CHUMS
Arnon Flint had not volunteered to take the money-satchel to the bank.Indeed, he had tried hard to crawl out of the errand.
A tennis-hour, with a swim to follow, had beckoned right alluringly tohim. There was no fun in missing all this and taking a hottrolley-ride into town just for the honour of acting as bearer, to thebank, of the church bazaar's satchelful of change and small bills.
Arnon said so, with engaging frankness, at lunch that noon, when hismother told him of the task that had been deputed to him. Whereat hisfather looked up gloweringy; from his task of plate-clearing, andadded his quota to the argument:
"As long as you eat my bread, you'll obey my orders, and yourmother's, too. I don't want to hear any grumbling. You'll take thatmoney to the bank, and you'll get a receipt for it. And you'll looksharp to get there before three, too. Let it go at that!"
For perhaps thirty seconds, Arnon wisely "let it go at that." Thenhuman endurance broke down before equally human indignation.
"You talk a lot about my eating your bread," sniffed the boy. "But itisn't my fault I eat it. If you'd let me take a job, instead of makingme get ready to go to that measly old college, I'd have been eating myown bread by this time."
"You'd be wasting another man's time and money instead of mine,"retorted his father. "And you'd be back on my hands inside of a week.No, thanks. You're going to college--if ever you have sense enough topass your entrance exams. College may make a man of you. Nothing elsewill. In the meantime, you'll do something for your keep, besidessulking. For instance, you'll take the bazaar's ninety-eight dollarsto the bank, this afternoon. And you'll do it without any morewhining."
As he stood, jammed with eight other people upon the interurbantrolley-car's back platform that afternoon, Arnon morosely went overin his mind this lunch-table dialogue. He fell to chewing on theunpalatable mess of grievances that had led up to the scene. And hewas hot and sick with resentment.
* * * * *
Some conscienceless liar once said that schooldays are the happiesttime in life. That same liar would make Ananias or Munchausen looklike the original Truthful James. In many ways, the school-years of agrowing boy are worse than a term in prison.
They are perhaps a delight to the model youth. But to the average ladthey hold more torture than any grown man could endure. It is only themiraculous elastic power of youth that makes them bearable. It is thedistorting and falsifying magic of retrospect that gives them theironly charm.
A grown man, let us say, is in disgrace. If worst comes to worst, hecan vanish; and he can start life, afresh, somewhere else, with aclean slate.
Let a boy fall into disgrace at school or at home. What road of escapeis open to him? Not one. He is much more at the mercy of parent andteacher than any convict is at his warden's mercy. There are strictlaws governing the treatment of prisoners by their keepers. But,within normal bounds, no law holds back a teacher or a parent--orboth--from making a boy's life a continuous Hades.
Add to all this the fact that every one of youth's countlessmisfortunes is a hopeless black tragedy in its victim's eyes, andperhaps you will understand why boyhood is not a ceaseless delight. Ifany man of thirty-six were subjected to the tyranny, the terrors, thebitter dependence, the unescapable and heavy penalties for pettyfaults that encompass the average half-grown boy, he would go insanein a night. There is no appeal, no way out, for the boy who is in ascrape. For a man, in such trouble, there are fifty exits.
Small wonder that so many lads yearn for a chance to make their ownway in the world, and that they shrink in loathing from the proposedcollege course which will keep them in penniless slavery during fourmore endless years!
They have not yet the wit to understand that the so-called HigherEducation is often a pompously windy fetish; whose chief advantageconsists in the fact that it enables its possessors to look down onits non-possessors.
This philosophy is faulty, of course. It is also non-essential to thestory; except that it throws a light on Arnon Flint's mental processesas he stood there, the hated money-satchel at his feet, trying to keephis balance on the crowded rear platform of the trolley-car.
People were forever boarding or leaving the car. A dozen times, Arnonwas shoved from one spot to another as his fellow-standees milled andjostled about him. Always, with his toe, he managed to push thesatchel to his new standing place. He could not stoop to pick it up.The platform was too crowded. He could not even stoop down far enoughto keep his eye on the bag. But he kept in constant touch with it bymeans of his boot-toe.
At the ball-ground gate, on the outskirts of the town, three-fourthsof the passengers debarked. As the car started on, its rear platformwas empty except for Arnon and the conductor and a sawdusty man inoveralls.
Breathing was easier now. So was standing. A few blocks farther on, awoman got out, leaving a seat vacant on the rear bench. Arnon spiedthe seat and prepared to take it. As a preliminary, he bent to pick upthe satchel from between his toes.
"Drop that, sonny!" exhorted the sawdusty man in overalls.
At the same moment Arnon was aware that his fingers had met around acanvas strap and not around the satchel's leathern handle. He peereddown, in dull amaze.
Between his feet was a carpenter's kit. The money-bag was nowhere insight.
The thing he had been guarding with his toes was this kit. Someone hadlong since taken away the satchel. It is an old trick, this "lifting"of a bag from the floor of a crowded vehicle. But to youth nomisfortunes are old. All of them have the horrible charm of novelty.
The satchel was gone. And it had not been taken by mistake. For thesawdusty man's kit was the sole bit of luggage on the platform.
The satchel was gone. And with it was gone the ninety-eight dollarscollected, the night before, at the church bazaar--the charity moneythat had been entrusted to Arnon Flint to take to bank--the moneywhich, just then, represented Arnon Flint's honour.
Now, as any sane reader will know, the one simple and natural thingfor the boy to do was to notify the police and thence to go home andtell his parents what had happened. His father was moderatelywell-to-do, and readily could have made up the deficit.
Yes, that would have been the one normal thing for Arnon to do:--to gohome and confess. And--his first name being neither Rollo norPercival--it is the very thing he did not do.
From across the eternal chasm which divides boyhood from middle age,the lad's right course seems absurdly simple. But to no boy, and to noone who recalls the mental agony of boyhood disgraces, will it appearso. As wisely ask an unsuspected sinner to write out a list of hismisdeeds and to mail them to his wife and to the police.
Arnon had a lively imagination. He had no trouble at all in picturingthe scene of his home-coming with such tidings as were his. He, whohad begged to go to work,--whose father had fifty times told him hehad not enough level-headedness or sense of responsibility to hold ajob for one week,--he must go home and admit his father was right.
He--whose weekly spending money was just seventy-five cents--mustconfess he had lost ninety-eight dollars. The magnitude of the sumgripped him with panic force. A few minutes ago he had regarded thebag's contents as merely a heavy mass of small change. Now he knew itfor Wealth.
The knowledge that he had committed no sin did not buoy him up in thevery least. A consciousness of innocence is an excellent anchor, nodoubt. But what good is an anchor after the ship has sunk?
Blindly illogical fright seized the boy as he thought of reporting theloss of such a fortune--and of the present penalty and theinterminable naggings to follow. The Unknown has a host of terrorslurking at its heels. But, once or twice in a lifetime, these areoutweighed by the more tangible terrors of the Known. Which accountsfor suicides.
Beyond, lay the Unknown. Behind, lay the Known. Arnon Flint, in a rushof consequence-fear, chose the Unknown.
In his pocket was the best part of three dollars, the sum still leftfrom his month's allowance received that morni
ng. He stayed on thetrolley-car until it reached the railroad station. Then he entered thestation and bought a ticket for Silk City--one hundred and twentymiles to westward. Three and a half hours later, he stepped down uponthe Union Station platform in Silk City.
* * * * *
His plan was made. There was always work for willing hands. Arnon knewthere was. He knew it because he had read it--yawningly butrepeatedly--in _The Boys' Uplift Magazine_, a dreary juvenile monthlyfor which his father had subscribed in Arnon's name.
Arnon intended to get a fair-paying job, work hard, live frugally andsave that lost ninety-eight dollars as quickly as possible. When heshould have saved it, he would send it home to make up thechurch-bazaar deficit. At the same time, he could lay pipes for hisown immune home-coming. The plan was perfectly feasible. In themeanwhile, Arnon had eighteen cents in his pocket.
Now, it would be most laudable at this point to say that Arnon'ssearch for work was at once rewarded by a good job and that hisindustry and talents won him swift promotion; until at last he wasSilk City's merchant king. _The Boys' Uplift Magazine_ would probablybe eager to print such a yarn. But the temptation must be fought down.This is merely the true account of one unlucky boy's life in a strangecity. So, back again to our story.
Eighteen cents is a wabbly foundation for a fortune. Arnon had enoughsense to waste none of it in buying a night's lodging. The weather washot. He had had plenty of experience in camping. So, after buying abig bag of broken soda-crackers and a wedge of dryish cheese for eightcents, he began to scout for a camp-site. An hour's wandering broughthim to the very place for his needs.
Silk City was a "boom-burg." Thus, its east end chanced still to beunfinished. Indeed, this section was all but untouched by the hand ofman. Arnon left behind him the business blocks, the tangle ofresidence streets, the scattered tenements and hovels; and came atlast to a dreary stretch of Common whither even the hopefuldevelopment-company promoter had not yet ventured.
A corner of the Common, nearest the junction of two unpavedcross-streets, had been used as a dumping ground. Here Arnon Flintfound his "house." This was an overturned piano box, one of whosesides was caved in. It was a heavy, cumbrous rickety thing. Yet, byuse of all his care and strength, Arnon managed to roll and drag andshove it into a shallow sand-pit, a hundred yards from the street.Here he righted the box, planted its base as deeply as possible in thescooped-out sand at the pit's bottom and went back to the dump insearch of boards to reinforce its crack-strewn roof, and for jute andstraw to serve as a bed.
By sunset he had rigged up a fairly watertight abode, six feet long byfour wide and five in height, with a soft, if bumpy, carpeting ofstraw and jute. And, as he proved by further scouting, the shack wasinvisible from the street.
Then he tramped to a leaking hydrant, a quarter-mile distant, washedand scoured a small and a large can (both battered but leakless) hehad found on the dump; and carried home his night's supply of cleanwater. After which he sat down in the doorway of his piano-box shackand prepared his evening meal.
Dusk was creeping over the day. Back at home, just now, the familywere sitting down to a repast of fricasseed chicken and dumplings andpie and all sorts of things.
Still, crackers and cheese and fresh water are not to be despised asan evening meal--particularly when they are spiced with adventure andreinforced by the hunger of a hustling day.
So it was not the frugality of his meal that made the fare so hardfor Arnon to eat. At first he did not know just what caused the lumpin his throat and what made even the tiniest morsel of food impossibleto swallow. Being only a normal boy, he had never so much as heard ofpsychology. Nor was there any psychologist there to prate of"reaction" and "nerve exhaustion" and of any of the dozen kindredcauses which made the lad feel as he did. One of these causes alonedid Arnon understand. And this one--to which he would not confess--wasbitter, lonely homesickness.
He had cut himself loose from everything and everybody. He was anexile and on the threshold of a new world. For all he knew, he mightalso be a fugitive from justice. For, when the money's loss should bediscovered, the bazaar people would probably think him a defaulter andset the police after him.
Three hours earlier Arnon had felt himself a true blend of martyr andexplorer. Now he was all at once aware that he was just a lonesome andheavy-hearted boy who had no one to love him and whose only home was asmelly packing box. The lump in Arnon's throat began to swell tounbelievable size. And the eyes wherewith he gazed up over thepit-edge at the dying day, grew foolishly misted.
This would never do!
Angrily he cleared his throat and winked very fast indeed. Then heforced himself to day-dreams of the splendid job he was going to winon the morrow and of the brevity of the time that must pass before heshould save up ninety-eight dollars and be able to go home. But theeffort was a pitiful failure. The lump nearly strangled him. And themist would not behave itself and keep out of his silly eyes.
Just then came the diversion that saved him from the eternal shame ofcrying. The dusky skyline at the edge of the shallow pit was brokensuddenly by a small dark silhouette. The boy winked away his risingtears once more, and stared. There at the top, looking inquisitivelydown, head on one side, stood a dog--not much of a dog, perhaps, forlooks or for contour or for size, but still a dog; certainly not awolf or a lion, as the lad's worn-out nerves had at first made himthink.
Presently a second dog came alongside the first. Together they blinkeddown at the lonely youngster. Arnon returned their gaze with keeninterest. There was still light enough for him to gain a clear view ofhis two guests.
The first dog was a black-and-tan. At least, he was more black-and-tanthan anything else. He held one forefoot gingerly in air, as though hewere lame. And his left ear had evidently been chewed off, as to tip.The second dog was a pale grey--formerly white--and had longish hair.He was of the general build and specifications of a Dandy Dinmont. Heand the black-and-tan were about of a height. Both were collarless,wolf-thin and of a totally disreputable aspect.
Every city has scores of such strays--forlorn mongrels that eke out arickety living on the dumps and in garbage cans until they fall preyto dogcatcher or police or vivisector, or until a gang of pursuingboys frighten them into a blind panic and thereby start a new mad-dogscare,--a scare which wins a credit-mark for the fearless bluecoatwhose pistol is emptied into the harmless and terrified littlefugitive.
Yes, to a dog-fancier's eye, Arnon Flint's visitors were merely abrace of fleasome mongrels. To Arnon, though, they meant all thedifference between abject loneliness and loving companionship.
Timidly the boy chirped to the dogs. Up went their ears. He groped fora chipped soda-cracker, broke it in half and held out the two piecesto them. At his gesture, the dogs instinctively shrank back--a resultof the piteous experience which had taught them that a movement of thehuman arm is far more likely to mean a flung stone than a proffereddainty.
But it had been a barren day on the dumps. And the sight and smell offood were mighty temptations. Also, the boy was talking to them in awondrous friendly way. And--whether they can understand words ornot--dogs can read the human voice as can few humans themselves.
In Arnon's call the two strays recognised not only friendship, butappeal. They recognised the tones of a fellow-stray. Here was nolittle devil, coaxing them into range in order to tie a tin can or afirecracker to their stumpy tails. This lad was as much a waif as waseither of them. And he craved chumship, even as did they.
Slowly, hesitatingly, mincingly, the puppies slid down the pit-bankinto the hollow. Nervously, yet greedily, they nipped the offeredfragments of the big soda-cracker. Ravenously they ate. Then, as theirfears lessened, they fawned upon the human for more food. Arnon, asthey chewed the cracker-bits, ran his fingers gently along their earsand backs, scratching their heads; all the while talking to them. Atfirst they flinched a little from the unwonted caress. But soon theycourted it.
The boy, of a sudden, found
himself not only happy, but ravenouslyhungry. He and his two pets finished the crackers and cheese with azest. Then all three curled up close together in the straw and went tosleep.
At sunrise Arnon awoke. Both the dogs were already astir. As he raisedhis head and sat looking bewilderedly about, they ran frisking up tohim.
And thus began the life of the three chums--in the sand-pit'spiano-box shack. It was a wonderful life for all of them. For Arnon,the dogs' presence was a veritable godsend.
The boy set forth early that first morning, to look for a job.Naturally, he did not find one. Not only do business houses cut downtheir working force in summer, instead of adding to it; but a boy withno references has, at best, a hard time in landing a steadyposition,--especially if he stammers and grows red when he is askedwhere he lives and the name of his father.
No, in spite of _The Boys' Uplift Magazine_, no kindly merchant was soimpressed by Arnon's manliness and good manners as to offer to teachhim the business from the bottom up, with a view of making him, lateron, a partner.
Arnon, after a half-day's futile job-hunt, began to see how mattersstood. He was sore inclined to give up the fight and to tramp all theway back to his parents' home. But at once he remembered he could not.He had responsibilities,--responsibilities he could not shirk. At theshack his two dog-chums were waiting for his return. He could not takethem a hundred and twenty miles, afoot. He had no means of feedingthem on the way, even if no farm dogs should kill them or ruralpoundmasters seize them. No, they relied on him. And he had no rightto fail them. He must stick.
* * * * *
That afternoon, by three hours of hanging around the Union Station, hecleared up twenty cents, carrying suit-cases and opening motorcardoors. He stopped at a tenement-district grocery, on his way back tothe sand-pit, and continued his journey with a very respectable armfulof provisions.
As he neared the Common, Arnon quickened not only his steps but hisheartbeats. Suppose he were wrong in his estimate of his two newfriends. Suppose they were only of the cadging, garbage-snooping type,and had deserted the shack the moment his back had been turned! Thethought sickened him. It was for his dogs, not for himself, he hadbeen working that day.
He reached the sand-pit edge and halted. At the same instant two furrylittle whirlwinds burst forth from the shack, whizzed up the steepsandy bank and, with barks of ecstasy, hurled themselves bodily uponthe returning bread-winner.
What sweeter home-coming could a heartsick and tired exile ask? Arnondropped his parcels, fell on his knees and gathered his loyal littlecomrades into one expansive, squirming, yapping embrace. Through hisdelight at their welcome ran a thrill of joy in his own correctjudgment of dog nature.
After which the entire party adjourned to the shack for supper. Aglorious meal it was. During its progress, the black-and-tan revealedhimself as a personage of rare education by sitting up on hishind-legs to beg for food-morsels and by rolling over, twice, ingratitude at receiving such gifts. The Dandy Dinmont had feweraccomplishments. But he showed himself a dog of great natural gifts bymastering, at the third attempt, the art of catching in his mouth apiece of cracker placed on the tip of his nose.
Arnon was quite certain that never before had two such remarkableanimals come into any one boy's life. They not only learned trickswith the bewildering quickness that a mongrel always possesses and athoroughbred so seldom acquires, but they speedily learned to look ontheir new master as a god and to worship him as such. Arnon named thehairy dog "Dandy" and the black-and-tan "Buck"--chiefly because thenames seemed to fit like gloves.
Morning after morning, Arnon tramped Silk City, looking in vain for asteady job. Every afternoon he spent at the Union Station, rustlingthe hand-baggage of passengers and opening automobile doors for them;for which service he averaged from fifteen to forty cents a day. Onthe lean days he and his chums breakfasted and supped on crackers andcheese. On days of larger wealth they banqueted regally on bread andbutter and tinned meats and ginger snaps.
For an hour, morning and night, the three romped and frolickedtogether and added to the marvelous list of tricks they had studied.All night, through summer heat or summer rain, they slept in thepiano-box shack, cuddled into one loving triple heap. Oh, but it was ajolly life for them all!
As to the future--the winter, for instance--Arnon had no thought norcare. You see, he was only a youngster. So how could he be expected tohave greater forethought than have the army of grown men who live upto every penny of their yearly income, with no constructive worryconcerning joblessness or old age?
* * * * *
For a long, happy month, life was sweet; in the tumble-down pineboardshack. Arnon had occasional twinges of homesickness, and he had morethan occasional twinges of conscience at his failure to begin savingthe missing ninety-eight dollars. But, on the whole, he was having thetime of his life. This was true adventure, this outcast summer routineof his. And it was a truer comradeship, too, than any he had known.
On the Fourth of July he celebrated by adorning each of his chums witha red-white-and-blue bow, culled from a length of bedraggled tricolourribbon he had found in a gutter. On his own birthday, a week later, hespent thirty-five cents upon a truly regal spread, in honour of theevent. After the sumptuous meal he treated an invisible audience tothe full programme of his dogs' tricks. It was a gala night at theshack.
Next afternoon Arnon came home a half-hour later than usual, havinghad to carry a suit-case to a new neighbourhood, and having made awrong turn on his way back to the Common. As he neared the sand-pit,he whistled. Then he paused to watch for the usual scurrying race ofhis chums up the pit-bank to meet him. But no frantic joy-barks ormultiple patter of feet followed upon his whistle.
At a jump, Arnon was down in the pit. The dogs were not there.
It was twilight before his search of the region was ended. This wasits end: Stammeringly he asked a passing patrolman whether he had seentwo little dogs--one black, one light grey--trotting anywhere alongthe beat. And the policeman made curt answer:
"Nope. I didn't see 'em. But the dog-catchers was roundin' up a bunchof mutts in this ward, 's aft'noon. Better ask at the pound. It'sdown at the foot of Water Street."
"Down at the foot of Water Street" was two miles away. Arnon Flintmade the trip in eighteen minutes--only to find the pound-pier wasclosed for the night.
At grey dawn next morning after ten hours of sleeplessness, Arnon wasat the pier again, waiting for its landward gate to swing open for theday. After an endless delay, one of the poundmaster's men arrived.Arnon followed him along the pier to the enormous grated pen and theadjoining office at the far end of the dock. In the cage were moredogs than Arnon had ever before seen together in all his life.
"_Mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound, and curs of low degree._"
They were crowded into the big barred inclosure--a pitiful assemblage.Some dogs were howling, some were barking, some were fox-trottingfeverishly back and forth, from corner to corner, pressing closeagainst the bars. Others, mystically aware of their coming fate, lay,trembling convulsively from time to time; heads between forepaws, eyesabrim with dumb grief.
At the pier's outer edge, just beyond the barred pen, an iron cageswung over the river. It hung from a derrick. Daily, this cage wasfilled with the dogs that had been longest at the pound. Then it wasdipped under water for five minutes, in full sight of the doomedsurvivors in the pen.
* * * * *
A dog-pound is not pleasant to look upon. It is little pleasanter tothink upon. It is one of the needful evils of every large town--anevil that is needful to public health and to public safety, so say thecity fathers. It is also needful because--though people talk muchabout birth-control among humans (where it cannot be enforced)--no onebothers about birth-control among dogs--where it can very easily beenforced.
Litters of dogs are allowed to grow up. The dogs are portioned amongpeople who grow tired of them or who move
away. The erstwhile pets areturned out to run the streets and to starve or to pick up a scavengerliving. The grim dog-pound does the rest.
The luckless waifs are done to death by water or by gas or in thelegalised hell of vivisection. May the all-pitying God of the LittlePeople have mercy upon them! For, most assuredly, mankind will not.
* * * * *
Arnon stared into the thronged pen. At first, in the dim light, hecould make out nothing. Then, through lips that would not steadythemselves, he gave the old familiar whistle. Instantly there was ascuttling and scampering from amid the ruck of dogs. Two series ofwildly eager barks cut the looser volume of howls. And Dandy and Buckcame racing up to the bars that separated them from their adoredmaster.
A minute later, a very set-mouthed and white-faced Arnon Flint stalkedinto the poundmaster's office. Forcing his voice raspingly through theemotion that sanded his throat, he demanded of the man in charge:
"How much does it cost to get a dog out of the pound? I've--I've got acouple of them in there."
The fat man at the desk looked up, wholly without interest.Heart-broken children, coming to plead for the return of theirlaw-snatched pets, were no novelty at all to him. Pound-keepers haveno silly sentiment. If they had, they would not be pound-keepers, butnormal humans.
"Dollar apiece," he grunted. "That pays their license fee."
He turned back to his newspaper and promptly forgot the existence ofthe shaky and ash-faced boy. Arnon ventured one more question.
"How long," he quavered, "how long do you keep them here,before--before you----"
"Depends on how many there are," snapped the man, this time withoutlooking up. "In summer we dowse about twenty a day."
That was all. Arnon stood gaping uncertainly, for a moment. Then helurched out of the office and back to where his chums pawed at thebars, waiting for him to take them home.
Some time later, an attendant dumped a bucketful of food-scraps intothe centre of the pen. Immediately the larger and fiercer dogs fellupon the food, crowding or scaring the smaller curs away from it. Itwas all wolfed down by the bullies of the pen before their weaker ormore timid brethren had had a mouthful.
The boy recalled now that he had crammed most of last night's untastedsupper into his pockets, to serve him as breakfast during his searchfor his chums. Quickly he emptied his pockets; apportioning thecontents between Buck and Dandy, and harshly ordering off such largerdogs as came snooping around for a share in the meal.
At last he went away. There was no time to waste, if he was to earnthat two dollars for his dogs' ransom.
Two dollars! Why, the largest sum he had ever earned in one day atSilk City was forty-five cents! And oftener he had not earned halfthat amount. Yet the money must be gotten somehow--and soon. Thenthere was another handicap: Out of his earnings he must buy food forBuck and Dandy during their imprisonment, if he did not want them tostarve. Incidentally, he himself must have food--though he wantednone--in order to keep strong enough to work.
All day he haunted the Union Station. At sunset he was back at thepound, with a bagful of meat-scraps for his chums. He sat beside thebars, talking to them and putting them through their tricks until thepier closed. Then he ran all the way to the theatre district, in thehope of earning a few cents more by opening the doors of motorcars andcarriages.
At the end of three days of self-starving and of day-and-night work,he had collected ninety-four cents. This was all he had been able tosave after buying food for his pets and a daily cracker or two forhimself. And he had sought work in every waking hour, except suchtimes as he set aside for visiting the pound.
At dawn on the fourth day he found a dollar bill in the street. Anearly-morning traveller gave him twenty-five cents more for carrying aheavy suit-case a mile to the station.
The moment the fee was paid, Arnon dashed off for the pound. He hadnot only the two-dollar ransom, but fourteen cents left over wherewithto buy the materials for a reunion feast at the shack. His dizzyweakness and hunger were clean forgot in the mad joy of victory.
Panting, unsteady on his legs, he rushed down the pier. Before goinginto the office he paused at the pen to tell his glorious news to thetwo prisoners. But his shrill whistle brought no response. He bentdown, shading his eyes; and stared into the pen. Neither Buck norDandy was there. The souse of the derrick-cage as it smote the water,and the simultaneous crazed screams of its twenty passengers, reachedhis ears. And he understood.
No longer did Arnon try to fight back the babyish tears. He fell facedownward on the pier and gave way to hysterical weeping.
His chums! His dear, wonderful chums! The little loyal dogs that hadloved him and had comforted him so prettily in his stark aloneness andthat had been so perfectly trustful in his power to save them!
A man's hand gripped Arnon's heaving shoulder and sought to raise himto his feet. The touch turned his desolate grief into a rage that wasall but murderous. This pound-keeper, by one word, could have savedDandy and Buck. And instead, he had drowned them.
With a beast snarl, the half-delirious boy was on his feet.
"You _swine_!" he screeched, as he whirled towards the man. "When I'mbig enough, I'm coming back to smash every bone in your fat body! AndI'm going to----"
His words caught in his throat with a click. This was not the fatpound-office man. It was Arnon Flint's father. The boy gaped dazedly.
Yes, it was his father. But Arnon cared not one whit for that. Hisfather could send him to jail for theft or could whale him with ahorsewhip or do anything rotten he chose. It didn't matter. All thatmattered was that Buck and Dandy were dead.
He glowered up into the man's face, ready for anything that mightbefall. Then his glower turned to a look of perplexity. His father didnot glower back. Instead, Mr. Flint's face was unspeakably tender.
"Oh, my little boy!" he was saying, brokenly. "Dad's own crazy,_gallant_ little boy! You're worn to a shadow! We've looked everywherefor you. It wasn't till yesterday our detectives struck the trail. AndI came right on."
"I didn't steal the money," said Arnon, dully, "the bazaar money. Ilost it on the trolley-car. I tried to get a job to make it up to thechurch, but----"
"I know, I know," broke in his father, in that same unbelievablytender and quivering voice, "Don't think any more about it. I've paidit. Why, dear lad, no one ever supposed you stole it. We knew youcouldn't. Will you come back home with me, Son? Mother is prettynearly as thin as you are, from worry over you."
"I'll come, if you like," agreed Arnon, listlessly. "It doesn't mattermuch, now, either way. I might as well be there as anywhere."
"Good!" approved his father. "We can just make the ten o'clock train,if we hurry. I've got a taxi waiting at the other end of the pier."
Side by side, father and son walked away from the pound. The boy'seyes were downcast. His face was haggard. His heart was dead. Fromtime to time, as they walked, the man stole a covert glance at him,and his own face contracted as in sharp pain.
"Here's the taxi," said Mr. Flint at last. "Open the door, will you?You're nearer to it than I am."
Mechanically, Arnon turned the handle. As he pulled the taxi doorajar, two furry catapults from within the vehicle launched themselves,rapturously and yelpingly, upon him.
"You see," explained Mr. Flint, to his unhearing son, "I had quite atalk with the poundmaster before you got here, this morning. He's beennoticing you, it seems. And he told me a rather pathetic little story.When I heard it I decided to make an investment in livestock. I wasputting these two puppies into the taxi when you hobbled past me onyour way to the pound. I----"
"_Buck!_" Arnon was sobbing, in a frenzy of bliss. "Buck! _Dandy!_"
At sound of their names, the dogs wriggled free from Arnon'sembrace--just for the uproarious fun of hurling themselves once moreupon him.
"Hurry up, Son!" suggested Mr. Flint, clearing his throat noisily."Get aboard--you and the pups. We'll miss that train!"
"Not on your sweet li
fe, we won't miss it!" exulted Arnon, scramblinginto the taxi with his pets. "We've _got_ to catch it. You see, I--Iwant my chums to--to meet Mother; just as soon as they can. They'redead sure to like her."
Buff: A Collie, and Other Dog-Stories Page 6