Jan: A Dog and a Romance Part 22

said d.i.c.k, "because it isn't mine. It's an R.N.W.M.P. gun. But you wait another day or two, my friend, and when we've got shut of this gentleman in Edmonton"--with a nod in the direction of the madman--"you and I will give an hour or so to finding out the best gun in the city; and when we've found it we'll have your name engraved on it, and underneath, 'From Jan, the R.N.W.M.P. hound, to the man who saved his life.' I know you'll take a keepsake from Jan, boy."

And so it was arranged. Jim would not hear of any selling or buying of the hound; but in Edmonton, where he sold his sled and team, preparatory to taking train for the western seaboard, he accepted, as gift from Jan, the best rifle d.i.c.k could find, inscribed as arranged; and, as gift from d.i.c.k, a photograph of himself and Jan together.

Their parting was characteristic of life in the North-west. Each man knew that in all human probability he would never again set eyes upon the other. Yet they parted as intimate friends; for their coming together--again most typical of north-western life--had been of the kind which leads swiftly to close friends.h.i.+p--or to antipathy and hostility.

d.i.c.k, greatly impressed by the other man's solid worth, urged upon him the claims of the R.N.W.M.P. as offering a career for him.

"For you," said d.i.c.k, "the work would all be simple as print; plain sailing all the way."

Jim Willis, like most northland men, had a very real respect for the R.N.W.M.P., but he smiled at the idea of joining the force.

"But why?" asked d.i.c.k. "It would be such easy work for you."

"Aye, I'll allow the work wouldn't exactly hev me beat," agreed Jim.

"But--Oh, well I ain't a Britisher, to begin with, an', what's more to the p'int, a week in barracks 'd choke me."

"But they'd be wise enough to keep you pretty much on the trail; and you're at home there."

"Yes, I guess the trail's about as near home as I'll ever get, mebbe, but I'd have no sorter use for it if I j'ined your bunch."

"How's that?"

"Well, now, I guess that 'd be kinder hard to explain to you, d.i.c.k." (In the northland, between men, it is always either Christian names or "Mister.") "You see, we was raised different, you an' me; an' what comes plum nateral to you would set me kickin' like a steer, first thing I'd know. The trail suits me, all right, yes. But I hit it when I want to, an' keep off it when I'm taken that-a-way. I'm only a poor man, but ther' isn't a millionaire in America can buy the right to say 'Come here' or 'Go there' to me, d.i.c.k, an', what's more, ther' ain't goin' to be, not while I can sit up an' eat moose. It's mebbe not the best kind of an outfit; an', then again, it's mebbe not jest the worst; but, any ol' way you like, d.i.c.k, it's the only kind of an outfit I've got."

d.i.c.k nodded sympathetically.

"Why, yes, you can see it stickin' out all over. Look at that little dust-up with the lun_at_ic. Well, now, I should jest 've pumped that gentleman as full o' lead as ever he'd hold. 'You'd bite me,' I'd ha'

said. 'Well, Mister Lun_at_ic,' I'd ha' said, 'I count you no more 'n a mad husky; an' when I see a mad husky, I shoot. So you take this,' I'd ha' said, an' plugged him up good an' full. But for you--well, I see how it is. He's a kind of a sacred duty, an' all the like o' that. Yes, I know; only--only I'm not built that kind of a way, ye see."

And Jim was right, and d.i.c.k knew he was right. As white and straight and true a man as any in the north, and able to the tips of his fingers and toes, but--but not the "kind of an outfit" for the R.N.W.M.P.

And so they parted, on a hard hand-grip. And to Jan Jim Willis gave a grim, appraising sort of a stare, and (spoken very gruffly) these words:

"Well, so long, Jan! The cards is yours, all right, an' I guess you take the chips!"

He did not touch the big hound as he spoke. But then, despite their long and close a.s.sociation, he never had touched Jan in the way of a caress.

x.x.xVII

BACK TO REGINA

Long before Sergeant d.i.c.k Vaughan--he was always spoken of thus, by both his names--arrived at the R.N.W.M.P. headquarters in Regina news was received there of his strange single-handed journey from the Great Slave Lake, of the mad murderer, the mad dogs, of the sergeant's own toil in the traces, and of his being tracked down by Jan.

The surgeon in Edmonton who attended to d.i.c.k's badly wounded and poisoned neck and right thumb happened to be a man with a strong sense of the picturesque and a quite journalistic faculty for visualizing incidents of a romantic or adventurous nature.

An _Edmonton Bulletin_ reporter, in quest of a "story" for his paper, had the good luck to corner the surgeon in his consulting-room. The result took the form of promotion for that reporter, following upon publication in the _Bulletin_ of a many-headed three-column article which was quoted and reproduced all up and down America. Summaries of the "story" were cabled to Europe. Snap-shots of d.i.c.k and Jan were obtained by enterprising pressmen in Edmonton, and distributed quite profitably for their owners to the ends of all the earth. Many months afterward extracts and curiously garbled versions of this northland Odyssey cropped up in the news-sheets of Siam, the Philippines, Mauritius, Paraguay, and all manner of odd places.

Their London morning newspaper presented the matter at some length to the Nuthill household and to Dr. Vaughan in Suss.e.x, while d.i.c.k and Jim Willis, five or six thousand miles away, were choosing a rifle to have Jan's name inscribed upon it.

As a fact, the subject-matter of the story was sufficiently striking in character, for in a temperature of fifty below zero, with no other help than a little undersized husky b.i.t.c.h can give, it is no small matter for one man to drag a laden sled for twelve days while looking after a maniac who has come very near to killing him.

To this was added the romantic recovery of the famous "R.N.W.M.P.

bloodhound," as Jan was called; and that aspect of the business brought special joy to the newspaper writers. To some extent also, no doubt, it colored d.i.c.k's addition to R.N.W.M.P. records, and caused that addition to figure more strikingly than it might otherwise have done in the archives of the corps.

A quaint thing about it all was the fact that every one else knew more about it than the two men most concerned, for it happened that neither d.i.c.k Vaughan nor Jim Willis had ever cultivated the newspaper habit.

Willis was hugely startled and embarra.s.sed, hundreds of miles away in Vancouver, to find himself suddenly famous.

In Edmonton d.i.c.k Vaughan presented a very stern front to the snap-shooters because he conceived the idea that he and Jan were being guyed in some way. By the reporters he was presently given up as hopeless, because he simply declined to tell them anything. Their inquiries touched his professional pride as a disciplined man, and they were told that d.i.c.k could have nothing whatever to say to them with regard to his official duties. But his innocence made surprisingly little difference in the long run. The surgeon's story was real journalistic treasure-trove, the richest possible kind of mine for ingenious writers to delve in; and after all the most determined reticence in no way affects the working of cameras.

Withal, the welcome prepared for d.i.c.k and Jan at Regina station was hardly less than alarming for one of the two men in Canada and the United States who had not read the newspapers.

"You'll excuse my saying so, sir," explained d.i.c.k in a fl.u.s.tered aside to Captain Arnutt, "but this is the very devil of a business. I--surely I haven't got to say anything!"

The civilian crowd at the station was good-humoredly shouting for a "speech," cameras were clicking away like pom-poms, and the Regina pressmen were gripping d.i.c.k almost savagely by either arm, showing considerable personal bravery thereby, for Jan growled very threateningly as their hands touched the sergeant's tunic, and in common humanity d.i.c.k was forced to grab the famous hound by the neck and give him urgent orders to control his wrath.

As d.i.c.k subsequently explained to Captain Arnutt, the thing struck him as the more awkward because, having found Jan, he desired now to be allowed to resign from the force, as he wanted to return to England.

"But, hang it, man! you've been gazetted a full sergeant-inspector and--unofficially, of course--I'm told we are only waiting word from Ottawa about offering you commissioned rank."

d.i.c.k shrugged his shoulders in comic despair. His speech was finally delivered from the perilous eminence of a booking-clerk's stool, an elevation which Jan so gravely mistrusted that he felt impelled to rise erect on his hind feet, placing both fore paws beside his lord's raised heels, and thereby providing the camera men with the most famous of all the snap-shots yet obtained.

The speech, as literally recorded in shorthand by one of Regina's most promising young pressmen, if not a very finished or distinguished effort, was clearly a hardy and quick-growing production, since it did eventually develop into a long half-column in some newspapers, according to the unimaginative and literal stenographic record aforementioned. It was as follows:

"It's very good of you fellows--er--Right you are, sir! er--ladies and gentlemen!--But, really, you know, I can't make a speech. It's no use.

I--er--I'm tremendously obliged to you all. What you say is--er--well, the fact is I've only done what any other man in the service would have done. It's splendid to see you all again and--I _have_ brought back the Mounted Police Dog. Thank you!"

And, according to the shorthand man, that was all. But a generous sub-editorial fraternity understood the speech differently; and newspaper readers doubtless came to the conclusion that oratory must now be added to the other accomplishments of the versatile R.N.W.M.P.

There were no embarra.s.sing calls for speeches at the barracks, but even there d.i.c.k (still closely attended by Jan, upon whom one of the impressions produced by his return to the complex conditions of civilization was an anxious fear that his sovereign lord would somehow be spirited away from him if he ever let d.i.c.k out of his sight) was called upon to face a raking fire of compliments from his commanding officer, delivered in the presence of a full muster of commissioned and non-commissioned ranks.

"You have done your duty finely as a sergeant of the Royal North-west Mounted Police, and, for us who know what it means, I don't know that the ablest man in the country can hope to earn higher praise than that."

Those were the chief's concluding words, and the full-throated, if somewhat hoa.r.s.e, cheer which they elicited from the men a.s.sembled behind d.i.c.k and Jan, as well as from the group beside the chief, had the curious effect of filling d.i.c.k's eyes with moisture of a sort that p.r.i.c.ked most painfully, so that as he came to the salute before retiring he saw the familiar buildings in front of him but dimly, as through a fog.

x.x.xVIII

THE FALL OF SOURDOUGH

Just before darkness fell that evening Captain Arnutt called d.i.c.k from his quarters and asked him to go for a stroll. Together, and closely followed by Jan, they started. Before the barracks gate was reached they were met by Sergeant Moore, with Sourdough at his heels.

Sourdough had aged a good deal during the past year, but despite the twist in his near fore leg, which caused him to limp slightly, the old dog still held his own as despotic ruler of all the dogs in that locality. But for a good many years he had done no work of any kind, neither had he had any very serious fighting or come in contact with northland dogs. His swiftest movements would have seemed clumsy and slow to the working husky, inured to the comparative wildness of trace life in the north. But his morose arrogance and ferocity had suffered no diminution, as was shown by the fact that he flew straight for Jan's throat directly he set eyes on the big hound.