly. Why that dog! I hate dogs," she went on, and I'm horribly afraid of them. I won't live in the same house with one. I don't want to hurt your feelings, Link, but you've got to get rid of that great brown brute before you marry me. That is positive. So please, let's say no more about it. The man was staring at her with under jaw ajar. Her sharp air of finality grated on his every nerve. Her ultimatum concerning Chum left him dumbfounded, but he forced himself to rally to the defence. This glorious sweetheart of his did not understand dogs. He had hoped to teach her later to like and depreciate them, but apparently she must be taught at once that Chum could not be sold and that the Collie must remain an honoured member of the Ferris household. Marshalling his facts and his words he said, I never told you about the time I was coming back home one night from the tavern here at Hampton after I'd just cast my paycheck from the Patterson Market. I've never blabbed much about it because I was drunk. Yes, it was back in them days. Just after I'd got Chum. A couple of fellers had got me drunk and they sat on me in a lonesome patch of the road by the lake. And they had me down and was taken the money away from me when Chum sailed into them and drove them off. He had followed me without me knowing. In the scrimmage I got tumbled headfirst into the lake. I was too drunk to get out and my head was stuck in the mud, way under water. I would have drowned if Chum hadn't pulled me out with his teeth in the shoulder of my coat. And that's the dog you're wanting me to sell? You aren't likely to need such help again, I hope, countered the girl loftily, now that you have stopped drinking and made a man of yourself. So Chum won't be needed for— Stop drinking, answered Link, because I got to see in how much more of a beast I was than the fine, clean dog that was living with me. He made me feel ashamed of myself. And he was such good company round the house that I didn't get lonesome enough to sneak down to the tavern all the time. It wasn't me that made a man of myself. It was Chum made a man of me. Maybe that sounds foolish to you, but— It does, said Dorcas serenely. Very foolish indeed. You don't seem to realize that a dog is only an animal. If you can get a nice home for the collie, such as John Englehart will give him. Englehart, raged Link, momentarily losing hold over himself. If that mangy wall-eyed slob comes slinking round my farm again, making friends with Chum, I'll sick the dog on to him and have him run Englehart all the way to his own shack. He's—there, I didn't mean to cut loose like that, he broke off at Dorcas's shutter of dismay. Only it riles me something terrible to have him trying to get Chum away from me. There is no occasion to go losing your temper and shouting, reproved the girl. Nothing is to be gained that way. Besides, that isn't the point. The point is this, since you forced me to say it. You must get rid of that dog. And you must do it before you marry me. I won't set foot in your house until your dog is gone, and gone for good. I'm sorry to speak so, but it had to be said. She paused to give her slave a chance to wilt. But Link only sat, blank-faced, staring at her. His mind was in a muddle. All his narrow world was upside down. He couldn't make his brain grasp in full the situation. All he could visualize for the instant was a shadowy mental image of Chum's expectant face. The tulip ears pricked forward, expectant. The jaws laughing. The deep-set brown eyes, a brim with gay affection and deathless loyalty for the man who was now asked to get rid of him. It didn't make sense. Half under his breath, Link Ferris began to talk, or rather to ramble. There was one of the books over at a library, he heard himself meandering on, with a queer story in it. I got to reading it through one night last winter. It was about a fellow named Federigo, a whop of some kind, I guess. He got so hard up he didn't have anything left but a pet falcon, whatever a falcon may be. Whatever it was, it must have been good to eat. But he set a heap of store by it. Him and it was Chum's. Same as me and Chum are. Then along came a lady he was in love with. And she stopped his house for dinner. There wasn't anything in the house fit for her to eat, so he fed her the falcon. Killed the pet that was his Chum, so as he could feed the dame he was stuck on. I thought, when I read it, that that fellow was more kinds of a swine than I'd have time to tell you. But he wasn't any worse than I'd be if I was to— I'm sorry you care so little for me, intervened Dorcas, her voice very sweet and very cold, and her slender nose whitening a little at the corners of the nostrils. Of course, if you prefer a miserable dog to me, there's nothing more to be said. I— No! almost yelled the miserable man. You've got me all wrong, dearie. Honest you have. Can't you understand? Your little finger means a heap more to me than everything else there is, except the rest of you. And your dog—she supplemented. No, he denied fiercely. You've got no right to say that. But Chum served me faithful, and I can't kick him out like he was a— Now you're getting angry again, she accused, pale and furious. I don't care to be howled at. The case stands like this. You must choose whether to get rid of that dog or to lose me. Take your choice. If— I read in a story-book about a feller that had had a thing like that put up to him, said poor Link, unable to believe that she was an earnest. His girl said, You better choose between me and tobacco. And he said, I'll choose tobacco. Not that I value tobacco so I'll fired much, he says, But because a girl who'd make a man take such a choice ain't worth giving up tobacco for. You see, dearie, it's this way. You'll have that dog out of your house and out of your possession inside of twenty-four hours. She decreed the white anger of a gravide woman making her cold voice vibrate. Or you will drop my acquaintance. That is final, and it's definite. The engagement is over until I hear that your dog is killed or given away or sold. Good night. She left the room in vindictive haste. So overwhelmingly angry was she that she closed the door softly behind her instead of slamming it. Through all his swirl of misery Link had sense enough to note this final symptom and wonder bitterly at it. On his way out of the house he was hailed by a high-pitched baby voice from somewhere above him. Olive had crawled out of bed and in her white flannel pajamas she was leaning over the upper balustrade. Link! she called down to the wretched man at the front door. When you and Dorcas get married together I'm coming to live with you. Then I can play with Chummy all I want to. Link bolted out to the street in the midst of her announcement. And so occupied was he in trying to swallow a lump in his own throat he failed to hear the sound of stifled sobbing from behind a locked door somewhere in the upper reaches of the house. As the night wore on the sleepless girl sought to comfort herself in the thought that Link had not definitely refused her terms. A night's reflection and an attitude of unbending aloofness on her own part might well bring him to a surrender. Perhaps it was something in Link Ferris's dejected gait as he turned into his own lane that night. Perhaps it was the instinct which tells Akali when a loved human is unhappy, but Chum was at once aware of his master's woe. The dog, at first sound of Link's approaching steps, bounded from his vigil place on the porch and frisked joyously through the darkness to meet him. He sent forth a trumpeting bark of welcome as he ran. Then, fifty feet from the oncoming man, the big Akali halted and stood for an instant with ears cocked and eyes troubled. After which he resumed his advance, but at a solemn trot and with downcast mean. As he reached Link, the Akali wind softly under his breath, gazing wistfully up into Ferris's face and then, thrusting his cold nose lovingly into one of the man's loose-hanging hands. Link had winced visibly at sound of the jubilantly welcoming bark. Now, noting the sudden change in the Akali's demeanor, he stooped and caught the silken head between his hands. The gesture was rough, almost painful, yet Chum knew it was a caress, and his drooping plume of a tail began to wag in response. Oh, Chum exclaimed the man with something akin to a groan. You know all about it, don't you, old friend? You know I'm the miserablest man in North Jersey. You know it without me having to say a word, and you're doing your level best to comfort me, just like you always do. You never get cranky, and you never say I gotta choose between this and that. And you never get sore at me. You're just my chum, and you're full enough to think I'm all right. Yet she says I gotta get rid of you. The dog pressed closer to him, still whining softly and licking the roughly caressing hands. What am I gonna do, chummy? demanded Link, brokenly. What am I gonna do about it? I suppose any other fellow'd call me a fool, like she thinks I am, and tell me to sell you. If you was some dogs, that'd be all right. But not with you, Chum. Not with you. You'd mope and grieve for me, and you'd be wondering why I deserted you after all these years. And you'd get to pining and maybe go sick, and the fellow that bought you wouldn't understand. And most likely hid whale you for not being more chipper-like. And you haven't ever been hit. I'd a-blame sight sooner shoot you than to let anyone else have you, to abuse you and let you be unhappy for me, Chum. A-blame sight, rather. Side by side they moved on into the darkened house. There, with the dog curled at his feet, Link Ferris lay broad awake until sunrise. Early the next afternoon Dorcas decided she stood in need of brisk outdoor exercise. Olive came running down the path after her, eagerly demanding to be taken along. Dorcas, with much sternness, bade her go back. She wanted to be alone, unless... But she refused to admit to herself that there was any unless. Olive, grievously disappointed, stood on the steps, watching her big sister set off up the road. She saw Dorcas take the right-hand turn at the fork. The baby's face cleared. Now she knew in which direction Dorcas was going. That fork led to the Glen. And the Glen was a favourite Sunday afternoon ramble for Link and Chum. Olive knew that, because she and Dorcas more than once had walked thither to meet them. Olive was pleasantly forgetful of her parents' positive command that she refrained from walking alone on the motor-infested Sunday roads. She set off at a fast jog trot over the nearby hill, on whose other side ran the Glen Road. Link Ferris, with Chum at his heels, was tramping moodily toward the Glen. As he turned into the road he paused in his sullen walk. There, strolling unconcernedly, some yards in front of him was a tall girl in white. Her back was toward him. Yet he would have recognised her at a hundred times the distance. Chum knew her too, for he wagged his tail and started at a faster trot to overtake her. Back! called Link. Purposely he spoke as low as possible. But the dog heard and obeyed. The girl too started a little and made as if to turn. Just then ensued a wild crackling in the thick roadside bushes which lined the hillside from highway to crest. And a white-clad little bunch of humanity came galloping jubilantly out into the road, midway between Dorcas and Link. At the road edge, Olive's stubby toe caught in a noose of blackberry vine. As the youngster was running full tilt her own impetus sent her rolling over and over into the centre of the dusty turnpike. Before she could get to her feet, or even stop rolling, a touring car came round the bend, ten yards away. A car that was travelling at a speed of something like forty-five miles an hour and whose four occupants were singing at the top of their lungs. Link Ferris had scarce time to tense his muscles for a feudal spring. Dorcas's scream of helpless terror was still unborn when the car was upon the prostrate child. And in the same fraction of a second a furry catapult launched itself across the wide road at a speed that made it look like tawny blur. Chum's mad leap carried him to the baby just as the car's fender hung above her. A slashing grip of his teeth in the shoulder of her white dress and a lightning heave of his mighty neck and shoulders, and the little form was hurtling through the air and into the weed-filled wayside ditch. In practically the same instant Chum's body whizzed into the air again, but this time by no impetus of its own. The high-powered car's fender had struck at fair and had tossed it into the ditch as though the dog had been a heap of rags. There, huddled and lifeless, sprawled the beautiful collie. The car put on an extra spurt of speed and disappeared round the next turn. Olive was on her feet before Dorcas's flying steps could reach her. Unhurt but vastly indignant, the baby opened her mouth to make way for a series of howls. Then, her eye falling on the inert dog, she ran over to Chum and began to cry out to him to come to life again. No use of that, kid, interposed Link, kneeling beside the collie he loved and smoothing the soiled and rumbled fur. It's easier to drop out of life than what it is to come back to it again. Well, he went on harshly, turning to the weeping Dorcas. The question has answered itself, you see. No need now to tell me to get rid of him. He saved me the bother, like he was always saving me bother, that being Chum's way. Something in his throat impeded his fierce speech, and he bent over the dog again, his rough hand smoothing the pitifully still body with loving tenderness. Dorcas, weeping hysterically, fell on her knees beside Chum and put her arms about the huddled shape. She seemed to be trying to say something, her lips close to one of the furry little ears. No use, broken ferris, his voice as grating as a file. He can't hear you now. No good to tell him you hate dogs, or that you're glad you've saw the last of him. Even if he was alive, he wouldn't understand that. He'd never been spoke to that way. Don't! Oh, don't! sobbed the girl. Oh, I'm so... If you're crying for Chum, went on the grating voice, there's no need to. He was only just a dog. He didn't know any better but to get his life smashed out in him so somebody else could go on living. All he asked was to be with me, and work for me, and love me. After you said he couldn't keep on doing that, there ain't any good in your crying for him. It must be nice, if you'll only stop crying long enough to think about it, to know he's out of your way. And I'm out of it too, he went on an Augusta fury. Suppose you two just tautle on now and leave me to take him home. I got the right to that anyhow. He stooped to pick up the dog, and he winked with much rapidity to hold back an annoying mist which came between him and Chum. His mouth corners too were twitching in a way that shamed him. He had a babyish yearning to bury his face in his dead friend's fur and cry. Don't!" Dorcas was wailing. Oh, you can't punish me any worse than I'm—her sob-broken voice scaled high and swelled out into a cry of stark astonishment. Slowly Chum was lifting his splendid head and blinking stupidly about him. The fender had smitten the collie just below the shoulder in a mass of fur-armored muscles. In falling into the wayside ditch his skull had come into sharp contact with a rock. Knocked senseless by the concussion he had lain as dead for the best part of five minutes, after which he had come slowly to his senses, bewildered, bruised, and sore, but otherwise no worse for the accident. He came to himself to find a weeping woman clutching him stranglingly around the neck while she tried to kiss his dust-smeared head. Chum did not care at all for this treatment, especially from a comparative stranger, but he saw his adored master looking so idiotically happy over that or something else that the dog forbore to protest. If you really wanted him put out of the way so bad, began Link when he could trust himself to speak. He got no further. Dorcas Chatham turned on him in genuine savageness. The big eyes were no longer grave and patronizing. The air of aloofness had fallen from the girl like a discarded garment. Link, she blazed, Link Farris, if you ever dare speak about getting rid of my dog, I'll never speak to you again as long as we're married. THE END