Jan: A Dog and a Romance Part 12

XXIII

THE FIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE

Even without the confession he ultimately made, Jan's tracking, the man's own empty leather sheath fitting the dagger he had left behind him, and the watch, money, and rings found in his pockets, and proved to be the property of the murdered couple, would have been sufficient to condemn the Italian.

It appeared that the primary motive of the crime had not been theft, but jealousy. At all events, the man's own story was that he had been the lover of the woman he had killed. He paid the law's last penalty within the confines of the R.N.W.M.P. barracks, and his capture and trial made Jan for the time the most famous dog in Saskatchewan. Pictures of him appeared in newspapers circulating all the way from Mexico to the Yukon; and in his walks abroad with d.i.c.k Vaughan he was pointed out as "the North-west Mounted Police bloodhound," and credited with all manner of wonderful powers.

It was natural, of course, that he should be called a bloodhound; and it did not occur to any one in Regina that his height, his fleetness, and his s.h.a.ggy black and iron-gray coat were anything but typical of the bloodhound.

With one exception every man in the R.N.W.M.P. headquarters was proud of Jan. Even the different barracks dogs were conscious of some great addition to the big hound's prestige. The senior officers of the corps went out of their way to praise and pet Jan, and Captain Arnutt had a light steel collar made for him, with a s.h.i.+ning plated surface, a lock and key, and an inscription reading thus:

Jan, of the Royal North-west Mounted Police, Regina.

But Jan's triumph earned him the mortal hatred of one man, and the deference shown to him in barracks added bitterness to the jealous antipathy already inspired by him in the hard old heart of Sourdough.

Sergeant Moore said nothing, but hate glowed in his somber eyes whenever they lighted upon Jan's ma.s.sive form.

"I believe he'd stick a knife in Jan, if he dared," said French, the man of Devon. "You take my tip, d.i.c.k, and keep Jan well out of the sergeant's way. The man's half crazed. His old Sourdough is all he's got in the world for chick or child, and he'll never forgive your dog for doing what Sourdough couldn't do."

"Oh, well," said d.i.c.k, with a tolerant smile, "I think he's too much of a man to try and injure a good dog."

"An' that's precisely where you get left right away back," said O'Malley. "I tell ye that blessed sergeant wouldn't think twice about giving Jan a dose of poison if he thought he could get away with the goods. And if he can teach Sourdough to kill Jan, I reckon he'd sooner have that than a commission any day in the week. Man, you should watch his face when he sees the dog. There's murder in it."

It was a fact that the praises showered upon Jan, the publicity given to his doings, and, above all, the respect shown for the big hound within R.N.W.M.P. circles, were the cause of real wretchedness to Sergeant Moore. When a man who is well on in middle life becomes so thoroughly isolated from friendly human influences as Sergeant Moore was, his mind and his emotions are apt to take queer twists and turns, his judgment to become strangely warped, his vision and sense of proportion to a.s.sume the highly misleading characteristics of convex and concave mirrors, which distort outrageously everything they reflect.

Sourdough, like his master, was dour, morose, forbidding, and a confirmed solitary. He was also a singularly ugly and unattractive creature, whom no man had ever seen at play. But prior to Jan's arrival he had been the unquestioned chief and master among R.N.W.M.P. dogs.

"Surly old devil, Sourdough," men had been wont to say of him; "but, by gee! there's no getting around him; you can't fool Sourdough. He'd go for a grizzly, if the grizzly wouldn't give him the trail. Aye, he's a hard case, all right, is Sourdough. You can't faze him."

And Sergeant Moore, without ever moving a muscle in his mahogany face (all the skin of which was indurated from chin to scalp with the finest of fine-drawn lines) had yet been moved to rare delight by such remarks.

He hugged them to him. He gloried in all such tributes to Sourdough's dourness.

"Aye, you're tough, Old-Timer," he had been heard to growl to his dog; "you're a hard case, all right. There isn't a soft hair on you, is there, Sourdough? And they all know it. They may squeal, but they've got to give trail when Sourdough comes along."

There were times when he would cuff the dog, or s.n.a.t.c.h his food from him, for the sheer delight of hearing the beast snarl--as he always would--at his own master.

"What a husky!" he would say in an ecstasy of admiration. "You'd go for me if I gave you half a chance, wouldn't you, Sourdough? And I don't blame you, you old tough."

And now it seemed the barracks had no time to note Sourdough's implacable sourness; everybody was too busy praising that sleek, well-groomed brute from England, of whom the sergeant thought very much as some savage old-timers think of tenderfeet and remittance men, but with a deal more of bitterness in his contempt.

"But Sourdough will spoil your fine coat for you, my gentleman, the first time you come in our way," the sergeant would mutter to himself when he chanced to see d.i.c.k giving Jan his morning brush-down after Paddy was groomed.

He had been foiled half a dozen times in his attempts to get Sourdough into Paddy's stall when Jan was there and d.i.c.k Vaughan engaged in any way elsewhere. It seemed that some of d.i.c.k's comrades were always on hand to bar the way; and, for appearance's sake, the sergeant could not have it said that he had deliberately brought about a fight between his dog and the valued hound of an officer, who was everybody's favorite.

"They're afraid, Sourdough, that's what it is; they're afraid you might chew up the overgrown brute and spit him out in sc.r.a.ps about the yard.

Let 'em wait. We'll give 'em something to be afraid of presently."

He meant it, and he kept his word.

Since the Italian murder case, a regular craze had developed among the men for trailing and the education of dogs. The barracks dogs were constantly being added to, and every man who owned or could obtain a dog gave his leisure to attempts--largely unsuccessful--at training the animal to track.

O'Malley was one of the first to succ.u.mb to the new diversion, and was lavis.h.i.+ng immense care and patience upon the education of a cross-bred Irish terrier, who would soon be able to wipe the eye of any Sa.s.senach dog in Canada, so he would! Meanwhile O'Malley, conveniently forgetful of Jan's English nationality, was fond of borrowing the big hound for an hour or so together to help him in his educational efforts on behalf of Micky Doolan, the terrier. In such a matter d.i.c.k Vaughan and Jan were equally approachable and good-natured. Indeed, the pair of them had already done more than any of the different pupils' masters in the matter of this revival of schooling among the barracks dogs.

It happened toward four o'clock of a late autumn day that d.i.c.k Vaughan was engaged in Regina in attendance upon a great personage from Ottawa.

O'Malley, having borrowed Jan's services as helper, was busy giving tracking lessons to Micky Doolan on the prairie, half a mile from barracks. Chancing to look up from his work, O'Malley saw Sergeant Moore approaching on foot, with Sourdough (as ever) at his heels. He did not know that the sergeant had been watching him through binoculars from the barracks, and that he had spent a quarter of an hour in carefully devised efforts to exacerbate the never very amiable temper of Sourdough.

O'Malley swore afterward that as the sergeant drew level with little Micky Doolan (a dozen paces or so from the Irishman), he whispered to Sourdough, and "sooled him on."

"Tsss--sss! To him, then, lad," is what O'Malley vowed the sergeant said.

Be that as it may, Sourdough did wheel aside, as his way was, and administer a savage slash of his fangs upon poor little Micky's neck. As O'Malley rushed forward to protect his pet the game little beast, instead of slinking back from tyrant Sourdough, a tribute that hard case demanded from every dog he met, sprang forward with a snarl and a plucky attempt to return the unsolicited bite he had received.

"Come in, come in, ye little fool!" yelled O'Malley.

But he was too late. A light of malevolent joy gleamed in the big husky's red eyes as he plunged upon the terrier. One thrust of his mighty shoulder sent the little chap spinning on his back, and there was the throat-hold exposed to Sourdough's practised fangs. His bitter temper had been carefully inflamed in advance, and demanded now the sacrifice of blood, warm life-blood. His wide jaws flashed in upon the terrier's throat just as O'Malley's boot took him in the rear.

"If ye touch that dog again, my man, I'll break your jaw for you," came from the sergeant in a hoa.r.s.e growl.

Now O'Malley was a disciplined man, and the sergeant was his official superior. But, as it happened, the matter was now taken out of his hands. Jan, who, before the sergeant's arrival, had been lying stretched in the dust thirty paces distant, had risen then and stood stiffly, watching Sourdough with raised hackles. At the moment that the husky's fangs touched the skin of Micky's throat, Jan was upon him like a battering-ram, shoulder to shoulder, with an impact that sent the husky rolling, all four feet in the air, a position in which no barracks dog had ever before seen Sourdough, and one in which any of them would have given a day's food to find him. For that is the one position in which even a Sourdough may with safety be attacked.

But Jan apparently (and very recklessly) scorned to avail himself of this splendid opportunity. His own great weight and swiftly silent movement had been responsible for Sourdough's complete downfall. And now, while O'Malley grabbed his terrier in both arms, thankful the little beast's throat was whole, Jan stood stiff-legged, with stiffly arched neck and bristling hackles, glaring down at Sourdough, with the expression which, among pugilistic school-boys, goes with the question, "Have you had enough?"

"Enough!" Any such question could but prove abysmal ignorance of Sourdough's quality. The big husky was not scratched, and of fighting he could hardly be given enough while his heart continued to beat. Before, he had been angered. Before, he had loathed and hated Jan. And now Jan had rolled him over on his back as though he were a helpless whelp. Jan had glared menacingly at him, at Sourdough, while he, the acknowledged canine master and terror of that countryside, had all four feet in the air. A flame of hatred surged about the husky's heart. His snarl as he bounded to his feet was truly awe-inspiring. His writhen lips drew up and back crescent-wise over red gums, showing huge yellow fangs and an expression of most daunting ferocity.

In the next moment he tore a groove six inches long down Jan's left shoulder, scooping out skin and fur as a machine saw might have done it; and in the same second he was away again, wolf-like, his steel muscles already contracting for the next attack.

Now Jan had no thought of fighting when he bowled Sourdough over. His sole preoccupation had been the rescue of his little friend, Micky Doolan, from what looked like certain death. Contact with Sourdough had greatly stirred the combatant blood in him, as had also the hated smell of the husky. Even then a call from d.i.c.k Vaughan would have met with instant response from Jan. But there was no d.i.c.k Vaughan in sight.

Sergeant Moore stood gazing eagerly, a little anxiously even, but with no hint of any thought of interfering with the meeting he had schemed to bring about. O'Malley, clutching his terrier in his arms, was rather distractedly calling:

"Come away in, Jan! Drop it now, Jan! Come in here, come in here, Jan!"

But O'Malley, after all, though an amiable person enough, and, as a friend of d.i.c.k's, a man to be obeyed cheerfully enough in the ordinary way, yet was not d.i.c.k. He was hardly a shadow of the sovereign. And then came that fiery stroke that had opened a groove down Jan's left shoulder.

After that, it is a moot point whether even d.i.c.k Vaughan's voice would have served to penetrate the cloud of fury in which Jan moved. He became very terrible in his wrath. One saw less of the bloodhound and more, far more, of his sire, of royal Finn, the fighting wolfhound of the Tinnaburra ranges, in his splendid pose, in the upward, scimitar curve of his great tail, the rage in his red-hawed eyes, the vibrant defiance of his baying roar.

But he lacked as yet his sire's inimitable fighting craft, just as he lacked entirely the lightning cunning of the half-wolf Sourdough. And before he had touched the husky his sound shoulder had been grooved, and one of his ears badly torn.

It might have been better tactics on Sourdough's part to have made direct for some killing hold, instead of administering these instructive preliminary chastenings. Seeing clearly Jan's inferiority in wolf tactics, Sourdough underrated the forces of his size, weight, endurance, power, and quite indomitable bravery. In fact, the cunning Sourdough was very thoroughly deceived by Jan. Never having in his varied experiences encountered chivalry, n.o.bility, nor yet much gallantry in a dog, he made no allowance for these qualities in Jan. He could not conceive that the attack which had bowled him over was no more than a generous attempt to save Micky Doolan. And so he thought it was a challenge to combat; and combat, as the husky saw it, meant an effort to kill by any and every means available. In the same way, the reckless scorn of himself and of a palpable advantage, which Jan had shown after knocking him over, was a thing not to be comprehended for what it really was by Sourdough. He thought it evidence of weakening, of sudden fear, of terror inspired in Jan by the sight of the thing he had impulsively done.

Yes, Sourdough entirely misread Jan; and he believed now that he had ample time in which to bleed and cripple the big hound by means of his natural wolf tactics, and then to finish off a helpless enemy at leisure. Cunning often does mislead those who possess it. In this case it was responsible for tactics by which, had he but known it, Sourdough presented his enemy with triple-thick armor, and schooled him finely for the task that lay before him.

Sourdough's second slash cost Jan a split ear, but gave him flashlight vision of his fight with Grip in Suss.e.x, with Grip of the wolf-like fighting methods. Sourdough's third attack cost Jan a burning groove down his. .h.i.therto untouched shoulder; but, by that token, it effectually completed the lesson of attack number two, and brought a final end to the period of Sourdough's really enjoyable fighting. So poorly, then, did Sourdough's cunning serve him, that his fourth attack came near to costing him his life.

With b.l.o.o.d.y glee in his eyes, and wide-parted drooling jaws, he darted in to take his fourth cut at Jan, eager for the joyous moment in which the repet.i.tion of these slashes should have reduced Jan to ripeness for the killing thrust--the throat-hold. But Jan had learned his lesson. At the psychological fraction of a moment he changed his position, and, instead of pa.s.sing on comfortably through s.p.a.ce after his attack, Sourdough's shoulder met another bigger shoulder, braced like a granite b.u.t.tress to receive the impact, and the husky reached earth on his side.

That rather shook the wind out of him; but that was nothing by comparison with the fact that, in the same moment, Jan's viselike jaws closed about one side of his neck, close in to the skull where the hair shortened. That was a serious moment, if you like, for Sourdough; for in addition to the huge power of those jaws there was weight--a hundred and sixty-four pounds of sinew, bone, and rubber-like muscle behind and above the jaws.

A very desperate vigor stirred in Sourdough's limbs as he took the course which is only taken at critical moments. He deliberately turned farther on his back--the position of all others most dreaded--in order to bring his feet into play, his jaws being momentarily helpless. His abdominal muscles were in splendid order. Like a lynx, Sourdough drew in and up his powerful hind quarters, and, as if they had been a missile launched from a catapult, slashed his two hind feet along Jan's belly, as a carpenter might rip a board down with a chisel.

In that same moment Sergeant Moore stepped forward, with a hoa.r.s.e cry: