Buff: A Collie and Other Dog-Stories — The Grudge, Part 2

Tam trotted, for the tenth time, to the spot at the river-shore, where the Black had bounded into the water.

Impatiently,--always with that queer little throaty whimper,--he cast up and down along the bank, in quest of some place where Wisp’s slayer might perhaps have doubled back to land.

Presently, Trask called to him.

For the first time in his blameless life, Tam hesitated before obeying.

He was standing, hock-deep, in the swirling water; sniffing the air and peering through the dusk along the wooded banks on the far side of the stream.

Again, and more imperatively, Frayne called him.

With visible distaste, the collie turned and made his way back towards his master.

Frayne had finished his own fruitless investigations and was starting homeward.

Half-way to the house he paused and looked back.

Tam had ceased to follow him and was staring once more at the patches of trampled and dyed earth.

A third and sharper call from Trask brought the collie to heel.

“I don’t blame you, old boy,” said Frayne, as they made their way towards the lighted kitchen.

“But you can’t find him that way.

To-morrow you and I are going to take a little trip through the mountains.

I’d rather have your help on a hunt like that than any hound’s. You won’t forget his scent in a hurry.

And you know, as well as I, what he’s done.

” On the way to the house, Frayne paused at the sheepfold; and made a careful detour of it.

But the inspection satisfied him that the fence (built long ago with special regard to the mountainpack’s forays) was still too stout to permit of any dog’s breaking through it.

And he passed on to the house; again having to summon the newly-furtive collie from an attempt to go back to the river.

“He won’t pay us another visit to-night, Tam,” he told the sullen dog, as they went indoors.

“He’s tricky.

And if he’s really on the rampage, here in the Valley, he’ll strike next in some place miles away from here.

Wait till to-morrow.

” But once more Tam did not follow his overlord’s bidding.

For, at dawn of the morrow, when Trask came out of the house, shotgun in hand, the dog was nowhere to be found.

Never before had Tam forsaken his duties as guardian of the farm to wander afield without Frayne.

The jingle of the telephone brought Trask back into the house.

On the other end of the wire was an irate farmer.

“I’m sending word all along the line,” came his message.

“Last night a dog bust into my hencoop and killed every last one of my prize Hamburgs and fifty-three other chickens, besides.

He worked as quiet as a fox.

’Twasn’t till I heard a chicken squawk that I came out.

That must have been the last of the lot; and the dog had got careless.

I

had just a glimpse of him as he sneaked off in the dark.

Great big cuss he was.

As big as a house.

Looked something like a wolf by that bum light; and something like a collie, too.

Last evening I got news that Gryce, up Suffern-way, lost a lamb, night before, from some prowling dog.

D’you s’pose the dogs from the mountains is loose again?

” “One of them is,” returned Frayne.

“I’m going after him, now.

” He hung up the receiver, and, gun under arm, made his way to the scow lying at the side of the dock.

Crossing the river, he explored the bank for a half mile in both directions.

Failing to find sign or trail of the Black, he struck into the mountains.

It was late that night when Trask slouched wearily into his own house and laid aside his gun.

“Any trace of him?

” asked Mildred, eagerly.

“Not a trace,” answered Frayne.

“I quartered the range, farther back than we ever hunted before.

And I asked a lot of questions at that God-forsaken mountaineer settlement, up there.

That’s all the good it did.

I might hunt for a year and not get any track of the beast.

Those mountaineers are all liars, of course.

Not one of ’em, would admit they’d ever seen or heard of the dog.

If I’d had Tam with me, I might have caught the trail.

To-morrow, I’ll see he goes along.

He----” “Tam?

” repeated Mildred, in surprise.

“Why, wasn’t he with you?

He hasn’t been home all day.

He----” “Hasn’t been home?

Do you mean to say he didn’t come back?

” “No,” said his wife, worriedly.

“When I got up this morning and found you both gone, I thought of course you’d taken him along, as you said you were going to.

Didn’t----” “He wasn’t anywhere around when I started,” replied Frayne.

“He’s--he’s never been away for a whole day, or even for a whole hour, before.

I wonder----” “Oh, do you suppose that horrible brute has killed Tam, too?

” quavered Mildred, in new terror.

“Not he,” Trask reassured her.

“Not he, or any other mortal dog.

But,” he hesitated, then went on, shamefacedly, “but I’ll tell you what I _do_ think.

I believe Tam has gone hunting, on his own account.

I

believe he’s trailing that mongrel.

If he is, he has a man’s size job cut out for him.

For the Black is as tricky as a weasel.

Tam thought more of Wisp than he thought of anything else.

And he was like another animal when he found what had happened, down yonder.

Take my word for it, he is after the dog that murdered his chum.

Whether he’ll ever get him, is another matter.

But, if he really is after him, he’ll never give up the hunt, as long as he has a breath of life left in him.

Either he’ll overhaul the cur or--well, either that or we’ll never see him again.

There’s no sense in my poking around in the mountains without him.

All we can do is wait.

That and try to find Tam and chain him up till he forgets this crazy revenge-idea.

” But even though the Fraynes did not see their cherished collie when they arose next morning, they did not lack for news of him.

In the middle of a silent and doleful breakfast a telephone ring summoned Trask from the table.

“That you, Frayne?

” queried a truculent voice.

“This is Trippler,--at Darlington.

I got rotten news for you.

But it’s a whole lot rottener for _me_.

Last night my cow-yard was raided by a dog.

He killed two of the month-old Jersey calves and pretty near ripped the throat out of one of my yearlings.

I heard the racket and I ran out with my gun and a flashlight.

The cow-yard looked like a battlefield.

The dog had skipped.

Couldn’t see a sign of him, anywheres.

“But about half an hour later he came back.

He came back while I was redding up the yard and trying to quiet the scared critters.

He came right to the cow-yard gate and stood sniffing there as bold as brass;

like he was trying to catch the scent of more of my stock to kill.

I

heard his feet a-pattering and I turned the flashlight on him.

“He was _your_ dog, Frayne!

That big dark coloured collie dog of yours.

I saw him as plain as day.

I upped with my gun and I let him have it.

For I was pretty sore.

But I must have missed him, clean.

For there wasn’t any blood near his footprints, in the mud, when I looked.

He just lit out.

But I’m calling up to tell you you’ll have a big bill to pay on this; and----” “Hold on,” interrupted Frayne, quietly.

“I’ll be up there, in twenty minutes.

Good-bye.

” As fast as his car could carry him, Trask made his way up the Valley to Darlington, and to the Trippler farm.

There an irately unloving host awaited him.

“Before you go telling me the whole story all over again,” Trask broke in on an explosive recital, “take me over to the exact spot where you saw Tam standing and sniffing.

The ground all around here is soaked from the shower we had last evening.

I want to see the tracks you were speaking of.

” Muttering dire threats and whining lamentations for his lost calves, Trippler led the way to the cow-yard; pointing presently to a gap in the privet hedge which shut off the barns from the truck garden.

Frayne went over to the gap and proceeded to inspect the muddy earth, inch by inch.

“It was here Tam stood when you turned the light on him?

” he asked.

“Right just there,” declared Trippler.

“And I c’n swear to him.

He----” “Come over here,” invited Trask.

“There are his footprints.

As you said.

And I’d know them anywhere.

There’s no other dog of his size with such tiny feet.

He gets them from his sire, Sunnybank Lad.

Those are Tam’s footprints, I admit that.

I’d know them anywhere;--even if they didn’t show the gash in the outer pad of the left forefoot; where he gouged himself on barbed wire when he was a pup.

” “You admit it was him, then!

” orated Trippler.

“That’s all I need to hear you say!

Now, how much----?

” “No, no,” gently denied Frayne.

“It isn’t anywhere near all you need to hear.

Now, let’s go back into the cow-yard.

As I crossed it, just now, I saw dozens of dog-footprints, among the hoof-marks of the calves.

Let’s take another look at them.

” Grumblingly, yet eager to add this corroboratory evidence, Trippler followed him to the wallow of churned mud which marked the scene of slaughter.

At the first clearly defined set of footprints, Trask halted.

“Take a good look at those,” he adjured.

“Study them carefully.

Here, these, for instance;--where the dog planted all fours firmly for a spring.

They’re the marks of splay feet, a third larger than Tam’s;

and not one of them has that gash in the pad;--the one I pointed out to you, back at the gap.

Look for yourself.

” “Nonsense!

” fumed Trippler, albeit a shade uneasily, as he stood up stiffly after a peering study of the prints.

“Anyhow,” he went on, “all it proves is that there was two of ’em.

This big splay-footed cuss and your collie.

They was working in couples, like killers often does.

” “Were they?

” Frayne caught him up.

“Were they?

Then suppose you look carefully all through this welter of cow-yard mud; and see if you can find a single footprint of Tarn’s. And while you’re looking, let me tell you something.

” As Trippler went over the yard’s mud with gimlet eyes, Trask related the story of Wisp’s killing; and his own theory as to Tam.

“He’s trailing that black dog,” he finished.

“He struck his scent somewhere, and followed him.

He got here a half-hour too late.

And then when you fired at him he run off to pick up the trail again.

But I doubt if he got it.

For, the Black would probably be cunning enough to take to the river, after a raid like this.

He’d have sense enough to know somebody would track him.

That brute has true wolf-cunning.

” “Maybe--maybe you’re right,” hesitated Trippler, after a minute search of the yard had failed to reveal a footprint corresponding with Tam’s. “And the county’s got to pay for ‘any damage done to stock by an unknown dog.

’ That’s the law.

I’m kind of glad, too.

You see, I like old Tam.

Besides, I c’n c’llect more damages from the county than I c’d c’llect from a lawsoot with a neighbour.

What’ll we do now?

Fix up a posse; like we did, the other times?

” “No,” replied Trask.

“It would do no good.

The Black is too clever.

And in summer there are too many ways to throw off the scent.

Tam will get him,--if anyone can.

Let’s leave it to him.

” But other farmers were not so well content to leave the punishment of the mysterious raider to Tam.

As the days went on, there were more and more tidings of the killer.

Up and down the Valley he worked; never twice in succession in the same vicinity.

Twice, an hour or so after his visits, men saw Tam prowling along the mongrel’s cooling tracks.

They reported to Frayne that the collie had grown lean and gaunt and that his beautiful coat was one mass of briar and burr; and that he had slunk away, wolf-fashion, when they called to him.

Frayne, himself, caught no slightest sight of his beloved dog; though, occasionally, in the mornings, he found empty the dish of food he had set out on the previous night.

Trask was working out the problem, for himself, nowadays, deaf to all requests that he head another band of hunters into the mountains.

He was getting no sleep to speak of.

But he was thrilling with the suspense of what sportsmen know as “the still hunt.

” Every evening, when his chores and his supper were finished, Frayne went to the sheepfold and led thence a fat wether that had a real genius for loud bleating.

This vocal sheep he would tether to a stake near the river-bank.

Then he himself would study the trend of the faint evening breeze; and would take up a position in the bushes, somewhere to leeward of the sheep.

There, gun across knees, he would sit, until early daylight.

Sometimes he dozed.

Oftener he crouched, tense and wakeful, in his covert; straining his eyes, through the gloom, for the hoped-for sight of a slinking black shadow creeping towards the decoy.

Not alone to avenge the death of Wisp and to rid the Valley of a scourge did he spend his nights in this way.

He knew Tam; as only a born dogman can know his dog.

He missed the collie, keenly.

And he had solid faith that on the death of the Black, the miserable quest would end and Tam would return to his old home and to his old habits.

So, night after night, Frayne would keep his vigil.

Morning after morning, he would plod home, there to hear a telephoned tale of the Black’s depredations at some other point of the Valley.

At first his nightly watch was kept in dense darkness.

But, soon the waxing moon lightened the river-bank; and made the first hours of the sentry duty easier.

Frayne began to lose faith in his own scheme.

He had an odd feeling that the Black somehow knew of his presence in the thicket and that Frayne’s Farms was left unvisited for that reason.

Trask’s immunity from the Black’s depredations was the theme of much neighboured talk, as time went on.

Once more was revived Trippler’s theory that Tam and the Black were hunting in couples and that the collie (like so many dogs which have “gone bad”) was sparing his late master’s property.

On all these unpleasant themes Trask Frayne was brooding, one night, late in the month; as he sat in uncomfortable stillness amid the bushes and stared glumly out at the occasionally-bleating wether.

He had had a hard day.

And the weeks of semi-sleeplessness were beginning to tell cruelly on him.

His senses had taken to tricking him, of late.

For instance, at one moment, this night, he was crouching there, waiting patiently for the full moon to rise above the eastern hills, to brighten his vigil.

The next moment,--though he was certain he had not closed his eyes,--the moon had risen and was riding high in the clear heavens.

Frayne started a little, and blinked.

As he did so, his disturbed mind told him he had not awakened naturally, but that he had been disturbed by some sound.

He shifted his drowsy gaze towards the tethered sheep.

And at once all slumber was wiped from his brain.

The wether was lying sprawled on the ground, in a posture that nature neither intends nor permits.

Its upflung legs were still jerking convulsively, like galvanised stilts.

And above it was bending a huge dark shape.

The moon beat down mercilessly on the tableau of the slain sheep, and of the Black, with his fangs buried deep in the twisting throat.

Now that the longed-for moment had at last come, Trask found himself seized by an unaccountable numbness of mind and of body.

By a mighty effort he regained control of his faculties.

Slowly and in utter silence he lifted the cocked gun from his knees and put its butt to the hollow of his shoulder.

The Black looked up, in quick suspicion, from his meal.

Even in the excitement of the instant, Frayne found scope to wonder at the brute’s ability to hear so noiseless a motion.

And his sleep-numbed finger sought the trigger.

Then, in a flash, he knew why the Black’s great head had lurched so suddenly up from the interrupted meal.

From out a clump of alder, twenty feet to shoreward of the river-bank orgy, whirled a tawny shape.

With the speed of a flung spear it sped; straight for the feasting mongrel.

And, in the mere breath of time it took to dash through the intervening patch of moonlight, Frayne recognised the newcomer.

The Black sprang up from beside the dead sheep, and faced the foe he could no longer elude.

Barely had he gained his feet when Tam was upon him.

Yet the mongrel was not taken unaware.

His crafty brain was alert and the master of his sinewy body.

As Tam leaped, the black dog reared to meet him.

Then, in practically the same gesture, the Black shifted his direction, and dived beneath the charging collie, lunging for the latter’s unprotected stomach.

It was a manœuvre worthy of a wolf;

and one against which the average dog must have been helpless.

But the Black’s opponent was a collie.

And, in the back of his brain, though never in his chivalric heart, a collie is forever reverting to his own wolf ancestors.

Thus, as the Black changed the course of his lunge, Tam, in mid-air, changed his.

By a violent twist of every whalebone muscle, Tam whirled himself sidewise.

And the Black’s ravening jaws closed on nothing.

In another instant,--even before he had touched ground,--Tam had slashed with his curving eyeteeth.

This is another trick known to practically no animal save the wolf and the wolf’s direct descendant, the collie.

The razorlike teeth cut the Black’s left ear and cheek as cleanly as might a blade.

But, in the same motion, the Black’s flying head had veered; and his jaws had found a hold above Tam’s jugular.

Again, with the normal dog, such a hold might well have ended the fight.

But, the Providence which ordained that a collie should guard sheep on icy Highland moors also gave him an unbelievably thick coat, to fend off the weather.

And this coat serves as an almost invulnerable armour; especially at the side of the throat.

The Black’s teeth closed upon a quantity of tangled fur; but on only the merest patch of skin and on none of the under flesh at all.

Tam ripped himself free, leaving a double handful of ruff between the Black’s grinding jaws.

As the mongrel spat out the encumbering gag of fur, Tam’s curved fang laid bare the scarred shoulder once grazed by Trask Frayne’s buckshot.

And, in a rolling, fighting heap, the two enemies rolled over and over together on the dew-drenched grass.

Frayne’s gun was levelled.

But the man did not dare fire.

By that deceptive light, he had no assurance of hitting one dog without also killing the other.

And, chafing at his own impotence, he stood stock-still, watching the battle.

Both dogs were on their feet again; rearing and rending in mute fury.

No sound issued from the back-curled lips of either.

This was no mere dogfight, as noisy as it was pugnacious.

It was a struggle to the death.

And the dogs realised it.

Thrice more, the Black struck for the jugular.

Twice, thanks to Tam’s lightning quickness, he scored a clean miss. The third time, he annexed only another handful of hair.

With his slashes he was luckier.

One of Tam’s forelegs was bleeding freely.

So was a cut on his stomach, where the Black had sought to disembowel him.

And one side of his muzzle was laid open.

But the collie had given over such mere fencing tactics as slashing.

He was tearing into his powerful and wily foe with all the concentrated fury of his month’s vain pursuit of vengeance.

The Black dived for the collie’s forelegs, seeking to crack their bones in his mighty jaws and thus render his foe helpless.

Nimbly, Tam’s tiny white forefeet whisked away from the peril of each dive.

In redoubled fury he drove for the throat.

And the two clashed, shoulder to shoulder.

Then, amid the welter, came the final phase of the fight.

The Black, as the two reared, lunged again for the collie’s hurt throat.

Tam jerked his head and neck aside to avoid the grip.

And, as once before, the Black changed the direction of his lunge.

With the swiftness of a striking snake, he made the change.

And, before the other could thwart or so much as divine his purpose, he had secured the coveted hold, far up on Tam’s left foreleg.

No mere snap or slash, this; but a death grip.

The Black’s teeth sank deep into the captured leg; grinding with a force which presently must snap the bones of the upper leg and leave the collie crippled against a practically uninjured and terrible antagonist.

The rest would be slaughter.

Tam knew his own mortal peril.

He knew it even before Trask Frayne came rushing out from his watching-place, brandishing the gun, club-fashion.

The collie did not try to wrench free and thereby to hurry the process of breaking his leg or of tearing out the shoulder-muscles.

He thought, as quickly as the mongrel had lunged.

Rearing his head aloft, he drove down at the Black.

The latter was clinging with all his might to the collie’s foreleg.

And, in the rapture of having gained at last a disabling grip, he ignored the fact that he had left an opening in his own defence;--an opening seldom sought in a fight, except by a wolf or a wolf’s descendant.

It was for this opening that Tam-o’-Shanter struck.

In a trice his white teeth had buried themselves in the exposed nape of the Black’s neck.

Here, at the brain’s base, lies the spinal cord, dangerously within reach of long and hard-driven fangs.

And here, Tam had fastened himself.

An instant later,--but an instant too late,--the Black knew his peril.