A. J. Dawson - Jan

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"If ye touch that dog again, my man, I'll break your jaw for you," came
from the sergeant in a hoarse 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 Dick Vaughan would have met with
instant response from Jan. But there was no Dick 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 Dick's, a man to be obeyed cheerfully enough in the ordinary
way, yet was not Dick. 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 Dick 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, nobility, 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 Sussex, with Grip of the wolf-like
fighting methods. Sourdough's third attack cost Jan a burning groove
down his hitherto 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 bloody 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 repetition 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 passing on comfortably through space after his attack,
Sourdough's shoulder met another bigger shoulder, braced like a granite
buttress 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 hoarse cry:

"Here, damme!" he shouted at O'Malley, "you'd better haul off your
captain's dog, or--or mine'll kill him!"

And with a resounding thwack he brought his riding-cane down across
Jan's forehead. It was this, rather than his own very serviceable two
chisels, that brought the husky sudden release from the grip upon his
neck, which, already deep-sunk, had been like to finish his career. The
high-crowned shape of Jan's skull, and the soft fineness of the skin and
hair that covered it, made him very sensitive to a blow on the head.
Also he knew it was a man's attack, and not a dog's. When he saw who the
man was, he roared at him very ferociously. And that was the first
occasion upon which Jan had ever shown his teeth in real anger to a
human.

Had not Sourdough been there, it is hard to say what might have
happened. As it was, the sergeant's intervention and Jan's angry
response thereto gave Sourdough the opportunity he had longed for. It
gave him, in safety, the rush at Jan from the side. It would have
availed him little if Jan had seen him coming. But Jan, engaged in
threatening his human enemy, saw nothing till the tremendous impact of
Sourdough's rush took him off his feet, and the husky got, not precisely
the true throat-hold he wanted, but a deadly hold, none the less, in the
flesh of Jan's dewlap.

The position of a few seconds earlier had been practically reversed.
Jan's blood was running between Sourdough's fangs now--a fiery tonic,
and veritable _eau-de-vie_ to the husky. Sourdough's catlike
tactics--perhaps the best and safest in such a case--were not adopted by
Jan, who never yet had used such a method. With a huge effort the hound
managed to twist his body in such a way as to gain foothold for his hind
feet; and then, by the exercise of sheer muscular strength, he curved
his neck and shoulder inch by inch (while still his blood slaked
Sourdough's thirst) until with sudden swiftness he was able to grip the
husky's near fore leg between his jaws, just on and below the knee.

Then Jan concentrated his whole being into the service of his jaws.
Sourdough gave a cry that was almost a scream, and his jaws flew apart,
dripping Jan's blood. Jan's teeth sank a shade deeper. Sourdough pivoted
round in agony, snapping at the air, and emitting an unearthly yowling,
snarling, grunting cry the while. Jan's teeth locked together, and then
were sharply withdrawn, leaving a very thoroughly smashed and punctured
fore leg to dangle by its skin and sinew.

During the past few seconds the sergeant had been raining down blows of
his cane on Jan's head. Now O'Malley grabbed Jan by his steel collar.

"By hivens, sergeant!" he spluttered, "if ye'll meet me afterwards,
without your stripes on, I'll--I'll give ye what Jan here'd give your
bloody wolf, if ye had the honesty to l'ave 'em to ut."

Jan dragged back momentarily, and--in justice to Sourdough's gameness,
be it said--the husky struggled hard from his master's entwining arms to
be at the enemy again on three legs. But O'Malley's pleadings were
urgent and his right arm strong (the left was curled round Micky
Doolan); and so it befell that, while Sergeant Moore remained tending
his wounded favorite, O'Malley, leading Jan, whose front was bleeding
badly, as were his shoulders and one ear, arrived at the barracks gates
just as Dick Vaughan trotted up to them, on his return from duty in
Regina.

"My hat!" cried Dick, as he dismounted. "Has he killed the sergeant's
dog?"

"He would ha' done, the darlin', if the sergeant had bin a man, in place
o' the mad divil he is," replied O'Malley.

XXIV

PROMOTION

For a week and more after the fight the barracks saw nothing of
Sourdough, whose leg was being mended for him in the stable of a
veterinary surgeon in Regina. Sergeant Moore would have made no
difficulty over spending half his pay upon the care of his beloved
husky.

Jan's ills were confined to flesh-wounds, and in any case Dick preferred
to doctor the big hound himself. The story of the fight, and of Sergeant
Moore's not very sporting part therein, was now known to every one in
the barracks, with the result that Jan became more than ever the
favorite of the force, and the sergeant more than ever its Ishmaelite,
against whom every man's hand was turned in thought, if not in deed. It
was little Sergeant Moore cared for that. It almost seemed as though he
welcomed and thrived upon the antipathy of his kind, even as a normal
person prospers upon the love of his fellows. The scowls of his comrades
were accepted by the sergeant as a form of tribute, so curiously may a
certain type of mind be warped by the influence of isolation.

It was at this stage, when Jan's flesh-wounds were no more than half
healed, that Captain Arnutt brought Dick Vaughan the intelligence that,
as the result of the Italian murder case and other matters, he was to be
promoted to acting-sergeant's rank, and given charge, on probation, of
the small post at Buck's Crossing, some sixty-odd miles north-west of
Regina.

The news brought something of a thrill to Dick, because it had been
arranged, by his own suggestion in Sussex, that his promotion to full
sergeant's rank should mark the period of quite another probationary
term; and here, undoubtedly, was a step toward it. On the other hand, he
had formed friendships in Regina; and while most of the people in the
barracks would be genuinely sorry to lose him, he, for his part, could
not contemplate without twinges of regret the prospect of exchanging
their society for the isolation of the two-roomed post-house at Buck's
Crossing.

"And in some ways it will be just as well for you and Jan to be out of
here for a time," said Captain Arnutt. "Sergeant Moore has quite a
number of fleas in his bonnet, and you can't afford to come to blows
with him--here, anyhow."

"No fear of that, sir," said Dick. "Why, he's nearly twice my age,
and--"

"Don't you make any mistake of that sort, my friend. There are limits to
any man's self-control. The sergeant may be twice your age, but he's
made of steel wire and moose-hide, and let me tell you he could give a
pretty good account of himself in a ring against any man in
Saskatchewan. Then, again, your intentions might be ever so good, but I
wouldn't like to answer for you, or for any other white man, if it comes
to being actually tackled by as heavy-handed a hard case as Sergeant
Moore. And then there's Sourdough. When that husky's leg is sound again
he'll be about as safe a domestic pet as a full-grown grizzly. No, it's
better you should be away for a bit. Also, my friend, it's a chance for
you. There are some pretty queer customers pass along that Buck's
Crossing trail these days, making north. Your beat's a long one. You'll
have a good deal of responsibility; and, who knows? You might win a
commission out of it. You won't be forgotten here, you know."

Then the order came that Dick was to take over the Buck's Crossing post
that same week. It was necessary for Dick to ride the whole sixty-odd
miles, but his kit was to be sent thirty-two miles by rail, and there
picked up by wagon for the remainder of the journey. Meantime there were
a number of stitches in Jan's dewlap and shoulders not yet ripe for
removal, and Dick decided that he would not ask the hound to cover over
sixty miles of trail in a day, as he meant to do. Therefore it was
arranged that O'Malley should see to putting Jan on the train when
Dick's kit was sent off, and that Jan should have a place in the wagon
for the thirty-odd miles lying between Buck's Crossing and its nearest
point of rail.

And then, having seen to these arrangements, Dick bade good-by to his
comrades, rubbed Jan's ears and told him to be a good lad till they met
again, in forty-eight hours' time, and rode away, carrying with him the
good wishes of every one in the barracks, with the exception of one who
looked out at him from the windows of the sergeants' quarters, with
grimly nodding head and a singularly baleful light in his eyes.

Sergeant Moore, who had just returned from three days' leave, had
learned from the veterinary surgeon that morning that Sourdough must
always limp a little on his near fore leg, which would be permanently a
little shorter than its fellow, by reason of the slight twist which
surgical care had been unable to prevent. Yet Sergeant Moore, for all
the glow of hatred in his eyes as he watched Dick Vaughan's departure,
nodded his grizzled head with the air of a man quite satisfied.

"So long, Tenderfoot," he growled. "You'll maybe find Sourdough's reach
a longer one than you reckon for, I'm thinking."

It was evident that day, to O'Malley and to all his friends, that Jan
felt the temporary parting with his lord and master a deal more than
Dick had seemed to feel it. And yet Jan could not possibly have known,
any more than Dick knew, as to what the promised forty-eight hours of
separation were to bring forth.

XXV

JAN GOES ON HIS TRAVELS

Jan spent that night beside O'Malley's bunk, in the face of regulations
to the contrary.

In the absence of Paddy from his stall, the good-hearted O'Malley had
not liked to leave Jan to the solitude of his bench. And shortly after
daylight next morning, with a new steel chain, purchased for this
journey, attached to his collar, Jan was put on board the west-bound
train consigned to Lambert's Siding, for wagon carriage, with Dick's
kit, to Buck's Crossing. Jan did not like this business at all. The
chain humiliated him, and the train was an abomination in his eyes. But
at the back of his mind was a dim consciousness that he was going to his
sovereign, and by his sovereign's will, and that was sufficient to
prevent any sort of protest on his part.

Arrived at Lambert's Siding, Jan's chain was fastened to a post by a
humorous person in greasy overalls, who said, as he noted the fine
dignity of Jan's appearance:

"Guess your kerridge will be along shortly, me lord."

The man in the overalls was a new hand transferred from the East, and
but lately settled in Canada, or he might probably have recognized Jan
as "the R.N.W.M.P. bloodhound," of newspaper celebrity.

A few minutes later a man in a fur cap drove up to the siding in a light
buckboard wagon, with a lot of sacking in its tray.

"Has Sergeant Vaughan's dog come from Regina?" asked the new-comer.

"Yep, I guess that's him," said Overalls.

"Well, I'm to pay his freight an' take him, and a wagon will call for
the other truck."

"That so?" rejoined Overalls, with indifference. "Well, I told me lord
his kerridge would be along shortly. Jest give us yer auto here, will
yer? Third line down. Hold on. Ye'd better have a receipt for the money.
Where's that blame pen?"

The first light snow of the season began to flutter down from out a
surprisingly clear sky, as Jan settled down in the buckboard, his chain
passed down through a hole and secured to the step outside, an
arrangement which struck Jan as highly unnecessary, since it kept his
head so low that he could not stand up in the wagon. However, Overalls
and the man in the fur cap (who had signed his name as Tom Smith) seemed
to think it all right, and so friendly Jan, his mind full of thoughts of
Dick Vaughan, accommodated himself docilely to the position, and was
soon quite a number of miles away from Lambert's Siding.

When the Buck's Crossing wagon arrived there an hour or so later, its
driver seemed surprised that there was no dog for him to carry with
Sergeant Vaughan's kit. But he was not a man given to speculation. He
just grunted, expectorated, and said, shortly:

"Well, I guess that's right, then. Muster made some other arrangement;
an' it's just as well, for I'm late an' I've got to have my near front
wheel off an' doctor it a bit, so I won't make the Crossin' till midday
to-morrow, I reckon. I'll be campin' at Lloyd's to-night."

Overalls just nodded as he took the wagoner's signature for Sergeant
Vaughan's kit; and without another thought both men dismissed from their
rather vacant minds (as was perfectly natural, no doubt) all further
thought of a matter which did not concern them, despite its
life-and-death importance to the son of Finn and Desdemona.

After perhaps an hour and a half, the buckboard was pulled up in a
fenced yard beside a small homestead. Here Jan parted with the man in
the fur cap and never set eyes upon him again. His chain was now taken
by a different sort of man; a very lean, spare, hard-bitten little man,
with bright dark eyes and a leather-colored face. He thanked the
fur-capped man for having kindly brought Jan along. Fur-cap deprecated
thanks, but accepted a dollar. And then the leather-faced man led Jan
away. They walked for perhaps a couple of miles, and then they were
joined by another man, who called the first man Jean, so that Jan looked
up quickly, thinking he had been addressed.

"Hees name Jan," explained the first man, casually, pointing to Jan's
collar.

"H'm! That so? Better get rid o' that collar, Jean, eh?"

From a bag in the buggy in which they had found the second man,
wire-cutters were produced, and Jan's collar cut in sunder and removed,
after a leather collar had been buckled on in its place and the chain
attached to that. Jan had a vague feeling of uneasiness about this
operation; but only a vague feeling. Like all other animal-folk, he had
long ago arrived at the conclusion that men-folk frequently did quite
unaccountable things; that a dog would have no rest in life if he set
himself to puzzle out a reason for everything he saw the sovereign
people do. Captain Arnutt had locked that collar about his neck, and a
very silly, stiff, and awkward contraption he had thought it. Now
another man, equally without apparent rhyme or reason, took it off and
substituted a leathern collar with a queer, fishy, gamy sort of smell.
Well, it would make little odds to Jan; if only these people would hurry
up about taking him to his own man.

Thinking of that, Jan quite gladly made the best of the very cramped
quarters given him in the buggy, though he grew desperately tired of
those same quarters before night fell and he was transferred to the more
roomy dog-box of a Canadian Northern train. Without doubt the train
would take him direct to Dick. (Until the previous day, his sole
experience of trains in Canada had been closely connected with Dick.) So
confident was Jan of this, that he bent himself quite cheerfully to the
task of tearing and eating the lump of meat given him by Jean before the
train started. Evidently this Jean was a friendly, well-disposed sort of
a person, and in any case any man at all engaged in taking Jan to Dick
Vaughan deserved ready obedience and respect.

In some such way Jan reflected what time the C.N.R. train by which he
traveled rumbled swiftly along its course for Edmonton; and Dick
Vaughan, away back in Buck's Crossing, wondered what might be delaying
the wagoner from Lambert's Siding; the wagoner he was not to see before
the middle of the next day, and then only to learn that the man knew
nothing of Jan's whereabouts.

When Jan left that train in the big crowded depot at Edmonton next day,
winter had descended upon the greater part of North America. The change
was the more marked for Jan by reason that snow had come to Edmonton a
full day earlier than it came to Lambert's Siding. Jan had seen snow
before on the Sussex Downs; but that had been a kind of snow quite
different from this. That snow had been soft and clammy. This was crisp
and dry as salt. Also the air was colder than any air Jan had ever
known, though mild enough for northern winter air, seeing that the
thermometer registered only some five and twenty degrees of frost. And
the sun shone brightly. There was no wind. It was an air rich in
kindling, stimulating properties; an air that made life, movement, and
activity desirable for all, and optimistic determination easy and
natural for most folk.

"By gar!" said Jean to his friend Jake, as together they led Jan from
the train. "You mark me now what I say, thees Jan he's got all them
huskies beat beefore he start. Eh? Hee's great dog, thees Jan."

Jake nodded, and the three of them strode on through the dry powdery
snow. One knew by their walk that these men had covered great distances
on their feet. Their knees swung easily to every stride, with a hint of
the dip that comes from long use of snow-shoes. For a little while Jan
hardly thought of Dick Vaughan, so busy was he in absorbing new
impressions. But when the walk had lasted almost an hour, he began again
to wonder about Dick, and his deep-pouched eyes took on once more the
set look of waiting watchfulness which meant that he was hoping at any
moment to sight his man.

And then they came to a small wooden house with a large barn and a
sod-walled stable beside it. Jan's chain was hitched round a stout
center post in the barn, and there he was left. Later Jean brought him a
tin dish of water and a big lump of dried fish which had had some warm
fat smeared over it, Jean having rightly guessed that it was Jan's first
experience of this form of dog-food. The fat was well enough, and Jan
licked it rather languidly. But the fish did not appeal to him, and so
he left it and went off to sleep, little thinking that he would get no
other kind of food than this for many days to come.

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