by Jack London
CHAPTER VIIII
Another trick Dag Daughtry succeeded in teaching Michael so enhanced himin Captain Duncan's eyes as to impel him to offer fifty pounds, "andnever mind the cat." At first, Daughtry practised the trick in privatewith the chief engineer and the Shortlands planter. Not until thoroughlysatisfied did he make a public performance of it.
"Now just suppose you're policemen, or detectives," Daughtry told thefirst and third officers, "an' suppose I'm guilty of some horrible crime.An' suppose Killeny is the only clue, an' you've got Killeny. When herecognizes his master--me, of course--you've got your man. You go downthe deck with him, leadin' by the rope. Then you come back this way withhim, makin' believe this is the street, an' when he recognizes me youarrest me. But if he don't realize me, you can't arrest me. See?"
The two officers led Michael away, and after several minutes returnedalong the deck, Michael stretched out ahead on the taut rope seekingSteward.
"What'll you take for the dog?" Daughtry demanded, as they drew near--thisthe cue he had trained Michael to know.
And Michael, straining at the rope, went by, without so much as a wag oftail to Steward or a glance of eye. The officers stopped before Daughtryand drew Michael back into the group.
"He's a lost dog," said the first officer.
"We're trying to find his owner," supplemented the third.
"Some dog that--what'll you take for 'm?" Daughtry asked, studyingMichael with critical eyes of interest. "What kind of a temper's hegot?"
"Try him," was the answer.
The steward put out his hand to pat him on the head, but withdrew ithastily as Michael, with bristle and growl, viciously bared his teeth.
"Go on, go on, he won't hurt you," the delighted passengers urged.
This time the steward's hand was barely missed by a snap, and he leapedback as Michael ferociously sprang the length of the rope at him.
"Take 'm away!" Dag Daughtry roared angrily. "The treacherous beast! Iwouldn't take 'm for gift!"
And as they obeyed, Michael strained backward in a paroxysm of rage,making fierce short jumps to the end of the tether as he snarled andgrowled with utmost fierceness at the steward.
"Eh? Who'd say he ever seen me in his life?" Daughtry demandedtriumphantly. "It's a trick I never seen played myself, but I've heardtell about it. The old-time poachers in England used to do it with theirlurcher dogs. If they did get the dog of a strange poacher, nogamekeeper or constable could identify 'm by the dog--mum was the word."
"Tell you what, he knows things, that Killeny. He knows English. Rightnow, in my room, with the door open, an' so as he can find 'm, is shoes,slippers, cap, towel, hair-brush, an' tobacco pouch. What'll it be? Nameit an' he'll fetch it."
So immediately and variously did the passengers respond that everyarticle was called for.
"Just one of you choose," the steward advised. "The rest of you pick 'mout."
"Slipper," said Captain Duncan, selected by acclamation.
"One or both?" Daughtry asked.
"Both."
"Come here, Killeny," Daughtry began, bending toward him but leaping backfrom the snap of jaws that clipped together close to his nose.
"My mistake," he apologized. "I ain't told him the other game was over.Now just listen an, watch. 'n' see if you can catch on to the tip I'mgoin' to give 'm."
No one saw anything, heard anything, yet Michael, with a whine ofeagerness and joy, with laughing mouth and wriggling body, was upon thesteward, licking his hands madly, squirming and twisting in the embraceof the loved hands he had so recently threatened, making attempts atshort upward leaps as he flashed his tongue upward toward his lord'sface. For hard it was on Michael, a nerve and mental strain of theseverest for him so to control himself as to play-act anger and threat ofhurt to his beloved Steward.
"Takes him a little time to get over a thing like that," Daughtryexplained, as he soothed Michael down.
"Now, Killeny! Go fetch 'm slipper! Wait! Fetch 'm _one_ slipper.Fetch 'm _two_ slipper."
Michael looked up with pricked ears, and with eyes filled with query asall his intelligent consciousness suffused them.
"_Two_ slipper! Fetch 'm quick!"
He was off and away in a scurry of speed that seemed to flatten him closeto the deck, and that, as he turned the corner of the deck-house to thestairs, made his hind feet slip and slide across the smooth planks.
Almost in a trice he was back, both slippers in his mouth, which hedeposited at the steward's feet.
"The more I know dogs the more amazin' marvellous they are to me," DagDaughtry, after he had compassed his fourth bottle, confided in monologueto the Shortlands planter that night just before bedtime. "Take KillenyBoy. He don't do things for me mechanically, just because he's learnedto do 'm. There's more to it. He does 'm because he likes me. I can'tgive you the hang of it, but I feel it, I _know_ it.
"Maybe, this is what I'm drivin' at. Killeny can't talk, as you 'n' metalk, I mean; so he can't tell me how he loves me, an' he's all love,every last hair of 'm. An' actions speakin' louder 'n' words, he tellsme how he loves me by doin' these things for me. Tricks? Sure. Butthey make human speeches of eloquence cheaper 'n dirt. Sure it's speech.Dog-talk that's tongue-tied. Don't I know? Sure as I'm a livin' manborn to trouble as the sparks fly upward, just as sure am I that it makes'm happy to do tricks for me . . . just as it makes a man happy to lend ahand to a pal in a ticklish place, or a lover happy to put his coataround the girl he loves to keep her warm. I tell you . . . "
Here, Dag Daughtry broke down from inability to express the conceptsfluttering in his beer-excited, beer-sodden brain, and, with a stutter ortwo, made a fresh start.
"You know, it's all in the matter of talkin', an' Killeny can't talk.He's got thoughts inside that head of his--you can see 'm shinin' in hislovely brown eyes--but he can't get 'em across to me. Why, I see 'mtryin' to tell me sometimes so hard that he almost busts. There's a bighole between him an' me, an' language is about the only bridge, and hecan't get over the hole, though he's got all kinds of ideas an' feelingsjust like mine.
"But, say! The time we get closest together is when I play the harmonicaan' he yow-yows. Music comes closest to makin' the bridge. It's aregular song without words. And . . . I can't explain how . . . but justthe same, when we've finished our song, I know we've passed a lot over toeach other that don't need words for the passin'."
"Why, d'ye know, when I'm playin' an' he's singin', it's a regular duetof what the sky-pilots 'd call religion an' knowin' God. Sure, when wesing together I'm absorbin' religion an' gettin' pretty close up to God.An' it's big, I tell you. Big as the earth an' ocean an' sky an' all thestars. I just seem to get hold of a sense that we're all the same stuffafter all--you, me, Killeny Boy, mountains, sand, salt water, worms,mosquitoes, suns, an' shootin' stars an' blazin comets . . . "
Day Daughtry left his flight as beyond his own grasp of speech, andconcluded, his half embarrassment masked by braggadocio over Michael:
"Oh, believe me, they don't make dogs like him every day in the week.Sure, I stole 'm. He looked good to me. An' if I had it over, knowin'as I do known 'm now, I'd steal 'm again if I lost a leg doin' it. That'sthe kind of a dog _he_ is."