Jan: A Dog and a Romance Part 17

But all the same, their deductive powers were far from perfect. They saw in Jan a leader who could not hide the soreness and stiffness caused by his many wounds. They, for their part, were feeling rather like indiscreet workmen after a public holiday that has been too recklessly enjoyed. They had no headache, but were feeling fat and lazy; and, noting the stiffness of Jan's movements, they slouched and s.h.i.+rked, and caused delays over the making of a start that morning.

"H'm! Too much moose-meat. Thees will be a short day," growled Jean, as he reached out for his whip before proceeding farther with the harnessing. Only the stiff-legged leader was in his place; the rest lay dotted about with lolling tongues, bent on loafing.

Jan saw Jean go for his whip. But it was no fear of the lash that moved him to action. He had been desperately conscious for a good many hours of his stiffness and weariness, and had hoped his services as policeman of the team would not have been needed that morning. Now, in a flash, he comprehended the true position. And he knew the sled was now twice its previous weight. He looked across at Jean, and gave a short, low bark, which meant:

"Don't you trouble about your whip. This is my job. Don't suppose I've forgotten it, or that this team is going to be any the weaker for Bill's loss. Devil a bit of it."

And with that Jan tossed aside his stiffness and flew around among his six team-mates, the very incarnation of masterful leaders.h.i.+p. Not one dog, not even old Blackfoot, escaped him; and if their leader began the day's work as a sorely wounded dog, it was certain that each dog behind him began it with one sore spot to occupy his mind withal. Inside of one minute he had the six of them standing alertly to attention in their respective places, waiting for their harness and itching to be off; not by reason of any sudden access of virtue or industry in them, but because the leader they had thought too sore and stiff to accomplish much that day was pacing sternly up and down their rank, with fangs bared, and the hint of a snarl in every breath he drew; ready, and apparently rather anxious, to visit condign punishment upon the first dog who should stir one paw a single inch from its proper place.

"Five hunderd!" shouted Jean, with his broad, cheery grin. "By gar! tha'

Jan hee's worth ten hunderd of any man's money for team-leadin'. Yes, _sir_; an' you can say I said so. I don't care where the nex' come from; tha' Jan, hee's masterpiece."

Jake readily admitted, when, over their pipes that night, he and Jean came to review the day's run, that the team had worked better this day than on any previous day in the past month.

"With double load, an' one dog short," Jean reminded him.

"That's so," said Jake. "I guess that moose-meat's put good heart into them."

"Ah! moose-meat, hee's all right; good tack, for sure," said Jean. "But tha's not moose-meat mushed them dogs on so fast an' trim to-day. No, _sir_. Tha's Jan--bes' dog-musher in 'Merica to-day, now I'm tellin'

you. He don' got Beel to upset things to-day, and, by gar! you see how he make them other dogs mush. You don't need no wheep, don't need no musher, so's you got Jan a-leadin', now I'm tellin' you."

Jan imbued each of the other dogs with a portion of his own inexhaustible pride in the team's perfect working. Ready to start in the morning he would stand in the lead, pawing eagerly at the snow, his head turning swiftly from side to side as he looked round to make sure his followers were in order, and in his anxiety to catch the first breath of the command to "Mush on there!"

And when the word came, with what a will those seven dogs bowed to their work! How furiously their hard pads scrabbled at the trail, to overcome the first inertia of the laden sled, before it gained the gliding momentum which they would never allow it to lose for an instant until the order came to halt! If any dog put one ounce less than the pressure he was capable of exerting into his breast-band, Jan knew it that instant, more surely than the watching man behind; and would let out a sharp, low-sounding bark. And very well each dog in the team knew what that bark meant. They feared it more than Jean's thong. For Jan had taught them to know that this bark gave warning of a shrewder blow to come than any whip could give; and a blow from which there would be no possible escape. Men-folk might sometimes forget a promised cuff. Jan was never known to forget a promised bite; and if twelve hours should elapse between promise and payment, so much the worse for the payee; for Jan had a system of his own for the reckoning of compound interest, the efficacy of which, at one time or another, each dog in the team had tested, and found deadly.

Yes, in the fortnight that followed the shooting of the moose and the disappearance of Bill the sled-team driven by Jean and Jake was perhaps the finest and the most efficient in all that white world of hard-bitten, hard-trained, hard-working men and dogs. And, by that token, there was no happier team living, and none in better condition.

There are not many teams, of course, whose members eat moose-flesh every day. But quite apart from the substantial addition to their dietary which Jean's lucky moose-shot brought, his sled-team was superbly fit and efficient, because it was perfectly led and perfectly disciplined.

And then came all the strange confusion of the noisy mining town and the end of this particular phase of Jan's life.

x.x.xI

THE COST OF INCOMPETENCE

Jan's private impressions of the northern mining town were, first, that it was the most horrible place he had ever seen; second, that it was perhaps the most interesting place he had ever seen; and, third and lastly, that it was a very good place to get away from, and that he would be pleased to exchange its complex interests for the clean, arduous stress and strain of the trail.

Jan spent less than a week in the town; but into that week was packed perhaps rather more than the allowance of new impressions and excitement of one sort and another that go to make up the record of her first season in town for the average human debutante. The cynic might protest that many a modern debutante is as certainly put up for sale to the highest bidder of the town season as Jan was. Well, at least the thing is a good deal more carefully wrapped up and veiled, and a great deal more time is given to it.

Jean was very firmly set in his determination not to part with Jan for a cent under five hundred dollars. (Had not Jan cost him two hundred dollars on the night of Bill's disappearance?) Had there been any really knowledgeable judges of dogs in the town just then who needed a dog, they would hardly have quarreled with his owner over Jan's price. But it happened there were none. And the result was that Jan had to be put through his paces five separate times for the benefit of five separate prospective purchasers, not one of whom was really capable of appreciating his superlative quality, before the five hundred dollars demanded did eventually find its way into Jean's pouch and he was called upon to part with his leader. He intended to give Snip the leaders.h.i.+p of his team now, because Snip was a curiously remorseless creature; and to buy a husky as cheaply as might be to take the trace ahead of Blackfoot--kindliest of wheelers.

Jean's parting with Jan was characteristic of the man. He had conceived an admiring and prideful affection for the big hound, and had liefer died than allow this to be shown to any other man. His pride in his dog's ability, his full appreciation of the animal's many points--yes, he would show these, and very insistently, to any man. But for his perfectly genuine affection; that, as he understood it, was a culpable weakness which no living soul must be permitted to suspect--no, not even Jan himself. And that was where Jean fooled himself. For his occasional blows and frequent curses did not in the least deceive Jan, who was perfectly well aware of Jean's fondness for him, and, to a considerable extent, reciprocated the feeling. He did not love Jean; but he liked the man, and trusted and respected him for his all-round ability and competence.

"Ye--es," said Jean, slowly, to the moneyed _chechaquo_ who had purchased Jan, "tha' Jan, hee's ther bes' lead dog ever I see, an' I've handled some. But ef you take my word, Mister Beeching, you won' ask Jan to take no other place than lead in your team. Eef you do, your leader 'll hear about it, en he might lose some hide over it, too, I guess. But tha' Jan, hee's a great lead dog, all right, an' I'm tellin' you. Well, so long, boss; I'll be gettin' along. Git back there, you, Jan! By gar!

you stay right there now, when I say so. What 'n h.e.l.l d'you want follerin' me? Git back!"

That was how Jean bade Jan good-by. Jan, scenting trouble vaguely, was determined to stick to Jean, and thought he went about it craftily enough. But Jean caught him each time, and kicked him back to the place where the _chechaquo_ stood, cuffing him roughly over the head by way of final salutation.

"I'll larn ye to foller me," he said, sourly.

"Mighty little _he_ cares for his dogs!" thought the tenderfoot; and he turned (with his more delicate sentiments) to caress Jan's head. But Jan abruptly lowered his head to avoid the touch; though, obedient now to Jean, the proved master, he remained where he had been told to stay.

But these things happened within twenty-four hours of Jan's departure from that town. In the days immediately preceding this one of his parting from Jean he had roamed the town at large with Blackfoot, Snip, and the others of his team, observing, making acquaintances, fending off attacks, administering punishment, and swaggering with the best among a great company of sled-dogs of all sorts and sizes and in every varying grade of condition, from fatted and vainglorious sleekness to downright emaciation. For there were dogs here who, having recently shared cruelly hard times with their men, would require weeks of recuperation to make them fit for the rigors of the trail. Some of this latter sort were for sale, and could be bought for a tenth of Jan's price, or less. Others, again, were "resting," as the actors say, while their impoverished masters worked at some other craft to earn money enough to give them back the freedom of the trail.

None the less, he felt tolerably forlorn and desolate when, upon his last evening there, he was led away by his new master, whose name, it seemed, was Beeching, and locked in a small inclosure of high iron rails with nine other dogs, the remaining complement of the team in which he was now to serve. However, for a while he was kept too busy here to spare much thought for the matter of the loss of his companions.

Every one of the nine strangers was sleek and well fed. _Chechaquo_ Beeching was bound for the sea and civilization, with the moderate pile which a beginner's luck, rather than any skill or enterprise of his, had brought him; and he was bent on doing the trip in style, he and his curious friend, whom he called Harry. Of these nine finely conditioned dogs, four had met Jan about the town and learned to show him some deference. Two--Jinny and Poll--were b.i.t.c.hes, and therefore not to be regarded by Jan as possible opponents in a fight; but the remaining three members of the crowd, l.u.s.ty huskies, full of meat and insolence, had never seen the big hound before, and these had to be thrashed pretty soundly before Jan won his footing in the inclosure.

Fortunately, the two b.i.t.c.hes were disposed to be friendly from the outset, and of the three huskies, two were intently engaged upon bones at the time of Jan's entrance. The third husky attacked him, blindly, without stopping to exchange so much as glances. This little incident was soon ended. In ten seconds Jan had bowled clean over on his back the too temerarious Gutty--to give this particular husky the name under which Mr. Beeching had bought him--and was shaking him by the throat as a terrier shakes a rat. But Jan was far from being really angry, or Gutty had paid with his life for the impudence of his attack; and when the husky chokingly whined for mercy he was allowed to spring to his feet and slink away into a dark corner, with nothing worse than a little skin-wound to worry over.

The case of the other two huskies was more serious, however; for in the half-light Jan chanced to brush against one of them as he gnawed his bone; and in the next moment they both were leaping at him with clas.h.i.+ng fangs, convinced that he aimed at plunder. While Jan, in warding off their attacks, tried to explain, good-humoredly, that he meant them no ill, Jinny and Poll made off with their bones. But of this the two huskies knew nothing, being fully occupied by their joint attack upon the great dog who, had they but known it, was destined for some time to be their master, in the traces and out of them.

It was a rather troublesome fight, involving considerable bloodshed; for Fish and Pad, the two huskies, were quite notable battlers, and Jan, for his part, was genuinely anxious to avoid any killing. He was quite shrewd enough to know that he had now joined a new team, and, while it was very necessary that his prowess should be recognized and respected, he desired peace, and perfectly understood that, if he began by killing, the results might be serious for the team and for himself.

In the end, having made some sacrifices, he had to inflict a severe gash on the side of Pad's face, and to come near to throttling the life out of Fish, before he could reduce the pair of them to a state of comparatively decent, if still snarling, submission. After that there was peace; Fish and Pad were too busy in dressing their wounds to notice the loss of their bones; and Jan was free to introduce himself to the others of the pack, which he did in friendly fas.h.i.+on enough, despite his still raised hackles and rather noticeably stiff gait.

There was quite a gathering a.s.sembled next morning to see the last of Jan's new masters. But though he eyed the crowd closely to find them, Jan saw nothing of Jake or Jean, nor any of his old team-mates. Beeching and Harry--the latter a gentleman who, having apparently no faith in his own luck, believed in attaching himself firmly to any more fortunate person who would tolerate his society--were, to all seeming, not really unpopular. The thoroughly unpopular man is rarely guyed, with roars of open laughter and back-slapping merriment, by men who wink and nod at one another while joining forces in the matter of ragging their b.u.t.t.

That was how Beeching was treated by the crowd of acquaintances who came to give him his start on the southward, seaward trail. Harry was, for the most part, merely ignored. It was understood that now, as in the past, he was supposed to make himself "useful" by way of paying his shot; and as he had never been known to be any other thing than useless, it was evidence rather of the easy good nature than the perspicacity of his a.s.sociates that he never had actually lacked food and shelter in that place. But that was as much, men thought, as "Tame Cat Harry" could possibly expect. One of the last fond messages flung at Beeching, as his overloaded sled swung out on the trail, was:

"Don't you be letting Harry loose, mind you, or he'll surely hark back on the trail; an' then we'll shoot him on sight."

"Well, say," yelled another man, "if you do loose him any, be sure you put a muzzle on him, so's to keep our grub-boxes safe."

After which crude gibe at Harry's sponging proclivities, Homeric laughter set a period upon the town's farewell to Jan's new masters. And that laughter stirred to fresh activity the uneasy want of confidence, the rather cheerless sense of foreboding, which, for close upon twenty-four hours now, had been growing in the breast of the team's leader. Jan should, perhaps, have felt drawn toward Beeching and Harry, since both were compatriots of his and hailed from southern England. But England has sent a good many of her most confirmed wastrels oversea, along with the very cream of her manhood; and whether or no, Jan had no more confidence in his masters than he had in Gutty, the husky he had thrashed overnight, and far less than he had in Fish and Pad, the two opponents he had found so much more difficult to trounce.

As a fact, Jan's skepticism was amply justified. In the thirty-five-day trip thus begun--which should have been completed in sixteen days--Jan was given as striking an example of the effects of man's muddle-headed, slack-minded incompetence as that which Jean had furnished him of the effects of man's able-bodied, clear-headed competence and efficiency.

Jan never worked it out in precisely this way, but after his own simple and direct fas.h.i.+on he came to the definite conclusion, before he had been two days on the trail with Beeching and Harry, that, for his part, he would sooner thole the harshest kind of severity or even cruelty in a master, so that it be allied with competence, than he would endure this evils which (in the northland more than in most places) attend all the steps of the man who is slack, s.h.i.+ftless, and incompetent; and, be it noted, make miserable the days of all and sundry who are forced to be in any way dependent on that man.

It was with much wistful regret that Jan recalled in these days the daily round of his life, after the fight with Bill, as Jean's lead dog.

The swift, positive, and ordered evolutions of those smoothly running days seemed merely miraculous in retrospect as Jan compared his memory of them with the wretched muddle of Beeching's wasteful scramble across the country: They carried no trade goods, nothing save the necessary dog-food and creature-comforts for the two men; yet their sled--an extra-large one--was half as heavy again to pull as Jean's had been, despite the ten primely conditioned dogs who made up Beeching's "flash"

team.

The morning was generally far advanced when Beeching and Harry started in to clear the muddle of their amateurish night's camp, with all its preposterous litter of bedding, utensils (always unclean), and other wasteful truck such as no men can afford to carry in the northland. But the day would be half done by the time their muddled preparations were finally completed.

And then, more often than not, one of the men would add his own not inconsiderable weight to that of the half-packed, overladen sled; and, at the best, Harry as a trail-breaker and finder was of no more use than a blind kitten would have been. A dozen times in the day a halt would be called for some enforced repacking of the jerry-built load on the sled; and at such times some unpacking would often have to be done to provide liquor or other refreshment for the men. There were times when, on a perfect trail, the day's run would be no more than twenty miles; and there were days of bad trail, when even Jean would have been put to it to make more than five and twenty miles, and these incompetents, with their ten-dog team, covered a bare eight or ten miles.

Pride in his leaders.h.i.+p was as impossible for Jan in these conditions as was content or pride in his share of the work for any other member of the team. But that was not the worst of it. During the first day or two of the trip Jan was staggered to find that these new masters of his had no notion of measuring dog-rations, or even of serving these with any sort of regularity as to time, or portions, or gross quant.i.ty. They would feed some or all the dogs, at any time of day at all, and in any f.e.c.kless way that came handy. At their first and second midday halts, for instance, they flung down to the team, as though to a herd of sheep or swine, food enough for three days' rations, their own leavings, and the orthodox dog-ration stuff, in a mixed heap.

Given decent, proper feeding, Jan would have seen to it that order was preserved and no thieving done. Each dog should have had his own "whack," and none have been molested. But with all his genuine love of order and discipline, Jan was no magician. He could not possibly apportion out a scattered refuse-heap. He had necessarily to grab a share for himself; and, as was inevitable, the weaker members of the team went short, or got nothing.

Then--unheard-of profligacy--came another equally casual distribution at night; and yet another, it might be, in the morning--in the morning, with the trail before them!

It resolved itself into this: there were no dog-meals on that journey; but only daily dog-fights--snarling, sc.r.a.pping, blood and hatred-letting scrimmages for grub; disgraceful episodes, in themselves sufficient to shut out any hope of discipline in the team.

The quite inevitable shock came on the evening of the twelfth day. (With his costly team, Beeching had gaily figured on fifteen days for the entire trip, in place of the thirty-five days which it actually occupied.) The only good thing that memorable twelfth day brought was the end of Beeching's whisky-supply. Incidentally it marked, too, the end of his easy-going good temper. And to the consternation of an already thoroughly demoralized team, it brought also the serving out, in a heap as before--this cruel and messy trick, more perhaps than any other one thing, marked the men's wretched slackness and incompetence; qualities generally more cruel in their effects than any harshness or over-severity--of fish representing in the aggregate rather less than half a day's ration for each dog in the team.