Jan: A Dog and a Romance Part 13

"Here, damme!" he shouted at O'Malley, "you'd better haul off your captain's dog, or--or mine'll kill him!"

And with a resounding thwack he brought his riding-cane down across Jan's forehead. It was this, rather than his own very serviceable two chisels, that brought the husky sudden release from the grip upon his neck, which, already deep-sunk, had been like to finish his career. The high-crowned shape of Jan's skull, and the soft fineness of the skin and hair that covered it, made him very sensitive to a blow on the head.

Also he knew it was a man's attack, and not a dog's. When he saw who the man was, he roared at him very ferociously. And that was the first occasion upon which Jan had ever shown his teeth in real anger to a human.

Had not Sourdough been there, it is hard to say what might have happened. As it was, the sergeant's intervention and Jan's angry response thereto gave Sourdough the opportunity he had longed for. It gave him, in safety, the rush at Jan from the side. It would have availed him little if Jan had seen him coming. But Jan, engaged in threatening his human enemy, saw nothing till the tremendous impact of Sourdough's rush took him off his feet, and the husky got, not precisely the true throat-hold he wanted, but a deadly hold, none the less, in the flesh of Jan's dewlap.

The position of a few seconds earlier had been practically reversed.

Jan's blood was running between Sourdough's fangs now--a fiery tonic, and veritable _eau-de-vie_ to the husky. Sourdough's catlike tactics--perhaps the best and safest in such a case--were not adopted by Jan, who never yet had used such a method. With a huge effort the hound managed to twist his body in such a way as to gain foothold for his hind feet; and then, by the exercise of sheer muscular strength, he curved his neck and shoulder inch by inch (while still his blood slaked Sourdough's thirst) until with sudden swiftness he was able to grip the husky's near fore leg between his jaws, just on and below the knee.

Then Jan concentrated his whole being into the service of his jaws.

Sourdough gave a cry that was almost a scream, and his jaws flew apart, dripping Jan's blood. Jan's teeth sank a shade deeper. Sourdough pivoted round in agony, snapping at the air, and emitting an unearthly yowling, snarling, grunting cry the while. Jan's teeth locked together, and then were sharply withdrawn, leaving a very thoroughly smashed and punctured fore leg to dangle by its skin and sinew.

During the past few seconds the sergeant had been raining down blows of his cane on Jan's head. Now O'Malley grabbed Jan by his steel collar.

"By hivens, sergeant!" he spluttered, "if ye'll meet me afterwards, without your stripes on, I'll--I'll give ye what Jan here'd give your b.l.o.o.d.y wolf, if ye had the honesty to l'ave 'em to ut."

Jan dragged back momentarily, and--in justice to Sourdough's gameness, be it said--the husky struggled hard from his master's entwining arms to be at the enemy again on three legs. But O'Malley's pleadings were urgent and his right arm strong (the left was curled round Micky Doolan); and so it befell that, while Sergeant Moore remained tending his wounded favorite, O'Malley, leading Jan, whose front was bleeding badly, as were his shoulders and one ear, arrived at the barracks gates just as d.i.c.k Vaughan trotted up to them, on his return from duty in Regina.

"My hat!" cried d.i.c.k, as he dismounted. "Has he killed the sergeant's dog?"

"He would ha' done, the darlin', if the sergeant had bin a man, in place o' the mad divil he is," replied O'Malley.

XXIV

PROMOTION

For a week and more after the fight the barracks saw nothing of Sourdough, whose leg was being mended for him in the stable of a veterinary surgeon in Regina. Sergeant Moore would have made no difficulty over spending half his pay upon the care of his beloved husky.

Jan's ills were confined to flesh-wounds, and in any case d.i.c.k preferred to doctor the big hound himself. The story of the fight, and of Sergeant Moore's not very sporting part therein, was now known to every one in the barracks, with the result that Jan became more than ever the favorite of the force, and the sergeant more than ever its Ishmaelite, against whom every man's hand was turned in thought, if not in deed. It was little Sergeant Moore cared for that. It almost seemed as though he welcomed and thrived upon the antipathy of his kind, even as a normal person prospers upon the love of his fellows. The scowls of his comrades were accepted by the sergeant as a form of tribute, so curiously may a certain type of mind be warped by the influence of isolation.

It was at this stage, when Jan's flesh-wounds were no more than half healed, that Captain Arnutt brought d.i.c.k Vaughan the intelligence that, as the result of the Italian murder case and other matters, he was to be promoted to acting-sergeant's rank, and given charge, on probation, of the small post at Buck's Crossing, some sixty-odd miles north-west of Regina.

The news brought something of a thrill to d.i.c.k, because it had been arranged, by his own suggestion in Suss.e.x, that his promotion to full sergeant's rank should mark the period of quite another probationary term; and here, undoubtedly, was a step toward it. On the other hand, he had formed friends.h.i.+ps in Regina; and while most of the people in the barracks would be genuinely sorry to lose him, he, for his part, could not contemplate without twinges of regret the prospect of exchanging their society for the isolation of the two-roomed post-house at Buck's Crossing.

"And in some ways it will be just as well for you and Jan to be out of here for a time," said Captain Arnutt. "Sergeant Moore has quite a number of fleas in his bonnet, and you can't afford to come to blows with him--here, anyhow."

"No fear of that, sir," said d.i.c.k. "Why, he's nearly twice my age, and--"

"Don't you make any mistake of that sort, my friend. There are limits to any man's self-control. The sergeant may be twice your age, but he's made of steel wire and moose-hide, and let me tell you he could give a pretty good account of himself in a ring against any man in Saskatchewan. Then, again, your intentions might be ever so good, but I wouldn't like to answer for you, or for any other white man, if it comes to being actually tackled by as heavy-handed a hard case as Sergeant Moore. And then there's Sourdough. When that husky's leg is sound again he'll be about as safe a domestic pet as a full-grown grizzly. No, it's better you should be away for a bit. Also, my friend, it's a chance for you. There are some pretty queer customers pa.s.s along that Buck's Crossing trail these days, making north. Your beat's a long one. You'll have a good deal of responsibility; and, who knows? You might win a commission out of it. You won't be forgotten here, you know."

Then the order came that d.i.c.k was to take over the Buck's Crossing post that same week. It was necessary for d.i.c.k to ride the whole sixty-odd miles, but his kit was to be sent thirty-two miles by rail, and there picked up by wagon for the remainder of the journey. Meantime there were a number of st.i.tches in Jan's dewlap and shoulders not yet ripe for removal, and d.i.c.k decided that he would not ask the hound to cover over sixty miles of trail in a day, as he meant to do. Therefore it was arranged that O'Malley should see to putting Jan on the train when d.i.c.k's kit was sent off, and that Jan should have a place in the wagon for the thirty-odd miles lying between Buck's Crossing and its nearest point of rail.

And then, having seen to these arrangements, d.i.c.k bade good-by to his comrades, rubbed Jan's ears and told him to be a good lad till they met again, in forty-eight hours' time, and rode away, carrying with him the good wishes of every one in the barracks, with the exception of one who looked out at him from the windows of the sergeants' quarters, with grimly nodding head and a singularly baleful light in his eyes.

Sergeant Moore, who had just returned from three days' leave, had learned from the veterinary surgeon that morning that Sourdough must always limp a little on his near fore leg, which would be permanently a little shorter than its fellow, by reason of the slight twist which surgical care had been unable to prevent. Yet Sergeant Moore, for all the glow of hatred in his eyes as he watched d.i.c.k Vaughan's departure, nodded his grizzled head with the air of a man quite satisfied.

"So long, Tenderfoot," he growled. "You'll maybe find Sourdough's reach a longer one than you reckon for, I'm thinking."

It was evident that day, to O'Malley and to all his friends, that Jan felt the temporary parting with his lord and master a deal more than d.i.c.k had seemed to feel it. And yet Jan could not possibly have known, any more than d.i.c.k knew, as to what the promised forty-eight hours of separation were to bring forth.

XXV

JAN GOES ON HIS TRAVELS

Jan spent that night beside O'Malley's bunk, in the face of regulations to the contrary.

In the absence of Paddy from his stall, the good-hearted O'Malley had not liked to leave Jan to the solitude of his bench. And shortly after daylight next morning, with a new steel chain, purchased for this journey, attached to his collar, Jan was put on board the west-bound train consigned to Lambert's Siding, for wagon carriage, with d.i.c.k's kit, to Buck's Crossing. Jan did not like this business at all. The chain humiliated him, and the train was an abomination in his eyes. But at the back of his mind was a dim consciousness that he was going to his sovereign, and by his sovereign's will, and that was sufficient to prevent any sort of protest on his part.

Arrived at Lambert's Siding, Jan's chain was fastened to a post by a humorous person in greasy overalls, who said, as he noted the fine dignity of Jan's appearance:

"Guess your kerridge will be along shortly, me lord."

The man in the overalls was a new hand transferred from the East, and but lately settled in Canada, or he might probably have recognized Jan as "the R.N.W.M.P. bloodhound," of newspaper celebrity.

A few minutes later a man in a fur cap drove up to the siding in a light buckboard wagon, with a lot of sacking in its tray.

"Has Sergeant Vaughan's dog come from Regina?" asked the new-comer.

"Yep, I guess that's him," said Overalls.

"Well, I'm to pay his freight an' take him, and a wagon will call for the other truck."

"That so?" rejoined Overalls, with indifference. "Well, I told me lord his kerridge would be along shortly. Jest give us yer auto here, will yer? Third line down. Hold on. Ye'd better have a receipt for the money.

Where's that blame pen?"

The first light snow of the season began to flutter down from out a surprisingly clear sky, as Jan settled down in the buckboard, his chain pa.s.sed down through a hole and secured to the step outside, an arrangement which struck Jan as highly unnecessary, since it kept his head so low that he could not stand up in the wagon. However, Overalls and the man in the fur cap (who had signed his name as Tom Smith) seemed to think it all right, and so friendly Jan, his mind full of thoughts of d.i.c.k Vaughan, accommodated himself docilely to the position, and was soon quite a number of miles away from Lambert's Siding.

When the Buck's Crossing wagon arrived there an hour or so later, its driver seemed surprised that there was no dog for him to carry with Sergeant Vaughan's kit. But he was not a man given to speculation. He just grunted, expectorated, and said, shortly:

"Well, I guess that's right, then. Muster made some other arrangement; an' it's just as well, for I'm late an' I've got to have my near front wheel off an' doctor it a bit, so I won't make the Crossin' till midday to-morrow, I reckon. I'll be campin' at Lloyd's to-night."

Overalls just nodded as he took the wagoner's signature for Sergeant Vaughan's kit; and without another thought both men dismissed from their rather vacant minds (as was perfectly natural, no doubt) all further thought of a matter which did not concern them, despite its life-and-death importance to the son of Finn and Desdemona.

After perhaps an hour and a half, the buckboard was pulled up in a fenced yard beside a small homestead. Here Jan parted with the man in the fur cap and never set eyes upon him again. His chain was now taken by a different sort of man; a very lean, spare, hard-bitten little man, with bright dark eyes and a leather-colored face. He thanked the fur-capped man for having kindly brought Jan along. Fur-cap deprecated thanks, but accepted a dollar. And then the leather-faced man led Jan away. They walked for perhaps a couple of miles, and then they were joined by another man, who called the first man Jean, so that Jan looked up quickly, thinking he had been addressed.

"Hees name Jan," explained the first man, casually, pointing to Jan's collar.

"H'm! That so? Better get rid o' that collar, Jean, eh?"

From a bag in the buggy in which they had found the second man, wire-cutters were produced, and Jan's collar cut in sunder and removed, after a leather collar had been buckled on in its place and the chain attached to that. Jan had a vague feeling of uneasiness about this operation; but only a vague feeling. Like all other animal-folk, he had long ago arrived at the conclusion that men-folk frequently did quite unaccountable things; that a dog would have no rest in life if he set himself to puzzle out a reason for everything he saw the sovereign people do. Captain Arnutt had locked that collar about his neck, and a very silly, stiff, and awkward contraption he had thought it. Now another man, equally without apparent rhyme or reason, took it off and subst.i.tuted a leathern collar with a queer, fishy, gamy sort of smell.