Treve

The rickety and rackety train was droning along over the desert miles--miles split and sprinkled by cheerless semi-arid foothills. At dusk it had shrieked and groaned its way over a divide and slid clatteringly down the far side amid a screech of brakes.

Out into the desert-like plain with the scatter of less dead foothills it had emerged in early evening. Now, as midnight drew on, the desert ground--with its strewing of exquisite wild flowers here and there among the sick sage brush and crippled Joshua trees--took a less desolate aspect; though it was too dark a night for the few waking passengers to note this.

The Dos Hermanos River lay a few miles ahead--many more miles on the hither side of the Dos Hermanos mountain range. The half-fertile land of the river valley was merging with the encroach of the desert.

Fraser Colt got to his feet in the rank-atmosphered smoking section of the way-train’s one Pullman; hooked a fat finger at the porter to find if his berth had been made up; then loafed through to the baggage car for a last inspection of his collie pup, before turning in.

Now it is a creditable thing for a man to assure himself of his dog’s comfort for the night. Often it bespeaks more or less heart. But, in the case of Fraser Colt it did nothing of the sort; nor was it creditable to anything but his interest in his dog’s money value.

As to heart, Fraser Colt had one;--a serviceable and well-appointed heart. It pumped blood through his plump body. Apart from that function, it did no work at all. Or if it beat tenderly toward any living thing, that living thing was Fraser Colt alone.

Into the ill-lit baggage car he made his way. There were not less than ten occupants of the car. Two of them were normal humans. The third was Fraser Colt. The remaining seven were dogs.

This was by no means the only westbound train, of long or short run, to carry dogs, that night. For at eleven o’clock on the morrow the annual show of the Dos Hermanos Kennel Club was to open. Exhibitors, for two hundred miles, were bringing the best in their kennels to it.

Seven crates were lined up, along the walls of the baggage car, when Colt slouched in. The baggageman was drowsing in his tiptilted greasy chair. In a far corner sat an oldish kennelman who had just taken from a crate a police dog, which he was grooming. Because the night was stiflingly hot, the car’s side door was rolled halfway open to let in a sluice of dust-filled cooler air.

Fraser Colt went over to a crate, unlocked and opened its slatted door and snapped his fingers. At the summons--indeed, as soon as the door was opened wide enough for him to wriggle through--a dog danced out onto the dirty floor.

Then, for an instant, the newly released prisoner halted and glanced up at the man who had let him out. The wavery light revealed him as a well-grown collie pup, about eight months old. Golden-tawny was his heavy coat and snowy were his ruff and frill and paws. He had about him the indefinable air that distinguishes a great dog from a merely good dog--even as a beautiful woman is distinguished from a merely pretty woman.

His deepset dark eyes had the true “look of eagles,” young as he was. His head and fore-face were chiseled in strong classic lines. His small ears had the perfect tulip dip to them, without which no show-collie can hope to excel. But, though three show-collies out of five need to have their ears weighted or otherwise treated, to attain this correct bend of the tips, here was a pup whose ear-carriage was as natural as it was perfect.

You will visit many a fairly good dogshow, before you find an eight-month pup--or grown collie, for that matter--with the points and classic beauty and indefinable air of greatness possessed by the youngster that was now returning Fraser Colt’s appraising gaze.

There was no love in the pup’s upturned glance, as he viewed his owner;--although, normally, a pup of that age regards the whole world as his friend, and lavishes enthusiastic affection on the man who owns him.

This pup was eyeing Colt with no fear, but with no favor. His look was doubting, uncertain, almost hostile. But Colt did not heed this. His expert eye was interested in scanning only the young collie’s perfection, from a show-point. And he was well satisfied.

He had paid a low price for this collie; buying him at his breeder’s ill-attended forced sale, three weeks earlier. Colt was a dog-man; but that does not mean he was a dog fancier. To him, a dog was a mere source of revenue. He had foreseen grand possibilities in the pup.

He had entered him in three classes, for the Dos Hermanos show; whither now he was taking him. This he had not done through any shred of sportsmanship; but because he knew the type of folk who visit such western shows.

He was certain of carrying the pup triumphantly through his various classes and of annexing several goodly cash specials. For there were, and are, few high class show-collies in the Dos Hermanos region; though there are scores of wide-headed and splay-footed sheep-tending collies scattered among the ranches there.

Fraser Colt knew that rich ranchmen and others of their sort would be glad to pay a fancy price for such a pup; especially after he should have won a few blue ribbons under their very eyes. There were certain to be fat offers for the puppy, at the show; and the fattest of these Colt was planning to take.

Thus it was that he had come for a last look at the youngster before going to bed. He wanted to make sure the pup was comfortable enough, to-night, not to look jaded or dull in the ring, to-morrow.

He stooped and ran a rough hand over the golden-tawny coat; not in affection, but in appraisal. The puppy drew back from his touch; in distaste rather than in fear. Then the deepset dark eyes caught sight of the police dog in the far corner.

Perhaps in play, perhaps in lonely craving for friendliness, the collie scampered gayly across to the larger dog.

The latter was submitting in dumb surliness to his handler’s grooming. The big police dog had not relished being yanked from his crate, late at night, for brushing and rubbing. Indeed, he had not relished any part of the joltingly noisy ride. He was not in the sunniest of tempers.

Over to him scampered the friendly collie pup. As he came within a foot or so of his destination, the car gave a drunken lurch, in rounding a bend of the track. The capering puppy was thrown off his unaccustomed car-balance. He collided sharply with the police dog.

The impact set the larger dog’s ruffled temper ablaze. With a roar, he hurled himself bodily upon the unsuspecting collie stripling.

Now a collie comes of a breed that is never taken wholly by surprise. Even as the big dog lunged, the pup recoiled from the onslaught, at the same time bracing himself on the swaying floor of the car. He recoiled; but not far enough.

The larger dog’s ravening teeth missed their mark at the base of the spine; but they seized the puppy’s left ear; biting it through. At the same time the police dog shook the dumbfounded pup savagely from side to side.

Before the puppy could make any effort to defend himself, the handler and Fraser Colt had rushed into the fray. The police dog was hauled back, snapping and snarling. Colt’s rough hand restrained the collie from doing anything in the way of reprisal. The very brief fight was ended.

Colt glanced over his pup, once more; this time with more worry than mere appraisal. Battle-scarred canine visages do not impress dogshow judges favorably.

Then, from Fraser Colt’s thick throat avalanched a torrent of lurid blasphemy. For he saw something which affected him as might the loss of his garish diamond scarfpin.

One of the puppy’s tulip ears still tipped gracefully forward from the point. But the other ear hung down from the side of his head as limply as a sodden handkerchief. In brief, if one ear was tulip, the other was wilted cabbage leaf.

From the down-hanging lacerated ear, blood was trickling; in token of the police dog’s bite. The shaking of the mighty jaws had wrenched and broken the cartilage and muscular system of the stricken ear into raglike loppiness.

Ear-carriage is an all-important detail in the judging of show-collies. Lack of perfect ear-carriage may perhaps be condoned to some extent, if the dog’s other points be good enough to counteract it. But no collie-judge on earth would give a ribbon to a dog with one semi-erect ear and one ear that hangs flappily down the side of his head.

No, the pup’s show possibilities were gone,--absolutely gone. Two minutes earlier he had been worth perhaps $400 of any fancier’s cash. As he stood, he was worth as much, for all show-purposes, as a one-eyed woman in a beauty contest.

That savage wrench of the police dog’s jaws had harmed no vital spot. But it had ripped hundreds of dollars out of Fraser Colt’s bank account. Why, nobody, now, would be willing to pay as much as $50 for the collie, as a pet! Who would want a lopsided, clownish-looking dog, when a handsome mutt could be bought for half the price?

To Colt, a dog was as much an insensate chattel as was a bank note. This particular dog had just deprived him of a rare chance to annex many bank notes. In illogical fury, he brought his open hand down over the puppy’s bleeding head, with a resounding and stingingly painful slap. In Colt’s present frame of mind, he must needs take out his furious disappointment on something.

The blow knocked the puppy half way across the car. Striding after him, Fraser Colt swung his hand--fist clenched, this time--for a second and heavier blow.

In righteous indignation at the injustice, and in unbearable pain, the collie met the second attack, halfway. As Colt’s big fist smote at him, the pup shifted deftly aside from the descending arm. Slashing as he jumped, he scored a deep red furrow in his owner’s wrist.

With a howl of rage, Colt flung himself, mouthing and foaming, upon the luckless puppy. He snatched up the young collie by the nape of the neck, and hurled the vainly protesting furry body out through the open side doorway of the car.

Now, by all laws of averages, a puppy thrown off a train going thirty miles or more an hour, should have landed on the hard track ballast or the right of way, with enough force to break several bones or even his skull.