by Max Brand
This was discouraging enough, but before they went to bed that night, Shorty pointed out: “He wouldn’t be living the way that other folks would be living, and they couldn’t look for him by the signs that they would be looking for other folks. First thing to do is to see if that neighborhood looks likely for him. If it does, then we’ll try to raise him.”
Early the next morning, they took to the saddle and were soon on their way. That day and the next, till nearly noon, they traveled, until they came to the crest of a narrow range of mountains. Still north and west from this, they looked down upon a wide sweep of forest, cut by the shining length of many a stream. Here, there was a pool, and there, a long and narrow lake. Trees were everywhere, only falling back now and again, from some patch of bright green meadow, set like a jewel among the shadows of the trees—the field of grass that had grown up around the site of some vanished lake.
All of this, small with distance and clear under the noonday sun, they could see as distinctly as though they had taken a fine picture and held it at arm’s length.
“It’s the right place,” Shorty said with emphasis.
“You talk as sure,” Dunstan said, “as though you knew what was going on inside of the head of the kid, Shorty. What makes you so almighty confident that you’re right?”
“I’ll tell you,” Shorty said. “Right from the very first, I’ve had an idea that I could feel something of what he was thinking. That day that he beat me…riding the roan horse and me carrying your money…well, right on that day, it seemed to me that as he come whizzing up behind me, gaining every jump, I could feel a sort of pity coming out of his mind, y’understand? Like he hardly wanted to beat me, because I was riding so hard. And when he come by me, damned if I wasn’t right, because he was looking across at me and shaking his head. That was when he was rounding the rock at the end of the run.”
“Well,” said the rancher, “if you can guess what goes on inside of his head, you beat me, Shorty. But you were always a sort of a queer one yourself. How d’you think that we can go about catching this wild man, now that we’ve come to the place.”
“This is the right place,” Shorty assured. “And you can lay to that. What more would he like? Here’s plenty of water for him to do his fishing in. And here’s plenty of trees. There’ll be bear and beaver, and bees and bugs and birds, too, since you say that he likes them. Them waters have got kingfishers and fish hawks hanging over them, you can bet. And if them cliffs across the way ain’t got a few nests of eagles on them, I’m a fool. No, sir, this is the place for him. And most of all because there ain’t any houses near. No houses between this here range and the next, so far as I can see. Nothing but a tangle of trees and creeks, and what not. This trail ain’t been worn none too smooth.”
So ended Shorty, and his master looked at him with a touch of awe; it was not the first time that he had had to look at the little cowpuncher in this fashion. He allowed Shorty to lead the way as, instead of dipping down into this unknown region, they wound along the side of the ridge, and so across to more open cattle country, with a tiny huddle of houses in the distance—a range town that they reached in the dusk.
“And now what?” asked the rancher.
“When you go fishing,” Shorty said, “you find a likely looking stream and then you get a hook, and then you get your bait. Yonder is the sort of a place that the fish we want would like. And you and me are the hook. Now you go to get us the bait.”
“Bait?” echoed Peter Dunstan.
“Yes,” Shorty said. “What is the most noise-makingest thing that there is on four feet?”
“A calf,” the rancher said.
Shorty shook his head. “I got to admit,” he said, “that when a calf wants its maw, it gets to working a fine pair of lungs, but you take it at a little distance, and the bawling of a calf sort of melts into things in general. It ain’t hardly no more than the roar of a waterfall. What we want, is a noise that’ll travel through your ears right down to your backbone.”
The rancher nodded. “I’ve got the thing for you,” he said. “A dog. Not a grown dog, nor yet a little puppy, but one about six months old, used to one home. Put that in a strange place, and it’ll make a noise nobody within five miles can sleep through.”
“You got your uses, Dunstan,” the cowpuncher said, grinning. “Now and then, the things that you think of come in pretty handy, I got to admit. But now the next thing that I want is to find that same pup.”
They found it readily at hand. In the very hotel where they stopped was a happy family of sheep dogs. A mother and four puppies not five months old—all legs and clumsiness, but with bright, warm eyes that told of growing mischief and wisdom, hand in hand. The purchase was made with $2.
The next morning, Shorty was busy at the blacksmith’s.
“I want a collar,” he said, “that can’t be broke. An iron collar forged right so it’ll fit the neck of this here dog, partner. One made out of a good kind of steel, that nothing but a steel saw or a good file will get through…and that none too quick. Y’understand? Then I want a chain of the same style. A chain strong enough to hold a horse, friend.”
The thing was done, and no questions asked. In the West, strangeness in a stranger is taken for granted. The collar was made, and the chain was linked to it.
With the collar on the dog, and the chain fastened into the ring of the collar, the two men started on their ride. It was not a pleasant ride. For whoever has taken an untrained puppy away from his old home will understand that noise is the element by which they live.
All this while, though he understood nothing of all of these preparations, Dunstan said not a word. Due to his wonder, his admiration for Shorty rose with every step of the journey.
They continued straight on into the woods until they reached a narrow clearing, with the glint of the nearest brook shining at them through the trunks of the trees. There Shorty made a halt. It was near the evening of the day. At once he fastened the dog to the trunk of a strong tree, hammering down the locking link with a heavy stone until it would have taken a cold chisel to pry it open again. After that, they retired—but not unaccompanied. The wild wailings of the dog followed them until Dunstan wanted to hurry on, and leave the sound far sunk from hearing behind them.
Shorty would not hurry. He stopped in the very first shelter, sitting down to smoke a cigarette, while the horses cropped the grass, or jerked up their heads to listen to new notes in the crying of the dog.
“Suppose,” Dunstan said, “that something comes along and takes a notion to have dog meat for dinner.”
“We got to chance it,” Shorty said.
“Besides,” said Dunstan, “what the devil good can you get out of…?”
He stopped. The last cry of the dog had turned into an almost human scream of pain and of terror. Then there was heavy silence. Even the horses understood and crowded closer together.
The two men rode back as fast as the crowding trees would permit them to go. When they came to the spot, they found only a splotch of crimson on the collar and a dabbling on the chain. The dog had been torn away and carried off. On an open, naked patch of forest mold, there was the vast imprint of a mountain lion’s foot.
Dunstan did not shudder, but his upper lip curled. “This is the devil, Shorty,” he said. “And why did you do it, man?”
“I’m going back for another of the pups in the morning,” Shorty declared. “Can you stand for it?”
“Get me the kid,” Dunstan said, “and you can kill half the dogs in the world. But it sort of leaves a stain on the whole business.”
“Well,” Shorty said, “this ain’t my party…it’s yours.”
Which, after all, was true. Not a word of objection came from Dunstan when his cowpuncher rode back toward the village in the early dawn of the next day. Not a word of protest came from him when the puppy was staked out in another clear
ing, deeper within the forest.
Once more the two men retired. This time, they passed only the nearest fringe of the forest and then paused to wait for results.
Twenty
The wailing of that sheep dog was a terrible thing. It rose and died and rose again, soaring across the evening and the forest. Shorty shuddered, but Dunstan, having once resigned himself to the necessity of the cruelty, paid not the slightest heed to the agony in that puppy’s voice.
Then, far through the woods, they heard the long note of a mountain lion—no doubt the same that had answered the cry of the dog on the evening before and found a dainty tidbit waiting on the chain, helpless to flee away. The note came again, nearer, and so pitched was the hunting voice of the great beast of prey that the men could not be sure from which direction it floated toward them. A fugitive from the voice of terror might as well have run into the mouth of the danger as fled away from it.
Shorty said: “I’ll get closer and take a shot at the varmint, if he shows himself.”
“Sit still,” Dunstan said. “A dog is only a dog. I don’t know what you intend to gain for me by letting the pup howl. But, after all, a dog is only a dog.”
Shorty had to sit still and contain himself, with a mighty effort, while the voice of the hunter sounded again, close at hand. Apparently there was not long lease of life for the puppy, and the last cry of the puma brought a wild lament from the sheep dog. Shorty clapped his hands over his ears. At that very moment a gun cracked in the trees nearby; the death yell of the puma followed. Shorty leaped up and gripped the shoulder of his companion in the greatest excitement.
“It’s him,” Shorty said. “I knew that I’d fetch him if he was in hearing of the yapping of that pup. It’s him. Now, Dunstan, if you want him, you get close enough to see him catch that dog.”
Peter Dunstan’s turn had come to shiver with excitement. He slipped to the edge of the little clearing on the farther side of which the dog was tethered. Crouching there in the shadows, he waited, his eyes accustomed to the dim light and probing the darkness alertly.
There was unbroken silence. The sheep dog, wearied out, or as though knowing that the sound of the gun and the death cry of the mountain lion signified the approach of a friend, stood motionlessly, erect, head high, with only a slight wagging of his tail in a pleasurable anticipation.
Though Peter Dunstan was an old hunter and a good one, yet he heard not a whisper approach. He did not have the slightest idea that another person was near him until the puppy broke into a frantic whine of delight. Then Dunstan saw the youngster throwing himself in wild joy on the shadow of a man that emerged from the woods.
A dim and furtive shadow of a man it was. With a mere gesture—or at least Dunstan could hear no voice—this stealthy stranger reduced the dog to silence. The soft clinking of the chain told that the man was working to release the puppy.
Now, Dunstan had done his share of fighting in his time, but it seemed to him that the danger of stepping forth into that clearing was greater than the danger of facing any leveled gun. He even thought of covering the other with his rifle before he ventured forth. This he could not decide upon. For in that faint light in the woods, it seemed to Dunstan that he would be facing hopeless odds if the other should attempt to attack him. It would be like facing a royal tiger, felt Dunstan, a tiger that uses a gun and sees in the dark.
So he merely called out: “Sandy! Sandy Sweyn!”
The form of the man vanished. Perhaps it was a backward leap into the surrounding trees that whisked him from sight. But the thing happened so suddenly and so noiselessly that the blood rushed into the head of Dunstan; it was as though he had looked upon a miracle.
He stepped out into the open. There was no rustling among the brush, but he felt the withdrawal of the other to a greater distance, a swift and smooth withdrawal.
“Sandy!” he called frantically. “Sandy, I mean you no harm. I swear I mean you no harm, Sandy.” Still, though he heard nothing, he felt the withdrawal of the other. “Sandy, Sandy!” he called. “Come back, Sandy, and you’ll have something worthwhile!”
There was a pause, and Dunstan, cursing softly to himself, stared about into the shadows. The sheep dog made a tentative step forward, and then strained frantically in the direction in which the stranger had disappeared. Dunstan cursed the dog and its whining. With the oath still on his lips, he looked up, and he was aware of the shadow of a man, standing just within the trees. He took heart again, and said in his most amiable tones: “Are you there, Sandy?”
“I s’pose that I’m here,” Sandy Sweyn answered. “And what might you want?”
“I want a word with you, Sandy.”
“Is that your dog” Sandy asked suddenly.
“Yes,” Dunstan responded.
“I would make you a trade,” Sandy said.
“A trade?” Dunstan said, seizing upon the first opportunity to open up the conversation. “Why, son, what is it that you want, that I have?”
“Yonder,” Sandy Sweyn said, “there is a lion lyin’ dead. I would give you the skin of that, Mister Dunstan.”
“Why, man, that’s kind of you. What do you want to trade it for?”
“That dog, Mister Dunstan. I have sort of taken a hankering after that dog. Would you make the trade. Hist, boy!”
The sheep dog had begun to leap frantically toward the man in the shadows, but the soft hiss of Sandy made the puppy drop to the ground and lie there, motionless, waiting and watching the new master.
There was something in the dog that made the man come slowly, stealthily forth. He was walking over dried leaves and twigs, it seemed to Dunstan, and yet this uncanny forester moved without a sound. He came closer to the puppy and stretched a hand toward him. That youngster instantly was up, mute with the greatness of its joy, licking the fingers of Sandy Sweyn. Dunstan saw that he had a great power placed in his hands.
Just why any man should yearn after a dog like this—too young and untrained to be of vital use—was a great mystery to Dunstan. He himself would not have given $5 for half a dozen such creatures. But be that as it might, it was certain that the cunning of Shorty had devised a bait for Sandy Sweyn that had not only brought the strange fellow to hand, but which was still drawing him.
Dunstan said: “Why, Sandy, I don’t want to disappoint you. I’d like to give you what you want. But this dog…you understand how a man will come to love a dog, Sandy, even when he hasn’t had him very long?”
He could see the head of Sandy nodding. That was just the sort of a thing that the odd brain of Sandy could comprehend.
“Aye,” said Sandy, “I can see what you mean. And if I got to love a thing, well, I couldn’t hardly give it up, I suppose.”
“But,” Dunstan said, “we might as well sit down and talk the thing over. And I have in mind another sort of a trade, Sandy. I would like to trade a horse for that dog.”
Sandy started. “You mean that I’m to trade Cleo for the dog?” he said with a sort of horror.
“Trade in the blue mare?” Dunstan said, laughing. “Oh, no. The horse that I want is a little thing. She would never carry your weight, Sandy, for half a day. A pretty thing, though. A little white mare.”
“And how would I buy her, though?”
“Not buy her, but catch her, because she’s running wild.”
“Ah,” Sandy said with a sigh of relief, “that’s a different sort of a thing. I guess that maybe we could manage that.”
“Good, Sandy. I’m very glad that you see the point that I’m making. You get the dog, you see, to keep as long as he lives. And then you get me the little mare.”
“But how big might she be?”
“Oh, a little thing. An inch, or maybe two inches under fifteen hands.”
“Aye,” Sandy said. “I would not be wanting her, I suppose. And where might she be found?”
&nb
sp; “I’ll tell you all about that. Shall we sit down and talk it over?” He struck a match as he spoke, touched it to a bunch of grass at his feet and scattered a handful of twigs over it. From that small beginning, the flame spread in another moment to a comfortable fire. Then Sandy Sweyn sat down beside his companion, on a log.
Dunstan took careful note of him. He looked his height less than ever—seemed more fat of neck and shoulder than before—but Dunstan knew from of old that what seemed fat was the most flexible and leathery muscle. Sandy Sweyn was merely coming into his full strength of early manhood. He was dressed in a leather coat, much torn by long wear and rough usage. His hat was simply a shapeless thing that had once been black felt, now green with time and sun. His shoes having given out, he had replaced them with clumsily homemade moccasins. There was a revolver at his hip and a rifle under his arm. He looked to Dunstan much more like a vagabond than a hunter.
In all of these details, he had altered a good deal, but his face was practically the same. A trifle thinner, perhaps, a trifle more brown, so that at the distance he gave an impression of greater alertness and intelligence. When he sat close to Dunstan on the log, the rancher could see that the sand-colored eyes were as they had ever been—empty, vague, and misted over with the obscurity of incomprehension.
The old riddle passed through the mind of Dunstan. Was this man idiot or seer, fool or wise man? He had no answer at hand. He felt, as he had always felt, that in part he was dealing with the mind of a child, and in part with the powers of a giant.
“Now,” Dunstan said, “I may as well tell you that other men are hunting for this same mare.”
“Ah, yes,” Sandy said. “And yet they haven’t caught her?”
“They haven’t caught her. She is as fast as a streak of lightning. Faster, I suppose, than any horse on the range.
“Faster than Cleo?” Sandy asked in surprise.
“Faster than Cleo…when Cleo has to carry your weight on her back, I presume.”