CHAPTER XXVI

THE MOST PAINFUL EVENT OF MY LIFE

Three weeks ago, I was just about to bring this partial story of my life to a close, when something very tragic, yet not altogether unexpected, happened to me.

It began with a lie. I was sitting one sharp, cool afternoon all alone up in the Bonstone orchard, thinking what pleasant homes Gringo and I had, and how few worries we experienced--a dangerous thing for dog or man to do, for something is sure to happen--when Reddy O’Mare came trotting round the corner of the barn.

Reddy is a bright-red, cocky Irish-American terrier who lives on the next place to the Bonstones--a magnificent estate called Greenlands.

“Hello! Boy,” he said gaily.

“Hello!” I said soberly. “This is the second time you’ve been here to-day.”

“Twice for me, means twice for you,” he said, in his impudent way.

“Look here, Reddy,” I said, “I’m Gringo’s best friend. He doesn’t like you, and he’s laying for you. He says if you come over here once more and sneak Weary Winnie over to Greenlands, he’ll wallop you.”

Reddy laughed. “Gringo’s an old fool,” he said gaily. “Sure Winnie likes a frolic with a dog her own age.”

“She has dogs of her own age here in her own home,” I said.

“But all the dog-world likes to wander,” he said with a wink, for he knew the story of my career.

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. He is so merry, so full of tricks. However, I thought it my duty to warn him again. “Look out for Gringo,” I said.

“Gringo is an old soldier dog,” he said, “he bosses too much.”

This was true, but Gringo is my best friend always and forevermore, and I was not going to discuss him with this care-free wag.

“Sure you ought to pity me,” he said, “shut up in that big house with forty thousand servants, but never a dog to play with.”

“I do pity you, Reddy,” I said. “I think it is very hard for your master to go to the city, and leave you all alone with the servants who don’t pet you. You know you are always welcome in our home.”

“But it’s the forbidden game I always want to play,” he said, with a spring in the air at a passing fly.

“Here comes Gringo,” I said, looking toward the house.

“Let him come,” said Reddy, who was no coward, and he flopped down on the grass.

The old dog came sagging along. Weary Winnie was some paces behind him, and when she saw Reddy she dashed ahead, crouched to the ground, and got all ready for a frolic with him.

Gringo went right up to Reddy. “Stand up,” he said.

Reddy stood up, and Gringo took him by the throat.

I thought he would kill him. I was first in terror, then in agony. Reddy was very valuable, and if he were killed by one of the Bonstone dogs, it would make bad blood between Greenlands and Green Hill. I was also irritated with Gringo. He was too severe with the young dogs.

I ran up and down. Would no one come? Not a soul was in sight. I galloped toward the house, then I had a sudden thought, and ran back.

Gringo still had Reddy pinned to the earth in that awful silence. “Gringo,” I whispered, after I had leaped close to his ear, “your boss is having a fit in the dining-room.”

Gringo never uttered a sound. He just let go, and raced to the house. His private vengeance was thrown to the wind, when it was a question of his dear master.

“Skedaddle, Reddy,” I said as he floundered to his feet, and staggered against Weary Winnie who had sat watching the attack in her quiet bull-doggy way.

Reddy skedaddled, and this time Winnie did not go with him.

I might have skedaddled too, but something told me I should not mend matters by doing this. I had better stand my ground.

Presently Gringo came waddling back from the house. He was in a most furious bulldog rage. I had told him a lie, and he was telling himself that he had been a fool to believe me. Mr. Bonstone was never in the dining-room at this time of day.

Beside that, I had given him an awful fright, and he was no longer quite young.

“Gringo,” I said, “I thought you were going to kill that dog.”

He said never a word, but I knew what he was thinking--couldn’t I trust him to know better than to kill a neighbour’s dog? He was merely punishing him.

“I couldn’t stand it,” I went on, “I was thinking of your reputation.”

Still he didn’t answer me, and I got angry. “You are too cross with the young dogs,” I said. “Everybody says so.”

This cut him to the quick, and he gave me an awful look. Then, for his anger was still burning in him, he had to give me a dig. “I’ll never trust you again,” he said.

Now I was in a rage. I had done the thing for the best. I was trying to keep peace, and preserve the good name of our circle of dogs.

“You are wilfully misunderstanding me,” I exclaimed.

“A lie is a lie,” he said, with a sullen fire in his dark eyes. “You never lied before.”

“And I never will again,” I yelped at him, “unless I see you trying to kill some one.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill him,” he retorted.

“You looked like it,” I said, and we went on arguing and abusing each other for half an hour. We finally got down to the question, is it right to lie under any circumstances? All the dogs heard us yapping and snarling at each other, and they came running, and took a tongue in the argument. They were tremendously excited. A row between two old friends like Gringo and myself was a most startling event in our dog circle.

Some were for lies, some against. Yeggie said a lie was a mighty convenient thing when a dog got in a corner. Sir Walter Scott said it was underbred to lie. Czarina said to lie with discretion was diplomatic. Weary Winnie said she’d rather lie than speak the truth, whereupon she got a nip from Gringo, and was sent to bed.

Finally Gringo turned to me in a passion, and said, “Get home with you--you make yourself cheap coming here so much.”

Imagine my feelings--I am a dog of spirit, and I raced out of that orchard pretty quick. Gringo and I had never had words before, and I was so broken-hearted that I yelped with pain as I ran home.

Now, being so taken up with myself, and listening to the animated barks behind me, for every dog was remonstrating with Gringo for his severity toward me, I did not notice properly the way I was going.

Usually, I am what is called an alert dog. I observe what is before, and behind, and all round me, and ever since the dog-show, I had been more than ever on the watch, for I remembered the evil looks of the two youths who had stared at me.

This afternoon I forgot them. I had told a lie and lost a friend, and this melancholy happening chased everything else out of my mind. So I ran blindly, and evil fell upon me.

I was on what we called the rock walk, a long lane between our property and the Bonstones’. Thick-growing alders were each side of it, and I leaped from stone to stone, and ran occasionally along grassy places, till I was near the Osage orange hedge that surrounded our rose-garden.

If I had been on my guard, I would have sensed the presence of strangers, and would have noticed a rustling in the bushes. As it was, I pulled up too late.

Something had just said to me, “Danger ahead, Boy: stop short, and go back.”

I whirled in my tracks, but it was too late. A stranger had stepped out of the bushes, a rope had curled through the air--I was lassoed for the first time in my life.

Half-choking, I was hurled to the ground. Something gave me a whack on the head, and I was stunned. Only partly, for I have been stolen several times, and I pretended to be more unconscious than I was.

I knew better than to cry out. I just saw that the two men bending over me were not the ones who had been at the dog-show. They were too clever to come here themselves. These were older men. I knew I was being carried to a motor car, that I was put in a box and run under the seat, and that we sped toward New York.

I was terribly unhappy, of course, but not despairing. No one had been able to keep me in a place that I wanted to get out of. I came to myself fully after a bit, and lay still and watched events.

These fellows were pretending to be electric light or telephone men. Quite often, when other automobiles were passing, they got out, and tapped poles in a knowing way. They wore big leather belts, and they dragged about ropes and coils of wire. I could look out of a crack in the box, and I heard sounds that I pieced together.

I did not know by which road we were going toward the city, but something told me after the lapse of an hour or two, that we were in the Mount Vernon or Pelham Manor district.

I lay low, and went on saying nothing; and after a time I felt the car stop, and my box was taken up and carried into some kind of a shed, a door was banged together, the box was opened, and four young men faces confronted me.

Two of them were the ones I had noticed at the dog-show. They had paid, or were going to pay, the others for stealing me. I was ordered to get out, and in a way that was not too feeble, nor too lively, I crawled out on the earth floor.

They had stolen me to sell. I knew that, and I knew also this was not the time to see about escaping. I was really exhausted, for mental worry is as fatiguing to animals as to human beings, and I just dropped down on a heap of straw.

“Ain’t much to look at,” said one of the men who had stolen me.

“It’s points,” said one of the white-faced youths. “I don’t understand the gab about it, but he’s worth seven thousand all right.”

Their talk was dreadful--all tarnished with oaths and strange slang that of course I shall translate, for it is not fit to repeat.

Poor fools--poor young fools, I thought as I looked at them. If master could only get at you--but you belong to the class he dreads, that pale-faced, anemic lot without morals, and with absolutely nothing to work on. It seems as if ill-health, and crowding and poverty, make a criminal class that is the most desperate, for you can’t do much with it. These two poor wretches should have been locked up and carefully watched. All the time I was with them I did not hear one decent word uttered by them, I did not see one decent action performed. They were rotten through and through.

I tried not to be revengeful as I listened to them. The two fellows who had stolen me were more decent than the two others. They were clamouring for their money, but they were assured none would be forthcoming till I was sold. They detailed with disgusting glee how they had hung about Pleasant River all day, pretending to be telephone men.

“He’s cute,” they said in describing me. “He gives strangers a wide berth. We most got him twice, but he veered off and ran down the road, not minding us in particular, but just ’cause he’s cute.”

I groaned inwardly. I remembered these two fellows who had even had the audacity to come up near the house and examine our poles.

Finally they went away, and my two jockeys went to a rough table in the corner of the shed, took up a black bottle and shook it.

I had no fear of their injuring me. I was too valuable for that. In a minute, it flashed upon me what they were going to do. I was to be dyed.

I smiled sardonically. My dear master would raise heaven and earth to find me. A little dye would not turn him off the track. I hoped they would be careful about my eyes, and they were, for one man rebuked the other sharply, for letting the brush come too near an eyelid. Nothing was to be done to me that would take anything off my market value.

I felt like a fool though, as they set me on the rough table and went all over my hair with a brush. How the other dogs would laugh if they saw me. A white wire-haired fox-terrier has some style--an all black one, none whatever.

However, I just made up my mind to submit. There was absolutely no use in worrying, and for to-night, I need not fatigue my brain by thoughts of escape. When I had been stolen before, I had learned to take my capture easily, till my captors were off their guard which they never were at first. I must wait some days.

One thing I had done before when trapped, was to pretend to like my captors. That rôle would not take here. These two fellows had no more comprehension of the dog world than if they had been wooden men. They loved no one, feared no one; they seemed to hate everybody, even each other. It was of no use to try to cajole them, so I just pretended to submit, without looking too happy or appearing to be ill, for then they would have dosed me.

So I let them dye me and tie me, or rather chain me to a stout iron bar run down into the earth. They pried off my collar, made a hole in the ground, and buried it, and put a new, very strong metal one on me. They acted as if they knew I was a dog with brains, but I fancy their motive was simply one inspired by native cunning and skill in stealing. They must take every precaution to ensure the success of their scheme.

Well, at last I was free to lie down on my bed of straw. One of them stayed with me while the other went into the shabby house attached to the shed and brought me out a plate of meat. Then they set a pan of water beside me and went into the house, leaving the door open. I could not make a movement without their hearing me.