Bulldog

The dusk was closing early on this autumn day with a chill whirl of snowflakes borne on a wind that had been iced in crossing the heads of the white mountains, but Zinn did not feel the cold. He looked up to the black ranks of the pine forest which climbed the sides of Sandoval Mountain, scattering toward the top and pausing where the sheeted masses of snow began. Life was like that--a struggle, an eternal fight, but never a victory on the mountaintop which all the world could see and admire. When the judge sentenced him he said: “If you lived in the days of armor, you might have been a hero, Zinn; but in these times you are a waster and an enemy of society.” He had grasped dimly at the meaning of this. Through his life he had always aimed at something which would set him apart from and above his fellows; now, at the age of forty, he felt in his hands an undiminished authority of might, but still those hands had not given him the victory. If he beat and routed four men in a huge conflict, society, instead of applauding, raised the club of the law and struck him down. It had always done so, but, though the majority voted against him, his tigerish spirit groped after and clung to this truth: to be strong is to be glorious!

He reached the hilltop and looked down to his home in the hollow. A vague wonder and sorrow came upon him to find that all had been held together in spite of his absence. There was even a new coat of paint upon the woodshed and a hedge of young firs was growing neatly around the front yard. In fact, the homestead seemed to be prospering as though his strength were not needed! He digested this reflection with an oath and looked sullenly about him. On the corner a little white dog watched him with lowered ears and a tail curved under its belly.

“Get out, cur!” snarled Zinn. He picked up a rock and threw it with such good aim that it missed the dog by a mere inch or two, but the puppy merely pricked its ears and straightened its tail.

“It’s silly with the cold,” said Zinn himself, chuckling. “This time I’ll smear it.”

He pried from the roadway a stone of three or four pounds, took good aim, and hurled it as lightly as a pebble flies from the sling. Too late the white dog leaped to the side, for the flying missile caught it a glancing blow that tumbled it over and over. Zinn, muttering with pleasure, scooped up another stone, but when he raised it this time the stone fell from his hand, so great was his surprise. The white dog, with a line of red along its side where a ragged edge of the stone had torn the skin, had gained its feet and now was driving silently straight at the big man. Indeed, Zinn had barely time to aim a kick at the little brute, which it dodged as a rabbit turns from the jaws of the hound. Then two rows of small, sharp teeth pierced his trousers and sank into the flesh of his leg. He uttered a yell of surprise rather than pain. He kicked the swaying, tugging creature, but still it clung, working the puppy teeth deeper with intent devotion. He picked up the fallen stone and brought it down heavily with a blow that laid open the skull and brought a gush of blood, but though the body of the little savage grew limp, the jaws were locked. He had to pry them apart with all his strength. Then he swung the loose, senseless body into the air by the hind legs.

What stopped him he could not tell. Most of all it was the stabbing pain in his leg and the marvel that so small a dog could have dared so much. But at last he tucked it under his arm, regardless of the blood that trickled over his coat. He went down the hill, kicked open the front door, and threw down his burden. Mrs. Zinn was coming from the kitchen with a shrill cry that sounded more like fear than like a welcome to Zinn.

“Peter! Peter!” she cried at him, clasping her hands together and staring.

“Shut up your yapping,” said Peter Zinn. “Shut up and take care of this pup. He’s my kind of a dog.”

His three sons wedged into the doorway and gaped at him with round eyes and white faces.

“Look here,” he said, pointing to his bleeding leg. “That damned pup done that. That’s the way I want you kids to grow up. Fight anything. Fight a buzz saw. You don’t need to go to no school for lessons. You can foller after Blondy, there.”

So Blondy was christened; so he was given a home. Mrs. Zinn, who had been a trained nurse in her youth, nevertheless stood by with moans of sympathy while her husband took the necessary stitches in the head of Blondy.

“Keep still, fool,” said Mr. Zinn. “Look at Blondy. He ain’t even whining. Pain don’t hurt nothing. Pain is the making of a dog--or a man! Look at there--if he ain’t licking my hand! He knows his master!”

A horse kicked old Joe Harkness the next day, and Peter Zinn took charge of the blacksmith shop. He was greatly changed by his stay in the penitentiary, so that superficial observers in the town of Sioux Crossing declared that he had been reformed by punishment, inasmuch as he no longer blustered or hunted fights in the streets of the village. He attended to his work, and as everyone admitted that no farrier in the country could fit horseshoes better, or do a better job at welding, when Joe Harkness returned to his shop he kept Zinn as a partner. Neither did Peter Zinn waste time or money on bootleg whisky, but in spite of these new and manifold virtues some of the very observant declared that there was more to be feared from the silent and settled ferocity of his manner than from the boisterous ways which had been his in other days. Constable Tom Frejus was among the latter. And it was noted that he practiced half an hour every day with his revolver in the back of his lot.

Blondy, in the meantime, stepped into maturity in a few swift months. On his fore and hind quarters the big ropy muscles thrust out. His neck grew thicker and more arched, and in his dark brown eyes there appeared a wistful look of eagerness which never left him saving when Peter Zinn was near. The rest of the family he tolerated, but did not love. It was in vain that Mrs. Zinn, eager to please a husband whose transformation had filled her with wonder and with awe, lavished attentions upon Blondy and fed him with dainties twice a day. It was in vain that the three boys petted and fondled and talked kindly to Blondy. He endured these demonstrations, but did not return them. But when five o’clock came in the evening of the day, Blondy went out to the gate of the front yard and stood there like a white statue until a certain heavy step sounded on the wooden sidewalk up the hill. That noise changed Blondy into an ecstasy of impatience, and when the big man came through the gate, Blondy raced and leaped about him with such a muffled whine of joy, coming from such deeps of his heart, that his whole body trembled. At meals Blondy lay across the feet of the master. At night he curled into a warm circle at the foot of the bed.

There was only one trouble with Blondy. When people asked: “What sort of a dog is that?” Peter Zinn could never answer anything except: “A hell of a good fighting dog; you can lay to that.” It was a stranger who finally gave them information, a lumber merchant who had come to Sioux Crossing to buy timber land. He stopped Peter Zinn on the street and crouched on his heels to admire Blondy.

“A real white one,” said he. “As fine a bull terrier as I ever saw. What does he weigh?”

“Fifty-five pounds,” said Zinn.

“I’ll give you five dollars for every pound of him,” said the stranger.

Peter Zinn was silent.

“Love him too much to part with him, eh?” asked the other, smiling up at the big blacksmith.

“Love him?” snorted Zinn. “Love a dog! I ain’t no fool.”

“Ah?” said the stranger. “Then what’s your price?”

Peter Zinn scratched his head; then he scowled, for when he tried to translate Blondy into terms of money, his wits failed him.

“That’s two hundred and seventy-five dollars,” he said finally.

“I’ll make it three hundred, even. And, mind you. my friend, this dog is useless for show purposes. You’ve let him fight too much, and he’s covered with scars. No trimming can make that right ear presentable. However, he’s a grand dog, and he’d be worth something in the stud.”

Zinn hardly heard the last of this. He was considering that for three hundred dollars he could extend the blacksmith shop by one-half and get a full partnership with Harkness, or else he could buy that four-cylinder car which young Thompson wanted to sell. Yet even the showy grandeur of an automobile would hardly serve. He did not love Blondy. Love was an emotion which he scorned as beneath the dignity of a strong man. He had not married his wife because of love, but because he was tired of eating in restaurants and because other men had homes. The possession of an automobile would put the stamp upon his new prosperity, but could an automobile welcome him home at night or sleep at his feet?