 Chapter 1 of His Dog, by Albert Payson Turhune. Link Ferris was a fighter. Not by nature, nor by choice, but to keep alive. His battleground covered an area of forty acres. Broken, scrubby, uncertain side hill acres at that. In brief a worked-out farm among the mountain slopes of the North Jersey hinterland, six miles from the nearest railroad. The farm was Ferris's, by right of sole heritage from his father, a Civil War veteran, who had taken up the wilderness land in 1865, and who, for thirty years thereafter, had wrought to make it pay. At best the elder Ferris had wrenched only a meager living from the light and rock-infested soil. The first growth timber on the West woodlot for some time had staved off the need of a mortgage, its veteran oaks and hickories grimly giving up their lives, in hundreds, to keep the wolf from the door of their owner. When the last of the saleable timber was gone, old man Ferris tried his hand at truck-farming and sold his wares from a wagon to the denizens of Craigswold, the new colony of rich folk, four miles to Northward. But to raise such vegetables and fruits as would tempt the eyes and the purses of Craigswold people it was necessary to have more than mere zeal and industry. Sour ground will not readily yield, sweet abundance, be the toiler ever so industrious. Moreover, there was large and growing competition in the form of other huckster routes. And presently the old veteran wearied of the eternal uphill struggle. He mortgaged the farm, dying soon afterward. And Link, his son, was left to carry on the thankless task. Link Ferris was as much a part of the Ferris farm as was the giant boulder in the south mowing. He had been born in the paintless shack which his father had built with his own rheumatic hands. He had worked for more than a quarter century in and out of the hill-fields and the ramshackle barns. From babyhood he had toiled there. Scant had been the chances for schooling and more scant had been the opportunities for outside influence. Wherefore Link had grown to a wirely, weedy and slouching manhood, almost as ignorant of the world beyond his mountain walls as were any of his own critters. His life was bounded by fruitless labour, varied only by such sleep and food as might fit him to labour the harder. He ate and slept that he might be able to work, and he worked that he might be able to eat and sleep. Beyond that his life was as barren as a rainy sea. If he dreamed of other and wider things the work a day grind speedily set such dreams to rout. When the gnawing of lonely unrest was too acute for bovine endurance and when he could spare the time or the money he was want to go to the myloff hamlet of Hampton and there get as nearly drunk as his funds would permit. It was his only surseys, and as a rule it was a poor one. For seldom did he have enough ready money to buy wholesale forgetfulness. More often he was able to purchase only enough hard cider or fusel oil whiskey to make him dull and vaguely miserable. It was on his way home one Saturday night from such a rudimentary debauch at Hampton that his adventure had its small beginning. For a half-mile or so of Link's homeward pilgrimage, before he turned off into the grass-grown, rutted hill-trail which led to his farm, his way led along a spur of the State Road which linked New York City with the Ramapo Hill Country. And here, as Link swung glumly along through the spring-tide dusk, his ears were assailed by a sound that was something between a sigh and a sob, a sound as of one who tries valiantly to stifle a whimper of sharp pain. Ferris halted, uncertain, at the road edge, and peered about him. Again he heard the sound, and this time he located it in the long grass of the wayside ditch. The grass was stirring spasmodically too, as with the half-restrained writhings of something lying close to earth there. Link struck a match. Shielding the flame, he pushed the tangle of grass to one side with his foot. There, exposed in the narrow space, thus cleared, and by the narrower radius of match-flare, crouched a dog. The brute was huddled in a crumpled heap, with one foreleg stuck awkwardly out in front of him at an impossible angle. His tawny mass of coat was mired and oil-streaked. In his deep-set brown eyes burned the fires of agony. Yet as he looked up at the man who bent above him, the dog's gaze was neither fierce nor cringing. It held, rather, such an expression as Dumas tells us the wounded Aethos turned to D'Artagnan, the aspect of one in sore need of aid, and too proud to plead for it. Link Ferris had never heard of Dumas nor of the immortal Musketeer. Nonetheless he could read that look, and it appealed to him as no howel of anguish could have appealed. He knelt beside the suffering dog and fell to examining his hurts. The dog was a collie, beautiful of head, sweepingly graceful of line, powerful and heavy-coated. The mud on his expanse of snowy chest-frill and the grease on his dark-brown back were easy to account for, even to Link Ferris's none-too-keen imagination. Link, in his own occasional trudges along this bit of state road, had often seen costly dogs in the tonnows of passing cars. He had seen several of them scramble frantically to maintain their footing on the slippery seats of such cars when chauffeurs took the sharp curve just ahead at too high speed. He had even seen one air-dale flung bodily from a car's rear seat on that curve and out into the roadway where a close following motor had run over and killed it. This collie, doubtless, had had such a fall, and, unseen by the front seat's occupants, had struck ground with terrific force, a force that had sent him whirling through mud and grease into the ditch with a broken front leg. How long the beast had lain there Link had no way of guessing, but the dog was in mortal agony, and the kindest thing to do was to put him out of his pain. Ferris groped around through the gloom until, in the ditch, his fingers closed over a ten-pound stone. One smashing blow of the head with this missile would bring a swift and merciful end to the sufferer's troubles. Poising the stone aloft Link turned back to where the dog lay. Standing over the victim he balanced the rock and tensed his muscles for the blow. The match had long since gone out, but Link's dusk-accustomed vision could readily discern the outlines of the collie, and he made ready to strike. Then, perhaps it was the drink playing tricks with Ferris's mind, it seemed to him that he could still see those deep-set dark eyes staring up at him through the murk, with that same fearless and yet piteous look in their depths. It was a look that the brief sputter of match-light had photographed on Link's brain. I ain't got the heart to swat you while you keep looking that way at me," he muttered, half-aloud, as if to a human companion. Just you turn your head the other way, pup. It'll be over quick and easy. By the faint light Link could see the dog had not obeyed the order to turn his head. But at the man's tone of compassion the great plummy tail began to thump the ground in feeble response. Hmm! grunted Link, letting the stone drop to the road. Got nerve, too, ain't ya, friend? Tamed every cuss that can wag his tail when his legs bust. Kneeling down again, he examined the broken foreleg more carefully. Gentle as was his touch, yet Link knew it must cause infinite torture. But the dog did not flinch. He seemed to understand that Ferris meant kindly, for he moved his magnificent head far enough to lick the man's hand softly and in gratitude. The caress had an odd effect on the loveless Ferris. It was the first voluntary mark of affection he had encountered for longer than he'd like to remember. It set old memories to working. The Ferris farm, since Link's birth, had been perhaps the only home in all that wild region which did not boast a dog of some kind. Link's father had had an inborn hatred of dogs. He would not allow one on the place. His overt excuse was that they killed sheep and worried cattle, and that he could not afford to risk the well being of his scanty horde of stock. Thus Link had grown to manhood with no dog at his heels, and without knowing the normal human's love for canine chumship. The primal instinct, long buried, stirred within him now, at touch of the warm tongue on his calloused hand and at sound of that friendly tail wagging in the dry grass. Ashamed of the stirrings in him, he sought to explain them by reminding himself that this was probably a valuable animal and that a reward might be offered for his return. In which case Link Ferris might as well profit by the cash windfall as any one else. Taking off his coat, Ferris spread it on the ground. Then, lifting the stricken collie as gently as he could, he deposited him on the coat and rolled its frayed edges about him, after which he picked up the swathed, invalid, and bore him home. During the mild trudge the collie's sixty pounds grew unbearably heavy to the half-drunk Ferris. More than once he was minded to set down his burden and leave the brute to his fate. But always the tardy realization that the journey was more painful to the dog than to himself gave Link a fresh grip on his determination. And at last, a long and tiring last, they reached the tumbledown farmhouse where Link Ferris kept Bachelors Hall. Laying his patient on the kitchen table, Link lighted a candle and went in search of such rude appliances as his father had been want to keep in store for any of the farm's animals that might be injured. Three times as a lad, Link had seen his father set the broken leg of a sheep, and once he had watched the older man perform a like-office for a yearling heifer whose hind leg had become wedged between two brook-side stones and had sustained a compound fracture. From civil-war hospital experience the father had been a deft bone-setter. And following his recollection of the old man's methods Link himself had later set the broken leg of one of his lambs. The operation had been a success. He resolved now to duplicate it. Slowly and somewhat clumsily he went to work at the injured dog. The collie's brave patients nerved him to greater tenderness and care. A veterinary would have made neater work of the bone-setting, but hardly could have rendered the job more effective. When the task was achieved Link brought his patient a bowl of cold water which the collie drank greedily, and some bread and meat scraps which the feverish patient would not touch. As he worked at his bone-setting task Ferris had more chance to study his new acquisition. The dog was young, probably not more than two years old. The teeth proved that. He wore a thin collie collar with no inscription on its silver band. Even to Link's inexperienced eye he was an animal of high breeding and of glorious beauty. Link told himself he would perhaps get as much as $10 for the return of so costly a pet. And he wondered why the golden prospect did not seem more alluring. Three times in the night Link got up to give the collie fresh water and to moisten and readjust the bandages. And every time the sight of his rescuer would cause the dog's tail to thump a joyous welcome and would fill the dark eyes with a loving gratitude which went straight to Ferris's lonely heart. In the morning the dog was prevailed upon to lap a saucer of warm milk and even to nibble at a crust of soaked bread. Link was ashamed of his own keen and growing interest in his find. For the first time he realized how bleakly lonesome had been to the home life, since the death of his father had left him solitary. There was a mysteriously comforting companionship in the dog's presence. Link found himself talking to him from time to time as to a fellow human. And the words did not echo back in eerie hollowness from the walls as when he had sometimes sought to ease his desolation by talking aloud to himself. He was a very embarrassed by his general ignorance of dogs and by his ignorance of this particular dog's name. He sought to learn what the collie had been called by trying one familiar dog name after another. But to such stand by cognomans as Rover, Tige, Fido, Ponto, Shep, and the rest the patient gave no further sign of recognition than a friendly wagging of his plume tail. And he wagged it no more interestingly for one name than for another. So Ferris seized from the effort and decided to give his pet a brand new name for such brief space as they should be housemates. After long deliberation he hit upon the name Chum as typical of the odd friendship that was springing to life between the dog and himself. And he planned to devote much time to teaching the collie this name. But to his surprise no such tedious period of instruction was necessary. In less than a single day Chum knew his name, knew it, passed all doubt. Link was amazed at such cleverness. For three solid months, one at a time, he had striven to teach his horse and his cows, and a few of his sheep to respond to given names. And at the end of the course of patient tutelage he had been morbidly certain that not one of his solemn-eyed pupils had grasped the lessons. It was surprisingly pleasant to drop in at the kitchen door now a-days, in intervals between chores or at the day's end, and he greeted by that glad glint of the eye and the ecstatic pounding of the wavy tail against the floor. It was still pleasanter to see the gaze of wistful adoration that strengthened daily as Chum and his new master grew better and better acquainted. Pleasantest of all was it to sit and talk to the collie in the once-in-a-lifetime evenings, and to know that his every word was appreciated and listened to with eager interest, even if the full gist of the talk itself did not penetrate to the listener's understanding. Link Ferris, for the first time in his life, had a dog. Incidentally, for the first time in his life, he had an intimate friend, something of whose love and loyalty he waxed on the floor, whose love and loyalty he waxed increasingly sure, and he was happy. His brighter spirits manifested themselves in his farmwork, transforming drudgery into contentment, and the farm began, in small ways, to show the effects of its owner's new attitude toward labour. The day after he found Chum, Link had trudged to Hampton, and there had affixed to the clappers of the general store a bit of paper whereon he had scrawled, found one white-and-brown bird-dog with leg broken. Owner can have same by paying a reward. On his next huckster trip to Craigswald he pinned a similar sign to the bulletin board of that rarefied resort's post-office, and he waited for results. He did more. He bought two successive copies of the county's daily paper and scanned it for word of a missing dog. But in neither copy did he find what he sought. True, both editions carried display advertisements which offered a seventy-five dollar reward for information leading to the return of a dark, sable-and-white collie lost somewhere between Hohocus and Suffern. The first time he saw this notice, Link was vaguely troubled lest it might refer to Chum. He told himself he hoped it did. For seventy-five dollars just now would be a godsend. And in self-disgust he choked back a most annoying twinge of grief at thought of parting with the dog. Two things in the advertisement puzzled him. In the first place, as Chum was long-haired and graceful, Link had mentally classified him as belonging to the same breed as did the Setters which accompanied hunters on mountain-rambles past his farm in the autumns. Being wholly unversed in canine lore, he had therefore classified Chum as a bird-dog. The word collie, if ever he had chance to hear it before, carried no meaning to him. Moreover, he did not know what sable meant. He asked Dominic Jansen, whom he met on the way home, and the Dominic told him sable was another name for black. Jansen went on to amplify the theme, dictionary-fashioned, by quoting a piece of sacred poetry about the sable wings of night. A great load was off Link's heart. Chum, most assuredly, was not black and white. So the advertisement could not possibly refer to him. The Reverend Gentleman, not being a dog fancier, of course, had no means of knowing that sable in collie jargon means practically every shade of color except black or gray or white. Link was ashamed of his own delight in finding he need not give up his pet, even for seventy-five dollars. He tried to recall his father's invectives against dogs, and to remind himself that another mouth to feed in the farm must mean still sharper poverty and skimping. But logic could not strangle joy, and life took on a new zest for the lonely man. By the time Chum could limp around on the fast-healing foreleg, he and Link had established a friendship that was a boon to both and a stark astonishment to Ferris. Link had always loved animals. He had an inborn way with them. Yet his own intelligence had long since taught him that his farm critters responded but dully to his attempts at a more perfect understanding. He knew, for example, that the horse he had bred and reared and had taught to come at his call would doubtless suffer the first passing stranger to mount him and ride him away, despite any call from his lifelong master. He knew that his presence, to the cattle and sheep, meant only food or a shift of quarters, and that an outsider could drive or tend them as readily as could he, on whose farm he had been born. Their possible affection for him was a hazy thing, based solely on what he fed them and on their occasional mild interest in being petted. But with Chum it was all different. The dog learned quickly his new master's moods and met them in kind. The few simple tricks Link sought to teach him were grasped with bewilderment, and he had no idea what he was doing. There was a human quality of sympathy and companionship which radiated almost visibly from Chum. His keen, colly brain was forever amazing, Ferris, by its flashes of perception. The dog was a revelation and an endless source of pleasure to the hermit farmer. When Chum was whole of his heart and when the injured leg had knit so firmly that the last trace of lameness was gone, Link fell to recalling his father's preachments as to the havoc wrought by dogs upon sheep. He could not afford to lose the leanest and toughest of his little sheep-flock, even as price for the happiness of owning a comrade. Link puzzled sorely over this. Then, one morning, it occurred to him to put the matter up to Chum himself. Hitherto he had kept the dog around the house, except on their daily walks, and he had always tied him when driving the sheep to or from pasture. This morning he took the colly along when he went out to release the tiny flock from their barnyard fold and send them out to graze. Link opened the fold gate, one hand on Chum's collar. Out billowed the sheep in a ragged scramble. Chum quivered with excitement as the woolly catapult surged past him. Eagerly he looked up into his master's face, then back at the tumbling creatures. Chum spoke ferris sharply. Leave him be! Get that? Leave him be! He tightened his hold on the collar as he gave the command. Chum ceased to quiver in eagerness and stood still, half puzzled, half grieved by the man's unwanted tone. The sheep, at sight and smell of the dog, rushed jostlingly from their pen and scattered in every direction through barnyard and garden and nearer fields. Bleeding and stampeding they ran. Link ferris blinked after them and broke into speech. Loudly and luridly he swore. This stampede might well mean an hour's running to and fro before the scattered flock could be herded once more. An hour of panting and blasphemous pursuit at the very outset of an over-busy day. And all because of one worthless dog. His father had been right. Link saw that, now that it was too late. A dog had no place on a farm. A poor man could not afford the silly luxury of a useless pet. With whistle and call ferris sought to check the flight of the flock. But as every farmer knows there is nothing else on earth quite so unreasonable and idiotic as a scared sheep. The familiar summons did not slacken nor swerve the stampede. The fact that this man had been their protector and friend made no difference to the idiotic sheep. They were frightened. And therefore the tenuously thin connecting line between them and their human master had snapped. For the moment they were merely wild animals, and he was a member of a hostile race, almost as much as was the huge dog that had caused their fright. A wistful wine from Chum interrupted Link's volley of swearing. The dog had noted his master's angry excitement and was seeking to offer sympathy or help. But the reminder of Chum's presence did not check Link's wrath at the unconscious cause of the stampede. He loosed his hold on the collar, resolving to take out his rage in an unmerciful beating should the dog seek to chase the fleeing sheep. That would at least be an outlet for the impotent wrath which Ferris sought to wreak on someone or something. Go get him then if you're so sad on it, he howled at the collar, waving a windmill arm at the fugitives. Only I'll wail your measly head off if you do. The invitation and the gesture that went with it seemed to rouse some long dormant memory in the collar's soul. Like a flash he was off in flying pursuit of the sheep. Ferris, in the crazy rage which possessed him, hoped Chum might bite at least one of the senseless creatures that were causing him such a waste of precious time and of grudged effort. Wherefore he did not call back the fast-running calling. It would be time enough to wail the daylight out of him, yes, and to rescue as possible victims from death, when the dog should have overhauled the woolly pest. So in dour fury Link watched the pursuit and the flight. Then, of a sudden, the black rage in Ferris's visage changed to perplexity and slowly from that to crass wonderment. Six of the sheep had remained bunched in their runaway dash, while all the rest had scattered singly. It was after this bleeding sex-tet that Chum was now racing. Nor did he stop when he came up with them. Tearing past them he wheeled almost in mid-air and slackened his pace, running transversely ahead of them and breaking into a clamour of barks. The six, seeing their foe menacing them from in front, came to a jumbled and slithering halt, preparing to break the formation and to scatter. But Chum would not have it so. Still threatening them with his thunderous bark, he made little dashes at one or another of them that tried to break away, and he crowded back the rest. As a result there was but one direction the days cheap could take, the direction once they had come, and, uncertainly, shamblingly, they made their way back toward the fold. Scarce had they been fairly started in their cowed progress when Chum was off at a tangent, deserting his six charges and bearing down with express-trained speed on a stray weather that had paused in his escape to nibble at a line of early peas in the truck-garden. At sight of the approaching collie the sheep flung up its head and began again to run. But the dog was in front of it, whichever way the panic-stricken animal turned, in every direction, but one. And in that direction fled the fugitive. Nor did it stop in its headlong flight until it was alongside the six which Chum had first turned. Pausing only long enough to round up one or two sheep which were breaking loose from the bunch, Chum was off again in headlong chase of still another, and another, and another stray. Link Ferris, in blank incredulity, stood gaping at the picture before him, staring at the tireless swiftness of his dog in turning back and rounding up a scattered flock which Ferris himself could not have bunched in twenty times the space of minutes. Chum, he noted, did not touch one of the foolish beasts. His bark and his zigzag dashes served the purpose. Without the aid of teeth or of actual contact. Presently, as the dumb-founded man gazed, the last stray was added to the milling, bleeding bunch, and Chum was serenely trotting to and fro, driving back such of the sheep as sought to break loose from the huddle. Terrified and trembling, but mastered, the flock cowered motionless. The work was done. As in a dream, Link tumbled toward the prisoners. His mind functioning subconsciously, he took up his interrupted task of driving them to pasture. The moment he succeeded in getting them into motion, they broke again. And again, like a furry whirlwind, Chum was encircling them, chasing the strays into place. He saw, without being told, the course his master was taking and he drove his charges accordingly. Thus, in far less time and in better order than ever before, the flock reached the rickety gateway of the stone-strewn sheep pasture and scuttled jostlingly in through it. Link shut the gate after them. Then, still in a day, he turned on the dog. Chum, he said confusedly, it don't make sense to me, not even yet. I don't get the hang of it. But I know this much. I know you got ten times the sense what I've got. Where you got it and how you got it, a good lord only knows. But you've got it. I—I was figuring on licking you most to death a few minutes back, Chum. Honest, I was. I'm clean shame to lick you in the face when I think of it. Say, do me a favor, Chum. If ever I lift hand to lick you, just bite me and give me hydrophobic, for I'll sure be deserving it. Now, come on home. He patted the silken head of the jubilant dog as he talked, rumbling the soft ears and stroking the long blazed muzzle. He was sick at heart at memory of his recent murderous rage at this wonder-comrade of his. Chum was exultantly happy. He had had a most exhilarating ten minutes. The jolliest bit of fun he could remember in all his two years of life. The sight of those queer sheep, yes, and the scent of them, especially the scent, had done queer things to his brain, had aroused a million sleeping ancestral memories. He had understood perfectly well his master's order that he'd leave them alone, and he had been disappointed by it. He himself had not known clearly what it was he would have liked to do to them. But he had known he and they ought to have some sort of relationship. And then, at the gesture and the snarled comment of, Go get them, some closed door in Chum's mind had swung wide, and acting on an instinct he himself did not understand, he had hurled himself into the gray task of rounding up the flock. So, for a thousand generations on the Scottish Hills had Chum's ancestors earned their right to live. And so, through successive generations, had they imbued their progeny with that accomplishment, until it had become a primal instinct. Even as the unbroken pointer of the best type knows by instinct the rudiments of his work in the field, so will many a collie take up sheep herding by ancestral training. There had been nothing wonderful in Chum's exploit. Hundreds of untrained collies have done the same thing on their first sight of sheep. The craving to chase and slay sheep is a mere perversion of this olden instinct, just as the disorderly flushing and scattering of bird-covies is a perversion of the pointer or setter instinct. Chum, luckily for himself and for his master's flock, chanced to run true to form in this matter of heredity, instead of inheriting his tenancy in the form of a taste for sheep-murder. The first collie, back in prehistoric days, was the first dog with the wit to know his master's sheep apart from all other sheep. Perhaps that is the best, if least scientific, theory of the collie's origin. But to link Ferris's unsophisticated eyes the achievement was all but supernatural, and it doubled his love for the dog. That afternoon, by way of experiment, Ferris took Chum along when he went to drive the sheep back from pasture to the fold. By the time he and the dog were within a hundred yards of the pasture gate, Chum began to dance from sheer anticipation, mincing sidewise in the tips of his toes in true collie fashion, and varying the dance by little rushes forward. Link opened the crazy gate. Waiting for no further encouragement, the dog sped into the broad field and among the grazing sheep that were distributed unevenly over the entire area of the lot. Ordinarily, unless the sheep were ready to come home, it was a matter of ten or fifteen minutes each evening for Link to collect them and start them on their way. Today, in less than three minutes, Chum had the whole flock herded and trotting through the opening to the lane outside. Nor this time did the sheep flee from him in the same panic dread as in the morning. They seemed to have learned, if indeed a sheep can ever learn anything, that Chum was their driver, not their enemy. From the fold Link, as usual, went to the wood lot, where his five head of lean milk cattle were at graze. Three of the cows were waiting at the bar's forum, but one heifer and a new dry holstein were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the second-growth timber. The afternoon was hot, it had been a hot day. Link was tired. He dreaded the labour of exploring ten acres of undergrowth for his two missing cattle. An inspiration came to him. Pointing to the three stolidly waiting cows at the bar's, he waved his arm in the general direction of the lot and called on Chum. Go find him! Bring him in! Almost before the words were spoken, Ferris regretted them. He hated to dim the luster of his dog's earlier exploits by giving him a job beyond his skill, and this time Chum did not flash forward with his former zest. He stood, ears cock, glancing uncertainly from Link to the three cows already waiting. Then, as he still peered doubtfully, one of the bovine trio took fright at the dog and trotted clumsily away toward the woods. Link gave chase. He had not gone three steps before Chum caught the idea. Whirling past Ferris he headed off the surprised indignant cow, and by dint of a flurry of barks and dashes started her back toward the bar's. Her bell jangled dolefully as she obeyed the noisy urge, and from somewhere among the bushes, two hundred yards away, a second cowbell sounded an answer. At this distant tinkle, Chum evidently grasped the meaning of his master's earlier mandate, for he galloped away in the direction of the sound, and presently, with much crashing of undergrowth, appeared the rebellious heifer driven on by Chum. After depositing her, sulky and plunging at the bar's, Chum vanished again in apparent response to another far-off bell-jangle, and in three minutes more he was back at the bar's with the fifth cow. Lucky one was a heifer and the other one dry, commented Link to the collie after petting him and praising him for the exploit. I'll have to learn you to drive milk-cows easy and quiet. You can't run them like you run sheep in New Orleans, but apart from that, you sure done grand. You can lop off an hour a day of my work if I can send you regular for the critters. That ought to be worth the price of your keep by itself. Now, if I can learn you how to milk and maybe how to mow—well, it wouldn't be a hull-lock queer in the stunts you've done today. It was perhaps a week later that Link Ferris received his quarterly check from the Patterson vegetable market. These checks hitherto had been the brightest spots on Link's routine. Not only did the money for his hard-raised farm-products mean a replenishing of the always-scant larder and an easing of the chronic fiscal strain between himself and the Hampton General Store's proprietor, but sometimes enough spare cash was left over to allow Ferris to get very satisfactorily drunk. Since Chum's advent, the old gnawing of loneliness had not goaded Link to the Hampton Tavern. As a consequence, he had a dollar or two more on hand than was usual at such times. This wealth was swelled still further by the fact that a boost in vegetable prices had fattened his quarterly check beyond its wanted size. All this, and his long abstinence, seemed to call for a real celebration, and Link looked forward with the thrill of merry anticipation to the coming of night. As soon as he could clear away his evening chores and swallow some supper, he fared forth to the village. This was going to be one of those nights to date time from. Not a miserable half-jag, stopped in mid-career by lack of funds and of credit, unnipped in the bud to Bosch, such as so often had sent him home cranky and unsatisfied, and railing against poverty. No, this was going to be the real thing, a record performance, even for these pre-prohibition times. Ferris fed the collie and shut him into the kitchen, pending his own return from Hampton. If Link were going to become blissfully and helplessly drunk, as he had every hope of being, someone might take advantage of his condition to steal his precious dog. Therefore Chum was best left safe at home. This Link explained very carefully to the interestingly listening collie, and Chum, with head and brush adrope, walked meekly into the kitchen at his master's behest. Link set off for the village, happy in the feeling that his home was so well guarded, and that he would find a loving friend waiting to welcome him on his return. What with ready money and a real friend, and the prospect of getting whole-solidly drunk, the world was not such a rotten place to live in, after all. As a rule on these occasions, Ferris first went to the Hampton store. There he was want to cash his check, pay his longstanding bill, order his new supplies, and then, with a free heart, sally forth to the Hampton tavern. But, to-night, having money in his pocket apart from the check, he decided to pay a preliminary call at the tavern, just by way of warming up before going on to the store. There were a few people in the bar room at so early an hour of the evening, and on so early an evening of the week. Link nodded affably to one or two men he knew, and bade them line up at the bar with him. After the second drink he prepared to leave. To the tavern's proprietor, who was mildly surprised at the brevity of his call, Ferris explained that he was going across to the store to get his check cashed, and that he would be back later. Where at the proprietor kindly offered to save Link the journey by cashing the check for him, a suggestion Ferris gladly accepted. He passed the endorsed check across the bar and received for it a comfortably large wad of wilted greenbacks, which he proceeded to, in turn, with tender care in an inside pocket of his vest, where he moored them with a safety pin. Then he ordered another drink. But to this new order there was an instant demirror. Two strangers, who had been drinking at a corner table, bore down upon Link right lovingly, and recalled themselves to his memory, as companions of his on a quite forgotten debauch of a year or two back. Link did not at all remember either of the two. But then he often failed to recall people he had met on a spree, and he did not like to hurt these cordial revelers' feelings by disclaiming knowledge of them. Especially when they told him merrily that, for this evening at least, his money was made of wood and that he must be their guest. Never before had he met with such whole-sold hospitality. One drink fallen another with gratifying speed. Once or twice Ferris made half-hearted proffers to do some of the buying. But such hints seemed to hurt his host's feeling so cruelly that he forebore at last, and suffered himself to drink entirely at their expense. They were much the nicest men Link had ever met. They flattered him. They laughed uproariously at his every witticism. They had a genius for noting when his glass was empty. They listened with astonished admiration to his boastful recital of Chum's cleverness. One of them, who it seemed was an expert in dog lore, told him how to teach the Collie to shake hands and to lie down and to speak. They were magnificent men in every way. Link was ashamed to have forgotten his earlier meetings with such paragons. But the call of duty never quite dies into silence. And finally Link remembered he had still his store-bill to pay and his supplies to order. So he announced that he must go. The store he knew closed at nine. He looked up at the barroom clock. But its face was hazy and it seemed to have a great many hands. There was no use trying to learn the hour from so disilluded timepiece. His two friends persuaded him to have one more drink. Then they volunteered to go across to the store with him. He left the tavern with one of the two men walking on either side of him. He was glad to be in the center of the trio, for as the night-air struck him he became unaccountably dizzy. His friends' willing arms were a grand support to his wavering legs. On the unlighted threshold of the tavern Link stumbled heavily over something, something that had been lying there and that sprang eagerly toward him as he debauched from the doorway. The reason he stumbled over it was that the creature, which had bounded so rapturously toward him, had come to a sharp halt at noting his condition. Thus Ferris stumbled over it and would have fallen but for the aid of his friends. The single village street was pitch-black, not a light was to be seen. This puzzled Link, who had no means of knowing that the time was close on midnight. He started toward the store. At least that was the direction he planned to take. But when at the end of five minutes he found he was outside the village and on a narrow road that bordered the lake he saw his friends had mistaken the way. He stopped abruptly and told them so. One of them laughed as if Link had said something funny. The other did something quickly with one foot and one arm. Ferris's legs went out from under him. The jar of his fall shook from him a fraction of his drunkenness and it gave him enough sense to realize that the man who had laughed was trying to unfasten the pinned inner pocket of the fallen man's vest. Now for years that pocket had been the secret repository of Link Ferris's sparse wealth. The intruders' touch awakened him to a drowsy sense of peril. He thrust aside the fumbling hand and made a herculean effort to rise. At this show of resistance his two comrades, as by concerted signal, threw themselves upon him. With a yell of angry fright Link collapsed to earth under the dual impact. End of Chapter 1 Recording by Roger Maline Chapter 2 of His Dog This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline His Dog by Albert Payson Turhune Chapter 2 The Battle He felt one of the men pinion his waving arms while the other crouched on his legs and proceeded to unpin the money pocket. Ferris struggled for an instant in feudal fury, trying to shout for help. The call was strangled in his throat, but the help came to him, nonetheless. Scarce three seconds had passed since the attempt to rob him had set Link into action and had rung from him that yell of consternation. But an answer came a swirling patter of feet on the road, a snarl like a wolf's, a shape that catapulted through the dark. Sixty pounds of furswath dynamic muscles smote a thwart the shoulders of the man who was unfastening the cash pocket's pin. The impact hurled the fellow clean off his crouching balance and sent him sprawling, face downward, his outflung hand splashing in the margin of the lake. Before he could roll over, or so much as stir, a set of white fangs met in his shoulder flesh, and he testified to his injury by an eldritch screech of pain and terror that echoed far across the water. His companion, rallying from the momentary shock, left Ferris and charged at the prostrate thesis silent. But Chum met him with a fierce eagerness more than halfway. A true collie, thanks to his strain of wolf blood, fights as does no other dog. What he lacks in stubborn determination, he atones for by swiftness and by his uncanny brain power. A bulldog, for example, would have flown to his master's relief quite as readily as did Chum. But a bulldog would have secured the first convenient hold and would have hung on to that hold, whether it were at his victim's throat or only on the slack of his trousers, until someone should hammer him into senselessness. Chum, collie fashion, was everywhere at once, using his brain far more than his flying jaws. Finding the grip in his foe's shoulder did not prevent the man from twisting round to grapple him. The collie shifted that grip with lightning speed, and with one of his gleaming eye-teeth slashed his opponent's half-turned cheek from eye to chin. Then he bored straight for the jugular. It was at this crisis that he sensed, rather than saw, the other man rushing at him. Chum left his fallen antagonist and whirled about to face the new enemy. As he was still turning, he sprang far to one side in bare time to elude a swinging kick aimed at his head. Then, before the thief could recover the balance endangered by so mighty a kick, the collie had whirled in and sunk his teeth deep in the man's calf. The bitten man let out a roar of pain and smote wildly at the dog's face with both swinging fists. Chum leaped back out of range, and then, with the same bewildering speed, flashed in again and buried his curved fangs in the nearest of the two flailing forearms. The first victim of the collie's attack was scrambling to his feet. So was Link Ferris. Sobered enough to recognize his beloved dog, he also saw the new risen thief catch up a broken fence rail, brandish it aloft, and charge upon the collie, who was still battling merrily with the second man. To Link it seemed that nothing could save Chum from a backbreaking blow from the huge club. Instinctively he ran at the wielder of the formidable weapon. Staggering and sick and two-thirds drunk, Ferris, nevertheless, made valiant effort to save the dog that was fighting so gallantly for him. His lurching rush carried him across the narrow road and to the lake edge, barely in time to intercept the swinging sweep of the fence rail. It caught him glancingly across the side. And its force carried him clean off his none too steady feet. Down went Ferris, down and backward. His body plunged noisily into the water. Chum had wheeled to face the rail's brandisher. But at sight of his master's sudden immersion in the lake he quitted the fray. At top speed the dog cleared the bank and jumped down into the water in pursuit of Ferris. It evidently dawned on both men at once that there had been a good deal of noise for what was to have been a silent and decorous hold up. Also that a raging collie is not a pleasant foe. The racket might well draw interference from outside. The dog was over hard to kill and his bites were murderous. The game had ceased to be worth the candle. By common impulse the pair took to their heels. Link Ferris, head down in the cold water, was strangling in his modlin' efforts to right himself. He dug both hands into the lake-bottom mud and strove to gain the surface. But the effort was too much for him. A second frantic heave had better results, and vaguely he knew why. For Chum had managed to get a firm hold on the shoulder of his master's coat, twelve inches under water, and had braced himself with all his wiry strength for a tug which should lift Ferris to the surface. This added leverage barely made Link's own struggle a success. The half-drowned man regained his footing. Floundering waist-deep in water, he clambered up the steeply shelving bank to shore. There, at the road's edge, he lay, gasping and sputtering and fighting for breath. Chum had been pulled under and out of his depth by Link's exertions. Now, coming to the surface, he swam to shore and trotted up the bank to the road. Absurdly lank and small, with his soaking coat plastered close to his slim body, he stood over his prostrate master. The dog's quick glare up and down the road told him his foes were gone. His incredible sense of hearing registered the far-off, pad-pad-pad of fast-retreating human feet and showed him the course the two men were taking. He would have liked to give chase. It had been a good fight, lively and exciting with all, and Chum wished he might carry it into the enemy's own country. But his God was lying helpless at his feet and making queer sounds of distress. The dog's place was here. The joy of battle must be foregone. Solicitously, Chum leaned over Ferris and sought to lick the sufferer's face. As he did so, his super-sensitive nostrils were smitten by an odor which caused the collider to shrink back in visible disgust. The sickly, pungent smell of whisky on Ferris's labored breath nauseated Chum. He stood, head recoiled, looking down at Lincoln bewilderment. There were many things this night which Chum did not understand. First of all, he had been grieved and offended that Ferris should have locked him in the kitchen instead of taking him along as usual on his evening stroll. It had been lonely in the unlighted kitchen. Link had not ordered the dog to stay there. He had simply shut Chum in and left him. So, tiring at last of solitude, the collie had leaped lightly out of the nearest window. The window had been open. Its thin, mosquito net covering had not served in the least as a deterrent to the departing Chum. To pick up his master's trail, and to hold to it even when it merged with the score of others at the edge of the village, had been absurdly simple. The trail had led to a house with closed doors. So, after circling the tavern to find if his master had gone out by any other exit, Chum had curled himself patiently on the door step and had waited for Link to emerge from the door. Several people had come in and out while he lay there, but all of them had shut the door too soon for him to slip inside. At last Ferris had appeared between his two new friends. Chum had been friscally happy to see his long absent god again. He had sprung forward to greet Link. Then his odd collie sense had told him that he had been not the master whom he knew and loved. This man was strangely different from the Link Ferris whom Chum knew. Puzzled, the dog had halted and had stood irresolute. As he stood there, Ferris had stumbled heavily over him, hurting the collie's ribs and his tender fling. The dog had come in and out of the door. The dog had come in and out of the door. He had come heavily over him, hurting the collie's ribs and his tender flesh, and had meandered on without so much as a word or a look for his pet. Chum, still irresolute and bewildered, had followed at a distance the swaying progress of the trio until Link's yell and the attack had brought him in furious haste to Ferris's rescue. Link presently recovered enough of his breath to enable him to move. The ducking in icy water had cleared his bemused brain. Approximately sober he got to his feet and stood swaying and dazed. As he rose, his groping hand closed over something cold and hard that had fallen to the ground beside him, and he recognized it. So he picked it up and stuck it into his pocket. It was a pint flask of whiskey, one he had received as a farewell gift from his two friends as the three had left the tavern. It had been an easy gift for the men to make, for they were confidently certain of recovering it a few minutes later when they should go through their victim's clothes. Donning intelligence told Link he had not come through the adventure very badly after all, thanks to Chum. Ferris well understood now why the thieves had picked acquaintance with him at sight of his money and why they had gotten him drunk. The memory of what he had escaped gave him a new qualm of nausea. The loss of his cash would have meant suspended credit at the store and the leanest three months he had ever known. But soon the joy in his triumph wiped out this thought. The native North Jersey mountaineer has a peculiar vein of cunning which makes him morbidly eager to get the best of any one at all, even if the victory brings him nothing worthwhile. Link Ferris had had an evening of limitless liquor. He still had a pint of whiskey to take home, and it had cost him not a cent except for his first two rounds of drinks. He had had his spree. He still had all his check-money, and he had a flask of whiskey. True, he had been roughly handled, and he had had a ducking in the lake, but those were his sole liabilities. They were insignificant by comparison to his assets. He grinned and smug self-gratulation. Then his eye fell on Chum, standing ten feet away, looking uncertainly at him. Chum. To Chum, he owed it all. He owed the dog his money, perhaps his very life. Yes, as he rehearsed the struggle to get out of the lake, he owed the cally his life as well as his victory over the hold-up men. To Chum. A great wave of love and gratitude surged up in Ferris. He had a sloppily idiotic yearning to throw his arms about the dog's furry neck and kiss him. But he steadied himself and chirped to the cally to come nearer. Slowly, with queer reluctance, Chum obeyed. Listen, mumbled Link incoherently. I saved you from dying from a busted leg and hunger the night I first met you, Chummy. And tonight you squared the bill by saving me from drowning. But I'm still a whole lot in your depth, friend. I owe you for all the cash in my pocket and for a pint of the stuff that killed Father, and maybe for a beaten that might have killed me. Chum, I guess God did a real day's work when he built you. I—I—let it go at that. Only I ain't forgetting, nor yet I ain't liable to forget. Come on, home. I'ma get in the chatters. He had been stroking the oddly unresponsive dog's head as he spoke. Now for the first time Link realized that the night was cool, that his drenched clothes were like ice on him, and that the cold and the shock reaction were giving him a sharp congestive chill. Walking fast to restore circulation to his numbed body, he made off for his distant farmhouse, Chum pattering along at his heels. The rapid walk set him into a glow. But by the time he had reached home and had stripped off his wet clothes and swathed himself in a rough blanket, his wracked nerves reasserted themselves. He craved a drink, a number of drinks, to restore his wanted poise. Lighting the kitchen lamp, he set the whiskey bottle on the table and put a thick tumbler alongside it. Chum was lying at his master's feet. In front of Ferris was a pint of good cheer. The lamp-light made the kitchen bright and cozy. Link felt a sense of utter well-being pervade him. This was home. This was the real thing. Three successive and man-sized drinks of whiskey presently made it seem more and more the real thing. They made all things seem possible, and most things highly desirable. Link wanted to sing. And after two additional drinks, he gratified this taste by lifting his voice in a hiccup-punctuated diddy addressed to one Jenny whom the singer exhorted to wait till the clouds rolled by. He was following this appeal by a rural lyric which recited in somewhat worrisome tonal monotony, the adventures of a little black bull that came over the mountain, when he observed that Chum was no longer lying at his feet. Indeed, the dog was in a far corner of the room, pressed close to the closed outer door, and with crest and rough a droop, puzzled by his pet's defection, Link imperiously commanded Chum to return to his former place. The collie, in most unwilling obedience, turned about and came slowly toward the drinker. Every line of Chum's splendid body told of reluctance to approach his master. The deep-set dark eyes were eloquent of a frightened disgust. He looked at Ferris as at some lowly stranger. The glad light of loyalty which always had transfigured his visage when Link called to him was woefully lacking. Drunk as he was, Ferris could not help noticing the change, and he marveled at it. What's the matter, he demanded truculently? What is here? Come here, I'm telling you. He stretched out his hand in rough caress to the slowly approaching collie. Chum shrank back from the touch as a child from a dose of castor oil. There was no fear now in his aspect, only disgust and poignant unhappiness. And all suddenly Link Ferris understood. He himself did not know how the knowledge came to him. A canine psychologist might perhaps have told him that there is always an occult telepathy between the mind of a thoroughbred dog and its master, a power which gives them a glimpse into each other's processes of thought. But there was no such psychologist there to explain the thing. Nor did Link need it explained. It was enough for him that he knew. He knew, as by revelation, that his adoring dog now shunned him because Link was drunk. From the first, Chum's look of utter worship and his eagerly happy obedience had been a joy to Link. The subtly complete change in his worshiper's demeanor jarred sharply on the man's raw nerves. He felt vaguely unclean, shamed. The contempt of such of his pious human neighbors, as had passed him in the road during his sprees, had affected Link not at all. Nor now could he understand the queer feeling of humiliation that swept over him at sight of the horrified repugnance in the eyes of this mere brute beast. It roused him to a gust of hot vexation. Shamed of me, are you? he grunted fiercely. A dirty, four-legged critter's shamed of a he-man, eh? Well, we'll lick that out of you damn soon. Lurching to his feet, he snatched up a broom-handle. He waved it menacingly over the dog. Chum gave back not an inch. Under the thread of a beast, Link was in a state of disdain. Under the thread of a beating he stood his ground, his brave eyes steadfast, and lurking in their mystic depths that same glint of sorrowful wonder and disgust. Up whirled the broomstick. But when it fell, it did not smite a thwart the shoulders of the sorrowing dog. Instead, it clattered harmlessly to the bored floor. And to the floor also slumped Link Ferris, his nerve all gone, his heart soggy with sudden remorse. To his knees thudded the man close beside the collie. From Link's throat were bursting great strangled sobs which tortured his whole body and made his speech a tangled jumble that was not pretty to hear. Chum, he wailed brokenly, clutching the dog's huge rough in both shaky hands. Chum, old friend, God forgive me. You saved me from drowning and from going broke this night. You've been the only friend that ever cared a hang if I was alive or dead, and I was going to lick you. I was going to lambast you. Because I was a beastlier beast than you be. I was going to do it because you was so much better than me that you was made sick by my being a hog. And I was mad at you for it. I'm—oh, I'm shameder than you are. Chum, honest to God I am. Won't you make friends again? Please, Chum? Now, of course, this was a most ridiculous and modeling way to talk. Moreover, no man belongs on his knees beside a dog, even though the man be a sot and the dog be a thoroughbred. In his calmer moments Link Ferris would have known this. A high-bred collie, too, has no use for sloppy emotion, but shuns its exhibition well nigh as disgustedly as he shuns a drunkard. Yet for some illogical reason Chum did not seek to withdraw his aristocratic self from the shivering clutch of the repentant sows. Instead the expression of misery and repugnance fled as if by magic from his brooding eyes. Into them, in its place, leaped a light of keen solicitude. He pressed closer to the swayingly kneeling man, and with upthrust muzzle sought to kiss the blubbering face. The whisky reek was as strong as ever, but something in Chum's soul was stronger. He seemed to know that the maudlin unknown had vanished, and that his dear master was back again, his dear master who was in grievous trouble and who must be comforted. Wherefore the sickening liquor fumes no longer held him aloof from Link? Just as the icy lake had not deterred him from springing into the water after his drowning god, although like most collies, Chum hated to swim. Link, through his own nervous collapse, recognized the instant change in Chum's demeanor and read it to right. It strengthened the old bond between himself and the dog. It somehow gave him a less scornful opinion of himself. Presently he got to his feet, and with the collie at his side went back to the table where stood the three-parts empty flask. His face working Link opened the window and poured what was left of the whisky out on the ground. There was nothing dramatic about his action, rather it was tinged by a very visible regret. Turning back to Chum he said sheepishly, there it goes, and I ain't sayin' I'm tickled at wasting such good stuff. But somehow I guess we've come to a showdown, Chum, you and me. If I stick to booze I'm liable to see you looking at me that queer way and silin' away from me all the time, till maybe at last you'd get plumb sick of me for keeps and light out. And I'd rather have you than the booze, since I can't have both of you. Being only a dog and never having tasted good red liquor, you can't know what a big bouquet I'm a-throwin' at you when I say that, neither. I—oh, let's call it a day and go to sleep. Next morning, in the course of nature, Link Ferris worked with a splitting headache. He carried it and a bad taste in his mouth for the best part of the day. But it was the last drink headache which marred his labour all that long and happy summer. His work showed the results of the change. So did the meager hill farm. So did Link's system and his pocket-book. As he was a real, live human, and not a temperance-tracked hero, there were times when he girded bitterly at his self-enforced abstinence. There were times, too, when he had a touch of malaria, and again when the cutworm slaughtered two rows of his early tomatoes, when he yearned unspeakably for the solace of an evening at the Hampton Tavern. He had never been a natural drinker. Like many a better man, he had drunk less for what he sought to get than for what he sought to forget. And with the departure of loneliness and the new interest in his home, he felt less the need for wet conviviality and for drugging his fits of melancholy. The memory of Chum's grieving repulsion somehow stuck in Ferris's mind. And it served as a break, more than once, to his tavernward impulses. Two or three times, also, when Link's babyish gusts of destructive bad temper boil to the surface at some setback or annoyance, much the same, wonderingly distressed look would creep into the collie's glance. A look as of one who was revolted by a dear friend's failure to play up to form. And, to his own amused surprise, Ferris found himself trying to curb these outbursts. To the average human a dog is only a dog. To Ferris, this collie of his was the one intimate friend of his life. Unversed in the ways of dogs, he overestimated Chum, of course, and valued his society and his good opinion far more highly than the average man would have done. Thus, perhaps, his desire to stand well in the dog's esteem had in it more that was commendable than ludicrous, or perhaps not. If the strange association did much for Link, it did infinitely more for Chum. He had found a master who had no social interests in life beyond his dog, and who could and did devote all his scant leisure hours to association with that dog. Chum's sagacity and individuality blossomed under such intensive tutelage as might that of a clever child who was the sole pupil of its teacher. Link did not seek to make a trick-dog of his pet. He taught Chum to shake hands, to lie down, to speak, and one or two more simple accomplishments. It was by talking constantly to the collie as to a fellow human that he broadened the dog's intelligence. Chum grew to know and to interpret every inflection of Ferris's voice, every simple word he spoke, and every gesture of his. Apart from mere good fellowship the dog was proving of great use on the farm. Morning and night Chum drove the sheep and the cattle to their respective pastures and then back to the barnyard at night. At the entrances to the pastures now Ferris had rigged up rude gates with bar-catch fastenings, simple contrivances which closed by gravity and whose bars the dog was readily taught to shove upward with his nose. It was thus a matter of only a few days to teach Chum to open or close the light gates. This trick has been taught to countless collies, of course, in Great Britain and to many here, but Link did not know that. He felt like another Columbus or Edison at his own genius in devising such a scheme, and he felt an inordinate pride in Chum for learning the simple exploit so quickly. Of old Link had fretted at the waste of time in taking out the sheep and cows and in going for them at night. This dual duty was now a thing of the past. Chum did the work for him and reveled in the excitement of it. Chum also, from watching Link perform the task twice, had learned to drive the chickens out of the garden patches whenever any of them chanced to stray thither and to scurry into the cornfield with harrowing barts of ejection when a flock of crows hovered hungrily over the newly planted crops, all of which was continual amusement to Chum and a tremendous help to his owner. Link, getting over his initial wonder at the dog's progress, began to take these accomplishments as a matter of course. Indeed, he was sometimes perplexed at the otherwise sagacious dog's limitations of brain. For example, Chum loved the fire on the chilly evenings such as creep over the mountain region even in mid-summer. He would watch Link replenish the blaze with fresh sticks whenever it sank low. Yet, left to himself, he would let the fire go out, and he never knew enough to pick up a stick in his mouth and lay it on the embers. This lack of reasoning powers in his pet perplexed ferris. Link could not understand why the same wit which sent Chum half a mile of his own accord in searching of one missing sheep out of the entire flock should not tell him that a fire is kept alive by the pudding of wood on it. In search of some better authority on dog intelligence, Link paid his first visit to Hampton's Little Public Library. There, shame facedly, he asked the boy in charge for some books about dogs. The youth looked idly for a few minutes in a cross-index file. Then he brought forth a tome called the Double Garden, written by someone who was evidently an Italian or Pollock or other foreigner because he bore the grievously un-American name of Mater Link. This is all I can find about dogs, explained the boy, passing the linen jacketed little volume across the counter to Link. First story in it is an essay on Our Friend the Dog, the index says. Want it? That evening, by his kitchen lamp, ferris read laboriously the Belgian philosopher's dog essay. He read it aloud, as he had taken to thinking aloud, for Chum's benefit. And there were many parts of the immortal essay from which the man gleaned no more sense than did the collie. It began with a promising account of a puppy named Palaeus. But midway it branched off into something else, something Link could not make head nor tail of. Then, on second reading, bits of Mater Link's meaning, here and there, seeped into ferris's bewilderedly groping intellect. He learned, among other things, that man is all alone on earth, that most animals don't know he is here, and that the rest of them have no use for him. That even flowers and crops will desert him and run again to wildness, if man turns his back on them for a minute. So will his horse, his cow, and his sheep. They graft on him for a living, and they hate or ignore him. The dog alone, Link spelled out, has pierced the vast barrier between humans and other beasts, and has ranged himself, willingly and joyously, on the side of man. For man's sake, the dog will not only starve and suffer and lay down his life, but will betray his fellow quadruped. Man is the dog's god, and the dog is the only living mortal that is the privilege of looking upon the face of his deity. All of which was doubtless very interesting, and part of which thrilled ferris, but none of which enlightened him as to a dog's uncanny wisdom in certain things, and his blank stupidity in others. Next day Link returned the book to the library no wiser than before, albeit with a higher appreciation of his own good luck in being the god of one splendid dog like Chum. July had drowsed into August, and August was burning its sultry way toward September. Link's quarterly check from the Patterson market arrived, and ferris went as usual to the Hampton store to get a cashed. This time he stood in less dire need of money's life-saving qualities than of yore. It had been a good summer for Link. The liquor out of his system, and with a new interest in life, he had worked with a snap and vigor which had brought results in hard cash. Nonetheless he was glad for this check. In another month the annual interest in his farm mortgage would fall due, and the meeting of that payment was always a problem. This year he would be less cruelly harassed by it than before. Yet all the more he desired extra money. For a startlingly original ambition had awakened recently in his heart, namely to pay off a little of the mortgage's principle along with the interest. At first the idea had staggered him, but talking it over with Chum and studying his thumb-soiled ledger, he had decided there was a bare chance he might be able to do it. As he mounted the steps of the store this evening in late August, he saw, tacked to the doorside clapboards, a truly gorgeous poster. By the light of the flickering lamp over the door he discerned the vivid scarlet head of a dog in the upper corner of the yellow placard, and much display type below it. It was the picture of the dog which checked Link in passing. It was a fancy head, the head of a stately and long muzzle dog with a rough and with tulip ears. In short, just such a dog as Chum. Not knowing that Chum was a collie and that poster artist rejoiced to depict collies by reason of the latter's decorative qualities, Ferris was amazed by the coincidence. After a long and critical survey of the picture he was moved to run his eye over the flaring reading-matter. The poster announced to all in sundry that on Labor Day a mammoth dog show was to be held in the country club grounds at Craigswald, a show for the benefit of the Red Cross. Entries were to be one dollar for each class. Thanks to generous contributions the committee was unable to offer prizes of unusual beauty and value in addition to the customary ribbons. Followed a list of cups and medals. Link scanned them with no great interest, but suddenly his roving gaze came to an astonished standstill. At the bottom of the poster in 48-point-bold face type ran the following proclamation. Colonel Cyrus Martin of Craigswald Manor offers a cash award of one hundred dollars to the best dog of any breed exhibited. One hundred dollars. Link reread the glittering sentence until he could have said it backward. It would have been a patent lie had he heard it by word of mouth, but as it was in print of course it was true. One hundred dollars. And as a prize for the finest dog in the show. Not to buy the dog, mind you. Just as a gift to the man who happened to own the best dog. It didn't seem possible, yet. Link knew by hearsay and by observation the ways of the rich colony at Craigswald. He knew the Craigswolders spent money like mud when it so pleased them, although more than one fellow huckster was at times soar put to it to collect from them a bill for fresh vegetables. Yes, and he knew Colonel Cyrus Martin by sight, too. He was a long-faced little man who used to go about dressed in funny knee-pants and with a leather bag of misshapen clubs over his shoulder. Link had seen him again and again. He had seen the Colonel's enormous house at Craigswald Manor, too. He had no doubt Martin could afford this gift of a hundred dollars. To the best dog of any breed. Ferris knew nothing about the various breeds of dogs, but he did know that Chum was by far the best and most beautiful and the wisest dog ever born. If Martin were offering a hundred dollar prize for the best dog, there was not another dog on earth fit to compete with Chum. That was a cinch. As for the hundred dollars, why it would be a godsend on the mortgage payment, every cent of it could go toward the principal. That meant that Ferris could devote the extra few dollars he had already saved for the principal to the buying of fertilizers and several sorely needed utensils and to the shingling of the house. Avid for more news of the offer he entered the store and hunted up the postmaster, who also chanced to be the store's proprietor and the mayor of Hampton and the local peace justice. Of this poobah the inquiring Ferris sought for details. Some of the Red Cross ladies from up Craigswald Way were here this morning to have me nail that sign on the store, reported the postmaster. They were making a tour of all the towns hereabouts. They asked me to try to interest folks at Hampton in their show too, and get them to make entries. They left me a bunch of blanks. Want one? Yup, said Link. I guess I'll take one if it don't cost nothing please. He studied the proffered entry blank with a totally uncomprehending gaze. The postmaster came to his relief. Let me show you, he suggested, taking pity on his customers wrinkled brow and squinting helplessness. I've had some experience in this folder all. I took my airdale over to the Ridgewood show last spring and got a third with him. I'm going to take him up to Craigswald on Labor Day too. What kind of dog is yours? The dandiest dog that ever stood on four legs, answered Link, a fire with the zeal of ownership. Well, that dog of mine can... What breed is he? asked the postmaster, not interested in the dawning rhapsody. Oh, breed? repeated Link. Why, I don't rightly know. Some kind of a bird dog, I guess. Yes, a bird dog. But he's the grandest. Is he the dog you had down here one day last month? asked the postmaster with a gleam of recollection. Yep, that's him, assented Link. Only dog I've got. Only dog I ever had. Only dog I ever want to have. He's... But the postmaster was not attending. His time was limited. So taking out a fountain pen, he had begun to scribble on the blank. Filling in Link's name and address, he wrote in the breed and sex spaces the words, scotch collie, sable and white, male. Name? he queried, breaking in on Ferris's rambling eulogy. Huh? asked a surprised Link, adding. Oh, his name, hey? I call him Chum. You see that dog's more like a Chum to me than... No use asking about his pedigree, I suppose, resumed the postmaster. I mean who his parents were, and... Nope, said Link. I found him. His leg was... Pedigree unknown, wrote the postmaster, then. What classes are you entering him for? Classes? repeated Link, Dully. Why, I just want to put him into that contest for best dog, you see. He... Hold on, interposed the postmaster impatiently. You don't catch the idea. In each breed there are a certain number of classes, puppy, novice, limit, open, and so on. The dogs that get a blue ribbon, that's first prize, in these classes all have to appear in what is called the Winner's Class. Then the dog that gets Winners, the dog that gets first prize in this Winner's Class, competes for best dog of his breed in the show. After that, as a special, the best in all the different breeds are brought into the ring. And the dog that wins in that final class is adjudged the best in the show. He's the dog in this particular show that will get Colonel Martin's hundred-dollar cash prize. See what I mean? Yes, replied Link, after digesting carefully what he had heard. I guess so, but since you've never shown your dog before, went on the postmaster, beginning to warm with professional interest, you can enter him in the novice class. That's generally the easiest. If he loses in that, no harm's done. If he wins, he has a chance later in the Winner's Class. I'm mailing my entry tonight to the committee. If you like, I'll send yours along with it. Give me a dollar. While Link extracted a greasy dollar bill from his pocket, the postmaster filled in the class space with the word novice. Thanks for helping me out, said Ferris, grateful for the lift. That's all right, returned the postmaster, pocketing the bill and folding the blank, as he prepared to end the interview. Be sure to have your dog at the gate leading into the Kregswald Country Club grounds, promptly, at ten o'clock on Labor Day. If you don't get a card and a tag sent to you before then, tell your name to the clerk at the table there, and he'll give you a number. Tie your dog to the stall with that number on it, and be sure to have him ready to go into the ring when his number is called. That's all I have to tell you. Thanks, said Link again. And now I guess I'll go back home and commence brightening chum-up a wee-peckle on his tricks. Maybe I'll have time to learn him some new ones, too. I want him to make a hit with them judges and everything. Tricks, scoffed the postmaster, pausing as he started to walk away. Dogs don't need tricks in the showroom. All you have to do is to lead your dog into the ring and parade him round with the rest of them till the judge tells you to stop. Then he'll make them stand on the show platform while he examines them. The dog's only tricks are to stand and walk at his best, and to look alert, so the judge can see the shape of his ears and to get his expression. Teach your dog to walk around with you, on the leash, without hanging back, and to prick up his ears and stand at attention when you tell him to. That's all he needs to do. The judge will do the rest. Have him clean and well brushed, of course. I—I sure feel bitter sorry for their other dogs at the show, mumbled Link. A hundred dollars. Of all the dogs that ever happened, chummy is that one. Why, there ain't a thing he can't do, from herd and sheep to win in a wad of soft money. And—and he's all mined. End of chapter two, recording by Roger Maline.