CHAPTER XXVII

WEARY DAYS AND A RESCUE

There is no use in recounting the weary days and nights that passed. I soon figured out the whole story. These two scamps, after finding out my value at the dog-show, had set enquiries on foot in the underworld, and had found out that there was a demand for wire-haired fox-terriers on the Pacific Coast. If they could ship me out there, they would get even a little more than the seven thousand dollars. The question was, to raise the money for a railway ticket. Some one must accompany me.

Day after day I heard them arguing. They brought out men, and women too, from New York. They would say that it was a sure thing, any one who went in with them would be well rewarded, but everybody seemed shy of advancing money enough for my ticket, and one of theirs, to California.

All these difficulties pleased me. I, of course, viewed with dismay a trip to California. Unfortunately for me, a day came when a middle-aged man who was the leader of a gang of forgers seemed to fall in with their scheme. He had succeeded in passing a worthless cheque on a trust company and was feeling very rich. He told my young men that he would advance them one hundred and fifty dollars, if they would give him a thousand when I was sold.

They were in a fury with him, and vowed they’d see him somewhere first. However, I heard them talking the thing over after he left, and I trembled as they seemed to come to a decision in his favour.

I knew from their talk that my dear master was advertising me much more extensively than they had ever imagined he would, and that there were a great many uncertainties connected with selling me, even in so far-away a place as California. It was only by a quick sale that they could hope to get rid of me anywhere. Then they were afraid that some of their gang, in spite of the danger to themselves on account of their criminal record, would notify the police of my whereabouts, and claim the reward. They had no confidence in any one. On their blue days, they sometimes went far enough to regret ever having meddled with me, and I was in torture lest some treachery on the part of their gangster friends would make them kill me, and run away to hide themselves.

Finally, however, they promised to let the forger have the thousand dollars when I was sold, though they assured him that recent developments made it impossible for them to ask the full price for me.

They were not sure that the forger would keep his promise about letting them have the hundred and fifty dollars. Talk about honour among thieves--the criminal world, as I heard about it from my corner in the shed, is dishonourable, untrue, frightfully selfish--there is no such thing as honour in it.

I must confess that I had had an idea that there is something fascinating about crime. The night master and Mr. Bonstone went to New York to warn the police about the planned burglary of the jeweller’s store, I had been secretly disappointed when they let Mr. Johnson follow the affair up, and we went home.

I didn’t want a burglary to take place, or rogues to be apprehended, but if the thing just had to be done, I wanted to see how burglars and police went about it.

But now--my dog soul was filled with the most awful and secret disgust and dread of this criminal life. It was nauseating. I wished to sweep it from the earth. At first I listened to the talk, then I buried my head in the straw. Such things were not fit for even a dog to hear.

I concentrated my attention on myself. I must escape--but how? There seemed not one single avenue open to me. I had always had a theory, that no man and no dog can be put in any place so tight that he can’t get out of it, but I seemed to be in such a place now. I could think of absolutely nothing to do.

The scheme of these young villains was a very simple, but a very cunning one. By instinct and habit, they were natives of the very downest part of New York. They had brought me to the country to escape the keen eyes of the New York police, who, as I have said before, are, in spite of the criticism they receive, a pretty fine body of men.

The paler of the villains posed as a victim of tuberculosis. His brother, who was not his brother at all, had hired this tumble-down cottage as a place for him to breathe fresh air and recover in. Whenever they heard any one coming this Dud, as he was called, would flop down on a rickety old sofa drawn up close to an open window. I was his devoted black dog, kept for company, while his brother, who was a hard-working baker, was away in New York. He had to be a baker, for his flabby hands never could have belonged to a man who worked out-of-doors.

This pose was very clever, for it brought them in lots of food. A good, kind clergyman told some of the ladies in his congregation about the poor, sick, young New Yorker who had such a bad cough, and they came often and brought nourishing things to eat.

How my blood boiled when I saw these nice women driving up in their cars, and sending their servants in with dainty dishes for these two rapscallions, who ate them and grumbled because there was not more wine in the jellies.

To add to my misery, the dear old widow who owned the Lady Gay cat found out about her needy neighbours, and came quite often with little bowls of custard.

My first impulse when I saw her was to spring to my feet and bark wildly. However, I lay down again. She would not recognise me. I was a black dog now. The cat would know me, but then the cat never came with her, and even if she had, at a hint of recognition from any one, I would be spirited away. So I had to content myself with wagging my tail violently whenever she appeared, and I always got a kind pat on the head.

One day, when I was terribly weary from my long confinement, and was quite a bit downcast, for I did not see how I was ever going to get away, I became desperate.

A beautiful old lady with a high-bred manner, was standing in the cottage which was a one-roomed affair, talking to Dud who was prone on the sofa coughing in a hollow way.

I began to wail softly, and she turned round, and looking out in the shed at me, said, “I should think you would have your dog in here for company. The room is cold, for you have only a feeble fire. He could lie on the sofa, and keep you warm.”

The lady had been there before, and I knew she liked dogs, for she wore a little button with “Be Kind to Animals” on it.

Dud was too cunning to be caught. “I often have him in here, ma’am,” he said. “I just put him out there before you came.”

“Let him loose,” she said. “I would like to see him run about.”

“He’s tired,” said Dud, “he was running all the morning.”

He was watching her face as he spoke, and he must have noticed a flash of suspicion, for he added hastily, “Perhaps he does want to come in. I’ll try him for a while. He likes to lie behind my back,” and getting up, he limped out to the shed.

I was trembling with anger at his lies. He unfastened my chain, and took me in his arms. His face was hateful as he bent over me. I would have to pay up for this. He was holding me apparently in a loose grasp, yet his left hand gripped one of my hind legs till it felt as if it were caught in the jaws of a trap.

I might have known better than to do what I did, but I didn’t. I made an effort to get to the kind lady. Her face made me wildly homesick, for it reminded me of my dear mistress and Mrs. Bonstone. Then, I was unutterably tired and heartsick. Three weeks had passed since I had been shut up with this vermin of manhood.

I tried to spring toward her, but my leg caught in the trap. I gave a yell of pain. I thought my jailer had broken it.

Dud was mighty clever. He let me go at once. He knew I could not run far with that aching leg. “Poor dog,” he said as I limped to a corner and began to lick it. “Did the rheumatiz come back? I’ll get you a bone,” and he went to a shelf and took down a piece of beef that he had reserved for himself.

What a fool I am! I thought, and I lay down by the stove, and ripped the meat off the bone, for they kept me pretty hungry.

The lady was reassured, for Dud in a skilful manner that amazed me, petted me as if he worshipped the ground I walked on. I would not wag my tail, and pretend I liked him, but I tore at the meat, for I knew I should lose my bone, and probably get a beating when the lady was gone.

I never looked at her as her chauffeur, who had been standing outside, opened the door for her. Dud was very careful to keep between me and the door, but he did not need to trouble. I felt that the time to escape had not come.

Of course I got my beating. He snatched the bone from me, and caught up an old broom. I shall carry the mark of that beating to the end of my life in a most ungraceful limp, for my poor sore leg seemed to be always next the broom. I tried to keep my head out of range of the blows. I had a terror of being blind.

Fortunately, his companion vermin came in while he was belabouring me, and I, poor dog, was flying from corner to corner, from under the stove, to the rickety sofa, and the shaky bedstead, to escape the terrible broom handle.

His companion, who was fresh from some nest of evil things in the city, called him a whole trainload of dreadful names. They lost their tempers, and fought. Was I sorry? I crouched under the bed and tried to discipline myself.

I murmured, “I am a respectable dog. I should grieve to see two young men so depraved. I should be sorry to see them giving each other blows--now Dud is down--his eye is laid open. I am terribly pained.”

I turned my head away, and thought I looked intensely sorry, but alas! an old tin pan that still had some shine on it stood leaning against the baseboard, and I saw reflected in it a distorted dog grin.

Well, Dud yelled so loudly, that Tike, as his chum is called, had to desist. The postman often passed about this time in the afternoon. They sat down, and glared at each other like two young tigers--no, not tigers, tigers are too noble. I can’t think of any animal bad enough to compare them with. Hyenas would have looked like gentlemen if set beside them.

Anyway, they sat and glowered, while Dud tied a wet towel to his injured eye, then they got more composed and Tike told his good news. I and Dud were to set off for California the following week. He had got the money.

Dud wanted to handle it, but Tike shook his head and exhibited just the corners of some bills sticking out of an inner pocket.

From composure, they passed to contentment. They were both frightfully tired of their long sojourn in the country. Listening to them, and consulting my own feelings, as I looked back on three weeks of being chained up, I concluded that the worst torture in the world for man or beast, is to be torn away from home and family and a happy active life, and to have nothing to do but think about yourself and your misery.

Finally Tike picked me up almost tenderly, told Dud, for the fiftieth time, what kind of a fool he was to beat a seven-thousand-dollar dog, and re-chained me to my iron bar.

Then they sat down again, and confronted each other. They were in high glee. They thought they saw several thousand dollars glittering alluringly ahead of them in far-off California. One thousand they would have to give to their friend--no, not their friend, they hadn’t any--to their fellow-plotter.

They just had to do something to celebrate. In New York, a dozen ways of jollification of their own sort would have been open to them--in this country place, there were but two things.

Tike went out and got some bottles somewhere. Then they pulled down all the blinds, locked the house door, and the outer shed door, lighted an old lamp, and sat down at a table with some cards between them.

They hadn’t a suspicion that I would try to escape. Apparently, I was beaten almost to a jelly, but I am a very strong dog, and I wasn’t half as done out as I appeared to be.

Tike cast a glance at me occasionally, as I lay on my straw bed, but soon he got interested in the cards and the bottles and forgot all about me.

As I lay there, I was doing some pretty hard thinking. Never before in my whole life had I felt as I was now feeling. I was on fire with anger, and I felt the strength of ten dogs in my body. I had had all the worries and trials of an average dog in the course of my life, but this rage of resentment was an absolutely new experience. A most profound sympathy for all tortured things came over me. I pitied all the suffering men and women in the world, the children, and poor dumb animals. Then I arranged my little plan of escape. In the morning, I would either be away from this place, or so done out that I didn’t care what happened to me.

First thing I must get some rest. Nothing could be done till the two young brutes inside had been put to sleep by the stuff in the bottles.

I am a pretty determined dog, and I made myself drop into a heavy slumber. About one o’clock, I woke up. The most extraordinary snoring duet I ever heard in my life was going on in the room beyond me, and I could see where the two poor wretches had thrown themselves, undressed, across the bed. They were safe for some hours.

The lamp was just smoking out. It would soon be dark, but I knew every inch of the ground about me, and the darkness would not interfere with what I had to do.

For the thousandth time since my captivity, I smelt round the iron bar to which I was chained. That bar had to come out of the ground. There was no other way of escape, for it was impossible for me to detach my metal collar from the steel chain that fastened me to the bar.

I must dig my way out. Fortunately, my legs are very muscular, for I have been a dog that has taken a great deal of exercise, and back of me are generations of fox-terriers trained to unearth foxes in old England.

The hind leg that Dud had pinched was terribly sore and wobbly, and at first seemed almost useless.

“None of that nonsense,” I said sternly to it. “You’ve got to be stood on.” So I propped myself on it as best I could, and began to clear the earth from that uncompromising bar.

It was a hard task. I can not deny that. All over the shed, the earth had been trodden on till it was apparently as firm as marble. But even marble can be penetrated, and I scratched and clawed, till I had a small hole dug. After that it was easier, the earth underneath was softer, but ah! me, how my paws began to ache.

I found the best way to manage was to dig till I dropped exhausted to the ground. Then I would close my eyes and rest my aching limbs for a few minutes. Just as soon as possible, I would get up, prop myself firmly on my one sound hind leg, rest the tender one gingerly on the earth, and start digging again.

When the first faint streaks of daylight came filtering through the broken boards of the roof, I had got the bar uprooted, and had begun to tunnel under the boards of the shed wall. My strength was almost gone. I had to take long times of resting, and short ones of digging. My claws were all worn off, and my paws were bleeding. I had to set my teeth, and think of master and mistress and all my beloved friend dogs, to enable me to keep to work.

Once I thought I was done for. One of the sleeping beauties in the room got off the bed, floundered about, and acted as if he were coming out to call on me.

My first thought was to spring up and try to cover the hole I had made with straw, but that would have been an impossibility, and I lay still, and wondered what was going to happen next.

Tike, for it was he that was stirring, had the will, but not the power to get to the shed, and falling in a heap on the floor, he went to snoring.

I tried to get up, and go on with my work, but it seemed as if I were paralysed. “Oh! for a stimulus,” I muttered, “my limbs are dead,” and just here something happened that was little short of miraculous.

It seems a far cry from that shed to a little black cat in New York, more than two years before, but it wasn’t.

The Lady Gay cat that I had befriended, and who belonged to the good old widow Gorman, was named Mollie. In common with all pussies, she had a habit of night-prowling. She was a cautious cat, and after her New York experience never went far from home, but on this particular night, she told me afterward, something had prompted her to wander further than usual.

She was just getting home, for it was near morning, when in crossing the field near the cottage, she heard the sound of my digging. It aroused her curiosity, and she came smelling round the shed. She soon caught a suggestion of me, and she mewed excitedly, for she had heard the widow tell about my being stolen from the kind gentleman who used to come sometimes to the cottage. Her voice was the stimulus I needed. I put my muzzle close to a crack in the board wall, and squealed gently, “Here I am, Mollie.”

“Are you with the black dog of the sick man?” she mewed.

“I _am_ the black dog, Mollie,” I said. “I’m trying to dig myself out. I’m most dead.”

“Oh! Boy,” she said, “how I wish I could help you.”

“You can,” I replied, “run and get your German police dog. I heard your Granny tell the two young men that her sons had sent her one to guard her, for they were afraid something might happen to her in your lonely cottage.”

“Of course,” she said, “good Oscar, he’s very intelligent.”

“Fly,” I begged her. “They may wake any time.”

The little cat scampered away, and soon I heard a few stealthy sounds outside, and then a long indrawn sniff from Oscar, and a stifled “Woof!” He was locating me.

The cat had explained the circumstances to him, as they ran along together. He signalled to me to begin at my end of the tunnel. I started digging like a wild dog, and he began tunnelling to meet me.

His paws are magnificent--so big and strong, and he had the acute hearing of a healthy dog. He could even hear my heart beating as I worked. In a very few minutes, I was down on the earth, crawling on my stomach out through my tunnel into his.

I fell on the grass in a heap. Oscar gave me one rapid lick, then ran his nose over the bar and chain.

“Come, come,” urged Mollie who was trembling with excitement. “It’s getting quite light.”

It seemed still dark to me, for I was almost blind from fatigue.

That sagacious dog picked up the bar in his strong, white teeth, walked slowly ahead, and I dragged myself after him.

That walk to the widow’s house was a nightmare of pain. I was tormented in every limb. Mollie ran ahead, and mewed at the back door, and the widow, who was half dressed only, opened it and stared at us in amazement.

“The black dog,” she said, “and Mollie with him, and Oscar carrying his bar. Goodness gracious! What does this mean?”

In the midst of my pain and confusion, I remembered that I must identify myself. I crawled to the corner of the fireplace where she always set my saucer of milk, when master was having his cup of tea, for we often called here when out automobiling. I squealed and tried to jump in the air, but tumbled forward instead.

Good old Granny was very sharp. She gave me a perfectly amazed look, then she screamed, “Good London--it’s the Granton dog--but black, so black,” she added.

She dashed to the water bucket, seized a towel, wet it, and began to rub my coat.

“It’s dye,” she screamed again. “My goodness! my goodness! my goodness!”

The dear old soul caught me up, bar and chain, dirty and bedraggled, ran to her own bed, and put me on it, then she flew to the telephone that her boys had given her, and called up central.

The girl who answered was called Minnie, and was a particular friend of the old woman’s.

“Minnie,” she gasped, “the police, quick, it’s Granny Gorman speaking. I’ve found the Granton dog that’s been so much advertised. He was over in the cottage by the grove with the sick young man. A man that’s bad enough to steal a dog, would hurt a helpless old woman--quick, Minnie.”

Mrs. Gorman let the receiver drop, flew to the back door, and locked it, flew to the front door, and locked that. Then she put down all the windows, and locked them. Then she got a bottle of milk, and put some in my mouth with a teaspoon.

Never again will anything taste to me as that milk did. My body was frightfully tired, but my mind followed acutely what went on.

Oscar, who had pushed his head under a window shade, and was staring in the direction of the other cottage, gave a warning bark.

Mrs. Gorman stepped to the window, then she joined her hands, cast a pleading look toward the ceiling and said, “Oh, Lord--they’re coming.”

Oscar told me afterward that the sight of those two confused, staggering young fellows zig-zagging across the field made him grin. They had not recovered from the effects of their rejoicing, but something in their poor brains had warned them to set out in chase of their lost property.

They were following the tracks of the chain that had dragged on the earth, and every time they stopped to look, they would fall down. Oscar said afterward that it was a dreadful thing to laugh at drunken men, but he couldn’t help shaking his sides over their antics.

Soon they got up to the house, and after cutting the telephone wire, staggered through the garden to the front door. After they had pounded a short time, Mrs. Gorman went to the little hall window, and without raising it, looked out at them.

They called her some very fancy names, and ordered her to let them in.

“What for?” she screamed through the glass. “You’re not in a state to make calls. Go home.”

“Give us our dog,” they yelled, pounding on the door with their fists.

“I haven’t got your dog,” the widow called back to them. Then she realised she had made a mistake. She didn’t want them to know she had discovered I was the Granton dog.

“That good dog doesn’t want to live with you,” she shouted. “He scratched his way out. You’d better let me keep him.”

This excited the two young scamps, and they began throwing themselves against the door and kicking at it.

“You mustn’t do that,” she exclaimed, “breaking into a house is a penitentiary offence.”

Dud and Tike were pretty well worked up now. They knew their case was desperate. They must get hold of me, and rush off to New York. The shock had sobered them, and one of them smashed the hall window with his fist, and ran his hand in to unlock the door.

“Don’t do that,” said the widow much more calmly, “don’t do that,” and she threw the door wide open. “Come in.”

They were a very cunning pair. Dud stood outside, while Tike entered. He came right to the bed, snatched a key from his pocket, and unlocking my collar, released me from the bar and chain, and took me in his arms.

“Come, come, young man,” said the widow coaxingly, “that dog is afraid of you. Leave him with me.”

I felt Tike give a kind of jerk. He had sense enough to know that he should not leave a suspicious person behind him. He wanted to find out what she had in her mind.

“I hope in future you’ll mind your own business,” he said roughly, “and not take in a runaway dog.”

“But I like dogs,” she said gently, and as she spoke, she laid a hand on Oscar’s collar. The intelligent dog stood watching her. At a word, he would have leaped on Tike, and Tike knew it.

“Don’t play any tricks with me, doggie,” he said in a hateful way, and he half pulled a neat little revolver from his pocket.

“Please put that back,” said Granny Gorman, “I hate guns.”

“I’ll not hurt you,” said Tike, “if you don’t hurt me.”

“Why should I hurt you?” asked the widow mildly.

“I don’t know,” said Tike sullenly, then he went on, “I’m off for home.”

The widow detained him. “Promise me you’ll be kind to the dog in future,” she said.

Tike made this promise readily enough, then he tried to escape. He was reassured in his own mind. The widow knew nothing of the value of the dog in his arms.

He found it hard to get away. Mrs. Gorman took him by the sleeve. She poured out a perfect volume of talk about dumb animals, and the importance of being kind to them.

At last Tike said rudely, “Lemme go,” and he pulled away from her.

Just as quickly as he pulled away, he shrank back. The milkman, who was a big husky countryman, had just drawn his wagon up before the little garden, and was coming up the walk to the front door with two bottles of milk in his hand.

From my place of vantage in Tike’s arms, I saw a surprised look flit over the widow’s face. Evidently, the man came usually to the back door.

Then, through the half open door, we all listened to what he was saying to Dud who stood part way up the walk.

“Hello,” said the milkman, “how’s your cough? You’re out early for a sick man.”

“Better,” said Dud in a stifled voice. “I was upset about my dog--came to get him. He ran away.”

“Did he,” said the milkman indifferently. Then his eye fell on the broken glass.

“Hi!” he said in a drawling voice, “looks as if the widder had been getting gay.”

“She’s all right,” said Dud gruffly. “I guess my dog did it. He often rampages round, and breaks things.”

“That medium-sized black feller,” said the milkman--“always looks mild as milk to me.”

“He’s awful when he gets started,” said Dud--“a regular spitfire. That’s why we keep him chained--I say, you’re not going near the station, are you?”

“Yes I am,” said the milkman in a careless way, “within a hundred feet--want a lift?”

“You bet,” said Dud. “I’m beginning to feel bad. I guess I’ll go to town, and see my doctor.”

“Jump in, then,” said the milkman hospitably, and setting down his bottles, he went toward the back of the waggon, and appeared to be moving something inside.

Dud looked over his shoulder, and called out, “Come on, Tike,” then he started toward the waggon.

Oscar and I both sensed the presence of strangers. The milkman was fooling the two young men. I watched the hair rising and falling on Oscar’s back, and wondered at his self-control, for he sat quietly near the widow, waiting for orders.

The waggon was a big one, drawn by two powerful horses. We saw Dud approach the front of it. He was going to take the seat with the milkman, and let Tike crawl in behind with me. The first one always took the best thing.

He climbed to the seat, was just about to sit down, when he stopped short, and gazed into the back of the waggon.

The milkman gave a great roar of laughter. “They’re only bottles--go in and look at them,” and he gave the slender Dud a push that sent him disappearing from view.

Tike had seen his companion’s start, and I knew from the tremor of his body that he was vaguely suspicious of something, he knew not what. He didn’t know what to do, and his eyes were glued to the milkman’s face as he came again toward the house and seized his bottles.

“Come on, Tike,” called Dud suddenly from the waggon.

Now Tike was reassured. He clutched me closer, stepped out in quite a steady manner, but he did not get far--the milkman, grinning in a most alarming way, raised his bottles, jerked their contents in Tike’s face, wetting me more than my captor, and in no wise discommoding me, for my body was on fire.

Tike, in his astonishment, struck out at the milkman, and I was slipping to the ground, when the milkman caught me and stood jeering at the confounded Tike who went staggering into the arms of two policemen who had sprung from the waggon.

Dud was inside with handcuffs on. The policemen had got the milkman to bring them to the cottage. They didn’t want any shooting, and when they drew Dud into the back part of the waggon, he, to curry favour with them, called his companion.

Well, that was the last of my two enemies for me. I never expect to see them again. They were never accused of stealing me. It was found that they belonged to a gang that had swindled big New York concerns, and they will probably serve a long term in prison for their previous crimes.

My dear master was asked to interfere on their behalf, but he said, “They will be with a good warden. Years ago, I might have done something. Now it is too late for any mild measures. They have sinned deeply, and they need the discipline of punishment.”