A. J. Dawson - Jan

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[Illustration: Frontispiece]

JAN

A DOG AND A ROMANCE

BY

A.J. DAWSON

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

Published by Arrangement with Harper & Brothers

JAN: A DOG AND A ROMANCE
Copyright, 1915, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published October, 1915

_CONTENTS_

I. HOW FINN CAME HOME

II. NUTHILL AND SHAWS

III. INTRODUCING THE LADY DESDEMONA

IV. THE OPEN-AIR CALL

V. DESDEMONA'S WANDERINGS

VI. HOW DESDEMONA FOUND HER NEST

VII. DESDEMONA FORGETS HER MANNERS

VIII. FINN IS ENLIGHTENED

IX. THE LONE MOTHER

X. FAMILY LIFE--AND DEATH

XI. JAN GOES TO NUTHILL

XII. SOME FIRST STEPS

XIII. SAPLING DAYS

XIV. WITH REFERENCE TO DICK VAUGHAN

XV. JAN'S FIRST FIGHT

XVI. GOOD-BY TO DICK

XVII. JAN BEFORE THE JUDGES

XVIII. FIT AS A TWO-YEAR-OLD

XIX. DISCIPLINE

XX. SUSSEX TO SASKATCHEWAN

XXI. INTRODUCING SOURDOUGH

XXII. MURDER!

XXIII. THE FIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE

XXIV. PROMOTION

XXV. JAN GOES ON HIS TRAVELS

XXVI. THE RULE OF TRACE AND THONG

XXVII. MUTINY IN THE TEAM

XXVIII. THE FEAST AND THE FASTER

XXIX. THE FIGHT IN THE WOODS

XXX. REAL LEADERSHIP

XXXI. THE COST OF INCOMPETENCE

XXXII. JAN OBEYS ORDERS AT THE GREAT DIVIDE

XXXIII. BACK TO THE TRAIL

XXXIV. THE PEACE RIVER TRAIL

XXXV. THE END OF JAN'S LONE TRAIL

XXXVI. "SO LONG, JAN!"

XXXVII. BACK TO REGINA

XXXVIII. THE FALL OF SOURDOUGH

XXXIX. HOW JAN CAME HOME

_JAN_

I

HOW FINN CAME HOME

Rightly to appreciate Jan's character and parts you must understand
his origin. For this you must go back to the greatest of modern Irish
wolfhounds, Finn; and to the Lady Desdemona, of whom it was said, by
no less an authority than Major Carthwaite, that she was "the most
perfectly typical bloodhound of her decade." And that was in the
fifteenth month of her age, just six weeks before Finn's arrival at
Nuthill.

When the Master was preparing to leave Australia with Finn he said,
"It's 'Sussex by the sea' for us, Finn, boy, in another month or so;
and, God willing, that's where you shall end your days."

Just fourteen weeks after making that remark (and, too, after a deal
more of land and sea travel for Finn than comes into the whole lives
of most hounds) the Master bought Nuthill, the little estate on the
lee of the most beautiful of the South Downs from the upper part of
which one sees quite easily on a clear day the red chimneys and white
gables of the cottage in which Finn was born. But at the time of that
important purchase Finn was lying perdu in quarantine, down in
Devonshire; a melancholy period for the wolfhound, that. The Master
spent many shipboard hours in discussing this very matter with the
Mistress of the Kennels on their passage home from Australia, and he
tried hard to find a way out of the difficulty, for Finn's sake. But
there it was. You cannot hope to smuggle ashore, even in the most
fashionably capacious of lady's muffs, a hound standing thirty-six
inches high at the shoulder and weighing nearer two hundred than one
hundred pounds. It was a case of quarantine or perpetual exile, and so
Finn went into quarantine. But, as you may guess, there were pretty
careful arrangements made for his welfare.

The wolfhound had special quarters of his own in quarantine, and his
enforced stay there had just this advantage about it, that when the
great day of his release arrived there was no more travel and hotel life
to be suffered, for by this time the Master was thoroughly settled down
at Nuthill, the Mistress of the Kennels had made that snug place a real
home, and her niece, Betty Murdoch, was already an established member of
the household. So Finn went straight from quarantine at Plymouth to the
best home he had ever known, and to one in which his honored place was
absolutely assured to him.

But it must not be supposed that, because of his much-honored place in
the Master's world, Finn had entirely put behind him and forgotten his
strange life among the wild kindred in Australia. That could hardly be.
The savor of that life would remain for ever in his nostrils, no matter
how ordered and humanized his days at Nuthill; just as consciousness of
human cruelty and the torture of imprisonment had been burned into his
memory and nature, indelibly as though branded there by the hot irons of
the circus folk in New South Wales. Finn adapted himself perfectly to
the life of the household at Nuthill, and with ease. Had he not a
thousand years of royal breeding in his veins? But he never forgot the
wild. He never forgot his days of circus imprisonment as a wild beast.
He never for one instant reverted to the gaily credulous attitude toward
mankind which had helped the dog-stealers to kidnap him after the first
great triumph of his youth, when he defeated all comers, from puppy and
novice to full-fledged champion, and carried off the blue riband of his
year at the Crystal Palace. Well-mannered he would always be; but in
these later days his attitude toward all humans, and most animal folk
outside his own household, was characterized by a gravely alert and
watchful kind of reserve. As the Master once said, in talking on his
homeward way to England of that dog-stealing episode of the wolfhound's
salad days:

"It would take a tough and wily old thief to tempt Finn across a
garden-path nowadays, with the best doctored meat ever prepared. And as
for really getting away with him--well, they're welcome to try; and I
fancy they'd get pretty well all they deserve from old Finn, without the
law's assistance."

Betty Murdoch--round-figured, rosy, high-spirited, a great lover of out
of doors, and aged now twenty-two--had been much exercised in her mind
as to what Finn would think of her, when he arrived at Nuthill, after
the long railway journey from Plymouth. She had seen the wolfhound only
once before, when she was somewhat less grown-up and he was still in
puppyhood, before the visit to Australia. The Master, who went specially
to Plymouth to fetch Finn, said Betty must expect a certain reserve at
first in the wolfhound's attitude.

"He can't possibly remember you, of course, and, nowadays, he is not
effusive, not very ready to make new friends."

The Mistress of the Kennels, on the other hand--she still was spoken of
as "the Mistress," though at Nuthill there never were any
kennels--insisted that Finn would know perfectly well that Betty was one
of the family; as, of course, he did. Apart from her physical
resemblance to her aunt, Betty had very many of the Mistress's little
ways, and especially of her ways in dealings with and thinking of animal
folk.

Finn's heart had swelled almost to bursting when the Master came to him
in the quarantine station at Plymouth, for, to tell the truth, he never
had been able to make head or tail of being left alone in this place,
though the Master had tried hard to explain. But he had been well
treated there, and was certain the Master would eventually return to
him. Yet, when the moment came, there was a sudden overwhelming swelling
of his heart which made Finn gasp. He almost staggered as the Master
greeted him. The emotion of gladness hurt him, and his dark eyes were
flooded.

After that there were no further surprises for Finn. Once he had felt
the Master's hand burrowing in the wiry gray hair of his neck, Finn knew
well that they were homeward bound, that the unaccountable period of
separation was over, and that he would very presently see the Mistress
of the Kennels; as in fact he did, that very night, at Nuthill by the
Downs. And Betty--well, it was perfectly clear to Finn that she was
somehow part and parcel with the Mistress; and whilst never now effusive
to any one, he made it clear at once that he accepted Betty as one of
his own little circle of human folk, to be loved and trusted, and never
suspected. In the evening the great hound lay extended on the hearthrug
of the square, oak-paneled hall at Nuthill. (He occupied a good six feet
of rug.) Betty stepped across his shoulders once, to reach matches from
the mantel; and Finn never blinked or moved a hair, save that the tip of
his long tail just languidly rose twice, ever so gently slapping the
rug. The Master, who was watching, laughed at this.

"You may account yourself an honored friend already, Betty," he said.
"I'll guarantee no other living soul, except the Mistress or I, could
step over old Finn like that without his moving. In these days he
doesn't unguard to that extent with any one else."

"Ah, well," laughed Betty; "even less wise dogs than Finn know who loves
them--don't they, old man?"

Finn blinked a friendly response as she rubbed his ears. But as yet it
was not that. Finn had given no thought to Betty's loving him; but he
had realized that she was kin to the Mistress and the Master, and
therefore, for him, in a category apart from all other folk, animal or
human; a person to be trusted absolutely, even by a hound of his unique
experience.

II

NUTHILL AND SHAWS

In a recess beside the hearth in the hall at Nuthill Finn found an oaken
platform, or bench, five feet long by two and a half feet wide. It stood
perhaps fifteen inches from the floor, on four stout legs, and its two
ends and back had sides eight inches high. The front was open, and the
bench itself was covered by a 'possum-skin rug.

"This, my friend, is your own bed," said the Master, when he showed the
bench to Finn, after all the household had retired that night. "You've
slept hard, old chap, and you've lived hard, in your time; but when you
want it, there will always be comfort for you here. But you're free, old
chap. You can go wherever you like; still, I'd like you to try this.
See! Up, lad!"

Finn sniffed long and interestedly at the 'possum-rug which had often
covered the Mistress's feet on board ship and elsewhere. Then he stepped
on to the bed and lowered his great bulk gracefully upon it.

"How's that?" asked the Master. And Finn thrust his muzzle gratefully
into the hand he loved. The bed was superlatively good, as a matter of
fact. But when, in the quite early morning hours, the Master opened his
bedroom door, bound for the bath, he found Finn dozing restfully on the
doormat.

So that was the end of the hall bed as a hall bed. That night Finn
found it beside the Master's bedroom door; and there in future he
slept of a night, when indoors at all. But he was allowed perfect
freedom, and there were summer nights he spent in the outer porch and
farther afield than that, including the queer little Sussex slab-paved
courtyard outside the kitchen door, where he spent the better part of
one night on guard over a smelly tramp who, in a moment unlucky for
himself, had decided to try his soft and clumsy hand at burglary. The
gardener found the poor wretch in the morning aching with cramp and
bailed up in a dampish corner by the dust-bin, by a wolfhound who kept
just half an inch of white fang exposed, and responded with a truly
awe-inspiring throaty snarl to the slightest hint of movement on the
tramp's part.

"Six hours 'e's kep' me there, an', bli'me, I'd sooner do six months
quod," the weary tramp explained, when the Master had been roused and
Finn called off.

On the morning of his third day at Nuthill it was that Finn first met
the Lady Desdemona. And it happened in this wise: Colonel Forde, of
Shaws, which, as you may know, lies just across the green shoulder of
Down from Nuthill--its fault is that the house is reached only by the
westering sun, while Nuthill's windows catch the first morning rays on
one side and hold some of any sunshine there may be the day
through--wrote, saying that he had heard of Finn's arrival, and would
the Master come across to luncheon with the Mistress and Miss Murdoch,
and bring the wolfhound.

"I hope you will have a look through my kennels with me in the
afternoon," added the Colonel; and that was the kind of invitation
seldom refused by the Master.

It is, of course, a good many years now since the Shaws kennels first
earned the respect of discerning breeders and lovers of bloodhounds. But
to this day there is one kind of doggy man (and woman) who smiles a
shade disdainfully when Colonel Forde's name is mentioned.

"Very much the amateur," they say. And--"A bit too much of a
sentimentalist to be taken seriously," some knowing fellow in a kennel
coat of the latest style will tell you. Perhaps they do not quite know
what they mean. Or perhaps they are influenced by the known fact that
the Colonel has more than once closed his kennel doors to a long
string of safe prizes by refusing to exhibit a second time some hound
who, on a first showing, has won golden opinions and high awards. But
these refusals were never whimsical. They were due always to the
Colonel's decision, based upon close and sympathetic observation,
that, for the particular hound in question, exhibition represented a
painful ordeal.

Among the breeders who at one time or another have visited the Shaws
kennels are a few of the knowing fellows who smile at mention of the
Colonel's name. Well, let them smile. It is perhaps as well for them
that the Colonel is pretty tolerably indifferent alike to their smiles
and to the awards of show judges; for, if Colonel Forde were seriously
bent upon "pot-hunting," there would not be anything like so many "pots"
about for other people; and these particular gentry would not at all
like that.

"Kennels!" said one of them at a dog-show in Brighton, "why, it's more
like a kindergarten. There's a sitting-room, a kind of drawing-room, if
you'll believe me, in the middle of the kennels, for tea-parties! And as
for the dogs, well, they just do whatever they like. As often as not the
kennels are empty, except for pups, and the hounds all over the garden
and house--a regular kindergarten."

It will be seen then that the Colonel must clearly have merited the
disdainful smiles. But I am bound to say I never heard of any one
being bitten or frightened by a dog at Shaws, and it is notorious
that, difficult though bloodhound whelps are to rear, the Colonel
rarely loses one in a litter. Still, "kindergarten" is certainly a
withering epithet in this connection; and one can perfectly understand
the professional's attitude. A sitting-room, nay, worse--"A kind of
drawing-room," in the midst of the kennels! Why, it almost suggests
that, forgetful of prize-winning, advertising, and selling, the
Colonel must positively have enjoyed the mere pleasure of spending a
leisure hour among his dogs; not at a show or in the public eye, but
in the privacy of his own home! Glaring evidence of amateurishness,
this. The knowing ones, as usual, were perfectly correct. That is
precisely what the Colonel was; a genuine amateur of hounds.

III

INTRODUCING THE LADY DESDEMONA

April was uniformly dull and wet that year, but May seemed to bring full
summer in her train; and it was on the morning of the third of May that
Finn went to Shaws with the Nuthill house party.

The turf of the Downs was so springy on this morning that one felt
uplifted by it in walking. Each separate blade of the clover-scented
carpet seemed surcharged with young life. The downland air was as a
tonic wine to every creature that breathed it. The joy of the day was
voiced in the liquid trilling of two larks that sang far overhead. The
place and time gave to the Nuthill party England at her best and
sweetest, than which, as the Master often said, the world has nothing
more lovely to offer; and he was one who had fared far and wide in other
lands.

There is the tiny walled inclosure above the stables at Shaws, once used
as a milking-yard, and just now a veritable posy of daisies, buttercups,
rich green grass, and apple-blossom. For in it there are six or seven
gnarled and lichen-grown old apple-trees, whose fruit is of small
account, but whose bloom is a gift sent straight from heaven to gladden
the hearts of men and beasts, birds and bees. The big double doors in
the ivy-grown flint wall of this inclosure stood wide open. Humming bees
sailed booming to and fro, like ships in a tropical trade-wind. And
through the lattice-work of the gray old apple-trees' branches (so
virginally clothed just now) clean English sunshine dappled all the
earth and grass in moving checkers of light and shade.

When the Nuthill party looked in through the gates of this delectable
pleasaunce they beheld in its midst the Lady Desdemona, gazing solemnly
down her long nose at the moving checkers of sunlight on the grass. Her
head was held low--the true bloodhound poise--and that position
exaggerated the remarkable wealth of velvety "wrinkle" with which her
forehead had been endowed by nature, after the selective breeding of
centuries. Low hung her golden dewlap over the grass at her feet; and
all across the satin blackness of her saddle intricately woven little
patterns of sunlight flicked back and forth as the breeze stirred the
branches overhead.

"There's all the wisdom and philosophy of the ancients in her face,"
said the Master, as the beautiful young bloodhound bitch winded them and
raised her head.

As a fact, her thought had been far from abstruse. She was merely
watching the moving patches of sunlight, and not reflecting upon it as
humans do, but feeling the joyousness and beauty of that time and place.
She gave no thought to these matters, but was, as it were, inhaling
them, and enjoying them profoundly; more profoundly than most men-folk
would.

Finn eyed her gravely, appraisingly, yet also without thought. He, too,
had been unreflectingly absorbing the beauty of the morning; and now his
enjoyment became suddenly narrowed down and concentrated. The rest of
the world dropped out of the picture, or rather it became merged for
Finn in the picture he beheld of the Lady Desdemona; a study in tawny
orange-gold and jetty black, gleaming where the sun touched her and
embodying the quintessence of canine health, youth, and high-breeding.

So the world stood still for a moment while all concerned felt, without
thought, how good it was. Then her youth and sex spoke in the
bloodhound, and Lady Desdemona, head and stern uplifted now, came
passaging gaily, proudly forward down the grassy slope to the gateway,
entirely ignoring the human people, as was natural, and making direct
for Finn, the tallest, most stately representative of her own kind she
had ever seen. The Master stepped aside, with a smile, the better to
watch the meeting of the hounds. It was worth watching. Till they met,
the movement, the provocativeness was all on Lady Desdemona's side, Finn
standing erect and still as graven bronze. Then they met, and at a given
signal the tactics of each were sharply reversed. The signal consisted
of a little flicking contact, light as thistle-down. As Desdemona
curveted down past Finn the tip of her gaily-waving tail was allowed
once to glance over the Irish wolfhound's wiry coat; the merest
suggestion of a touch. But it seemed this was a magic signal, converting
the dancing Desdemona into a graven image and transforming the
statuesque Finn into a hound of abounding and commanding activity.

They made quite a notable picture. The Lady Desdemona stood now, tense,
rigid, immobile as any rock, though instinct with life in every hair.
Finn became the very personification of action, eager movement, alert
interest. Inside of one minute he had examined the motionless Desdemona
(by means of the most searchingly concentrated application of his senses
of sight and smell) at least as thoroughly as your Harley Street expert
examines a patient in half an hour. Finn needed no stethoscope to assure
him of Desdemona's soundness. But, having seen her in the inclosure, and
been interested so far, he now examined her with his keen eyes and
nostrils at close quarters, in order that he might know her. And so
superior to our own faculties are some of a hound's senses, that at the
end of this examination Finn the wolfhound actually did know Lady
Desdemona the bloodhound quite as thoroughly as humans know anybody
after a dozen or so of meetings and much beating of the air in speech.

This process ended, the two hounds turned and, with many friendly nudges
and shoulder-rubbings, proceeded up the meadow together in the wake of
the Nuthill party, toward the house of Shaws. One cannot translate
precisely Finn's remark to Desdemona at the end of the examination, but
the sense of it was probably something of this sort:

"Yes, you are all right. I like you. Let's be friends."

IV

THE OPEN-AIR CALL

That meeting with Desdemona in the walled inclosure at Shaws was the
beginning of many jolly days for Finn. Colonel Forde and his family were
both interested and amused by the warm friendship struck up between
their beautiful young bloodhound and the famous Finn, with his long
record of unique experiences on both sides of the world. Neither hound
found any meaning whatever, of course, in the laughing remark made to
the Master by Colonel Forde that afternoon, as they strolled round the
kennels, followed by the now inseparable Finn and Desdemona. The Colonel
paused to lay a hand affectionately on Finn's head, and, with a smile in
the Master's direction, he said:

"I suppose it's the old Shakespearian story over again, eh, Finn?
Desdemona loves you for the dangers you have passed--is that it? Well,
your friendship will have to be strictly platonic, my son, for this
particular Desdemona is pledged to no less puissant a prince than
Champion Windle Hercules, the greatest bloodhound sire of this age. 'A
marriage has been arranged,' as the papers say, Finn; and I hope it
won't put your long muzzle too badly out of joint--what?"

The Master laughed, and both men passed on, Finn following cheerfully
enough by Desdemona's side, conscious only that the men-folk were
talking in friendly, kindly fashion, and reeking nothing of the meaning
of their words. From his point of view, men-folk use such a mort of
words at all times, most of them quite unnecessary, and only a few of
them comprehensible. To folk accustomed, like the dog people, to
intercourse confined chiefly to looks and movements, the continuous
babble of words which humans indulge in is one of their most puzzling
attributes. When the Master really wanted Finn to understand anything,
the wolfhound very rarely failed him. But Colonel Forde's references to
Othello--well, it was all so much puppy talk, just amiable, meaningless
nickering to Finn and Desdemona.

That evening, while the Master and his folk were dining at Nuthill, Finn
arose from a nap in the hall and, strolling out through the garden,
loped easily away across the shoulder of Down betwixt Shaws and Nuthill
to visit Desdemona. He found her close to the walled inclosure by the
stable, and together they whiled away a couple of evening hours on the
springy thyme-and-clover-scented turf of the Downs. Just as darkness was
taking the place of twilight the scuttering of an over-venturesome
rabbit's tail caught Finn's eye, and cost that particular bunny its
life. Desdemona, to whom this little event opened up a quite new chapter
in life, was hugely excited over the kill, and could hardly allow Finn,
with his veteran's skill, to tear the pelt from the creature's warm body
before she made her first meal of rabbit's hind quarters.

It was a trivial episode enough, and especially so for a hunter of
Finn's experience, who, in his time, had pulled down dozens of old-men
kangaroos, not to mention the smaller fry of the Australian bush. And
yet, though he did not show it as Desdemona did, this trifling incident
was of quite epoch-marking importance for Finn, and stirred him
profoundly.

"Hullo, old friend! What of the hunting? I declare, you've quite the old
bush-ranging air to-night. Where have you been?" asked the Master, when
Finn rejoined his own family circle in the hall at Nuthill, toward
bedtime that night. Finn silently nuzzled the under side of the Master's
right wrist; but, though his dark eyes were eloquent, it was beyond him
to explain either his doings or his emotions. Yet the Master was not
altogether without understanding of these.

"Fact is," he said to Betty Murdoch, as he affectionately rubbed one of
Finn's ears, "I believe this old gallant has quite fallen in love with
Miss Desdemona, and I could swear he's been hunting in her company
to-night. He has all the look of it. I suspect it carries him back to
old days, past the quarantine, past even Australia--eh, old chap?--and
back to his hunting days about these very Downs, when we were at the
cottage, you know. I had to be a great deal in town in those days,
before we went to Australia, and Finn ran pretty much wild through his
last summer in England."

So the Master did know something of what passed in the wolfhound's mind,
though they had no common language. As a matter of fact, the evening
meeting with Desdemona, the frolic on the Downs, and, at the last, the
running down of that rabbit, had combined to stir Finn more than
anything else had stirred him since he had fought for the Master's life
in a drought-smitten corner of the bush in Australia. Much that had lain
dormant in the great hound since the adventurous days of his leadership
of a dingo pack had waked into active, insistent life that evening, and,
brushing aside the habits of a year's soft living, had filled him once
more with the keenness of the hunter and the fire of the masterful mate
and leader.

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