The Dogs of Boytown Part 15

"I'll need to use this later on," said he, "and they've got to get used to the feel of it first. They've got to learn to stand it without pullin', and to answer the signals."

Again he exhibited extraordinary patience, for the dogs resented this unaccustomed restraint and seemed possessed to pull at their leads and try to break away. It took a good two hours to break them to this simple harness. Then Sam took it off and went all over the first lesson again, which at first the dogs appeared to have forgotten.

"Well, as the minister says, here endeth the first lesson," said Sam when the shadows of late afternoon began to lengthen, and they turned back again toward the shack. The boys now realized that they were very tired.

"Do you think they'll ever learn?" asked Jack, somewhat plaintively.

"Why, sure," said Sam. "I've seen worse ones than these. They're high spirited, as good dogs ought to be, and a bit heady, but they'll learn. They've done very well, so far."

Still doubting, but somewhat encouraged, the boys prepared to take their departure. In order that the training might go on uninterrupted it was necessary to leave Romulus and Remus in Sam's care, and it is a question which felt the worse about the separation, the boys or the dogs. Ernest and Jack knew that their pets would be in good hands and kindly treated, but it was hard to say good-by. As for the dogs, they set up a howling and crying, when they found they were being deserted.

"They'll soon get over that," said Sam. "They'll begin to take an interest in the other dogs pretty soon, and then they'll feel more at home."

Thus rea.s.sured, the boys started off down the road without their four-footed comrades, but the insistent wails that followed them were very heart-rending, and two big tears rolled down Jack's round cheeks.

And it was several days before they could get used to the desolate, deserted look of Rome or become reconciled to the absence of their playmates.

They could hardly wait for the next Sat.u.r.day to come, when they could go up again to Sam's shack and visit their beloved dogs. Romulus and Remus were overjoyed at seeing them again, and it was some time before Sam could get them quieted down sufficiently to take them out for another lesson. He had been training them during the week, and the boys now heard him addressing them with strange words. He placed their check-cords on again, and this time the dogs did not seem to resent it so much. Indeed, they seemed to look upon it as the preliminary of a good time, which, as Sam explained, was the idea he had tried to impress on them.

"Hie-on!" cried Sam, and the dogs started off at a bound.

"To-ho!" he called. This meant to stop abruptly, and this command the dogs, hoping for a good run, did not obey so readily. A quick tug at the check-cord reminded them of the meaning of the command, and soon they stopped more promptly at the words.

"Come in," said Sam, and the dogs approached him.

"Charge!" said Sam. "Down!" After several attempts the dogs reluctantly obeyed and crouched at his feet.

"Heel!" he cried, and after several repet.i.tions of the order they took their places quietly behind him.

"They're always a little slower the first thing in the mornin'," Sam explained, "before they've run off some of their deviltry. They'll improve as they go along."

And improve they did. In the afternoon Sam took them out without the check-cord and kept perseveringly at them until they would "hie-on"

and "to-ho" and "charge" and "heel" with reasonable promptness.

"By next week I hope to show you something more," said Sam.

"When will you shoot over them and teach them to point?" asked Ernest.

"Oh, not for some time yet," said Sam. "They've got to learn the a b c of it first. Next I shall try to teach them to answer my hand. First I'll call and wave at the same time, and then just wave. Then they've got to learn to range--to go whichever direction I want 'em to and turn when I want 'em to. Then I'll give 'em lessons in retrievin'."

But before another Sat.u.r.day had come around, Sam had discovered something--something which affected the whole future career of Remus.

Ernest and Jack had duties to perform that Sat.u.r.day which engaged them the entire morning, and they were unable to go up to Sam's until afternoon. Their visit was consequently a short one and they had but little time to spend with Sam in the field. They found, however, that the training had been progressing satisfactorily. Sam was allowing the dogs to range in ever widening circles, and on the whole they were obeying his commands in a promising manner. They were beginning to retrieve objects, also, not as a hit-or-miss game after the manner of Rags, but in answer to the commands "Go fetch it," and "Pick it up."

Moreover, the dogs were less homesick now that they had begun to take an interest in their occupations and to become acquainted with the other dogs. They seemed to understand, too, that Ernest and Jack had not utterly deserted them but might be expected to appear at almost any moment.

But when it came time to go home Sam detained them for a moment.

"I've got to tell you something," said he, scratching his chin and looking a bit unhappy, "and I don't believe you'll like it much."

"Oh," cried Ernest, "can't you keep the dogs?"

"I can keep Romulus," said Sam, "but I've got to ask you to take Remus back. I've given him every chance and I find he's hopeless as a bird dog. He learns quick enough--quicker than Romulus if anything. But he's got no nose, none at all, and a setter with no nose is about useless in the field. It would be a waste of time to try to train him, and when we got on the birds he would only get in Romulus's way and spoil him. So I guess you'll have to take him back and let me go ahead with the good one."

"Why, what do you mean?" inquired Jack, struggling to hide his disappointment. "Can't he smell?"

"Oh, I s'pose he can tell spoiled fish when he gets it, but he don't catch the scent of anything on the air. I guess it was the distemper that did it. He had it worse than Romulus and it often spoils their noses when they have it hard enough. I'm sorry, but it can't be helped and it can't be cured."

For a few minutes Jack stood silent, pressing his lips together. Then suddenly he knelt down beside Remus and hugged him pa.s.sionately.

"I don't care whether you've got a nose or not, Remus," he cried. "I don't want to go hunting, ever. Noses don't matter. You're the best dog in the whole world, anyhow."

And so they took Remus back with them that afternoon, leaving Romulus behind, howling mournfully for his brother.

Such reports as they received from Sam indicated that the training of Romulus proceeded with fair rapidity during the fall. They were not able to go up to his shack very often for one reason or another, and Jack, at least, was not so anxious to do so as he had been. Remus lived in solitary luxury in Rome and was in some danger of being spoiled by the petting he received from his loyal master.

Romulus, so Ernest learned, could now retrieve at command and would bring back a dead pigeon or other bird without rumpling its feathers.

He would also range in obedience to a wave of Sam's hand and was gradually learning to stand fast and hold his point when he flushed a covey of birds. Finally Sam took out his gun to shoot over him, and the rest of his training was to be chiefly that persistent practice which finally makes perfect.

It was decided that Romulus should remain with Sam until snow fell, but one night there came a scratching and a whining at the door and a series of peculiar short little barks so persistently kept up that they awakened both the boys. They slipped on their dressing gowns and slippers and stole downstairs.

At the door they found Romulus with a broken bit of rope tied to his collar.

"Why," cried Jack, "it's Romulus. See, he must have broken away."

"He came all the way home alone in the dark," said Ernest. "How do you s'pose he ever found his way?"

Romulus seemed to understand that it was not the time to make a noise, for though he kept leaping on the boys in an access of delight and making little sounds in his throat that were almost human, he refrained from the loud, joyous barking that he would have indulged in if it had been daytime. Remus had heard him, however, and was making a considerable commotion in Rome. So the boys took Romulus quietly out to his brother, who greeted him with paw and tongue and voice, and bidding both dogs goodnight, they went back to the house.

So it was decided that if Romulus so much desired his own home, he should be deprived of it no longer. Sam came down in a day or two to find out about it.

"I thought he'd probably run home," said he, "but I wanted to make sure. I guess we'd better leave him here now. I'm pretty near through with him for this fall, anyway. You just bring him up once in awhile so I can take him out and not let him forget what I've learned him."

Meanwhile the affairs of Boytown were going on much as usual. Autumn pa.s.sed in golden glory, with nutting expeditions in October in which sometimes as many as a dozen boys and a dozen dogs joined forces. As they started out through the town streets, Mr. Fellowes, the news dealer and stationer, said it looked as though a circus had come to town.

Such things, however, were of common and regular occurrence. Only two episodes of that season deserve to be specially recorded. One was a dog fight which for a time brought the dog-owning fraternity of Boytown into ill repute.

For some time several of the boys had been bragging, as boys will, about the prowess in battle of their particular dogs, and this narrowed down at length to an unsettled controversy between Monty Hubbard and Harry Barton. Monty maintained that the Irish terrier was the greatest dare-devil and fighter in the canine world, and he quoted books and individuals to prove it. Harry, on the other hand, insisted that the bulldog's grit and tenacity were proverbial, and loudly a.s.serted that if Mike once got a grip on Mr. O'Brien's throat, it would be good-by, Mr. O'Brien.

It is only fair to the boys to state that it was the Irish terrier that started the fracas on his own initiative. He was a sc.r.a.ppy terrier, always ready to start something, and it usually required considerable vigilance to keep him out of trouble. But it must be confessed that on this particular occasion his master did not exert the usual restraint.

It happened out on the road that Ernest and Jack so often took when they visited Sam b.u.mpus or Trapper's Cave. Mr. O'Brien had been annoying the other dogs for some little time, rus.h.i.+ng and barking at them and inviting a friendly encounter. He was not vicious, but he loved a tussle. Finally Mike the bulldog, usually so long-suffering, lost patience and turned on Mr. O'Brien with a menacing snarl that seemed to mean business. For a moment the Irishman stood still in surprise, while Mike, his head held low, waited with a stubborn look in his eyes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Irish Terrier]

That was clearly the time for interference, but I regret to say that instead of interfering, the boys grouped themselves about with feelings of not unpleasant antic.i.p.ation. I further regret to say that Ernest Whipple was one of the most interested.

Suddenly Mr. O'Brien, recovering from his surprise, returned to the attack with an impetuous rush which nearly bowled Mike over. But Mike was heavier than Mr. O'Brien and stood very solidly on his four outspread feet. He merely turned about and presented a terrifying front to his more active antagonist. Again Mr. O'Brien rushed, seeking a hold on Mike's big, muscular neck.

For a time Mr. O'Brien seemed to be having the best of it. He took the offensive and seemed to be on all sides of Mike at once. The bulldog's ear was bleeding and Harry urged him to retaliate.