Chapter 9

Captain Will Arnutt had heard all about Jan by letter from Nuthill. One would not altogether say that so important a person as the captain went to Regina station expressly to meet Dick and Jan; but it certainly did happen that he was admiring the flower-beds in the station's garden when No. 93 hove in sight from the eastward; and being there, he decided to stroll on to the platform and watch the train's arrival, along with every one else who happened to be in sight at the time.

It might, perhaps, lead to awkward consequences if every non-commissioned man of the R.N.W.M.P. took to keeping animals in barracks. Both Dick and Captain Arnutt had thought of this, and, accordingly, Jan, the son of Finn and Desdemona, was welcomed upon his first appearance in the capital of Saskatchewan as Captain Arnutt's hound, brought from England by Dick Vaughan, and to be looked after for Captain Arnutt by the same man. Jan would have been tickled could he have perceived this harmless piece of human deception; but it was just as well he did not understand, since he would never have lent himself to it very convincingly.

By reason of his breeding Jan was, as a matter of fact, unique among hounds. Apart from this, no hound of his size or splendid development had ever before been seen upon Regina station platform. The people of the West are a forthright, plain-spoken, and enterprising folk, and before he left the station Captain Arnutt was offered fifty dollars for Jan. Nothing damped by the captain's smiling refusal of his offer, the sporting stranger said:

"Well, an' I don't blame ye, Colonel, neither. But, say, it's a pity to miss a good deal. I like the looks o' that dog, and"--drawing out a fat wallet from his hip-pocket--"we'll make it a hundred dollars, an' the deal's done."

As Dick subsequently explained to Captain Arnutt, two thousand dollars had been offered, and refused, for Jan's mother. "And I'm dead sure twenty thousand wouldn't buy his sire."

But these figures were for private consumption, of course. Dick had no wish to invite the attention of the predatory; and, in any case, buyers and sellers of dogs do not talk in thousands of dollars on the prairie.

At the entrance to the R.N.W.M.P. barracks the unsuspecting Jan was violently attacked by a fox-terrier, the pet of one of the senior officers of the corps. This pugnacious little chap wasted no time over preliminaries, and apparently had no desire whatever to examine the new-comer. He just flew straight at Jan's throat, snarling furiously. Captain Arnutt was distressed, for he made sure the terrier would be killed, and that Jan would thereby make an enemy of one of the senior officers. But his fears were groundless, thanks to Jan's few weeks of discipline and training before leaving Nuthill.

"Come in here--in--here--Jan, boy. Don't touch him. Come--in--here!"

Jan stood for one moment, listening, his hackles bristling resentment of the terrier's insolence. And then he walked obediently to Dick's side, the snarling, yapping terrier literally pendent from his neck.

"That was stupid of you, little chap," said Dick, when he had detached the terrier and was holding him firmly in both his hands, still snarling angrily. "If you were mine, you'd probably get a hiding, my son. As it is, you'll stop that snarling. You--hear--me? Stop it!"

And reluctantly the terrier did cease his snarling. One could see the little beast slowly calming down in Dick's strong hands, like an excited patient under the spell of some mild anesthetic. And then, having calmed him, Dick very carefully showed the terrier to Jan.

"Look at him, Jan, boy. He's privileged--not to be hurt. Never touch him, lad. He belongs to us, you see. Never hurt him."

Then, rather ostentatiously stroking the terrier in full view of Jan, Dick put the little beast down and bade it run away.

"No more snarling at Jan, mind. He belongs to us, you see."

And whether or not the terrier understood, he did, at all events, walk off toward the veranda of his master's quarters without further demonstrations of belligerency. Captain Arnutt joined enthusiastically with Dick in bestowing praises upon Jan for his forbearance and docility.

"I made sure the little fellow's number was up," said the captain. "One good bite from this chap would have about settled his business. And, mind you, he bit hard, too. There's blood on Jan's coat--look. A fine welcome we've given you, old chap."

Dick had noticed the fleck of blood on the gray of Jan's dewlap, which showed that the terrier had been very much in earnest. Jan's dense coat was thinner just there than in most spots; but even there a good deal of energy was required to yield flesh-hold to a terrier's jaws. But the wound was trifling, and Dick, knowing his hound, wasted no sentiment over a scratch of this sort.

"It's just as well, sir," said he to Captain Arnutt. "There are some pretty tough huskies hanging about our quarters, and this little start will warn Jan to keep a sharp lookout. He has to get used to more warlike conditions than he knew in Sussex, and the sooner he understands, the better for him--and for the others. I fancy he can take care of himself."

"He's certainly got the first essential--discipline. I never saw a more obedient dog."

Dick looked his pleasure at this, and ventured upon the hope that Captain Arnutt would pass on this testimonial among his brother officers; for well Dick knew the value to a dog like Jan of a good reputation, more particularly in so well-ordered a little world as that of the R.N.W.M.P. barracks.

This opening incident ended, Dick was free to take Jan down to the stables and introduce him to his own horse and the other chargers in that division, as well as to their riders. Dick devoted considerable time and care to this introductory process, because he realized its importance. He had obtained permission to quarter Jan with his horse; and an hour's work provided a rough bench for Jan at one end of Paddy's manger--Paddy being Dick's charger. Dick had another day and a half before having to report himself for duty, and had made up his mind so to instruct Jan during that period as to make it unnecessary that the hound should ever be called upon to suffer the indignity of being tethered, even during his, Dick's, absence.

The task proved an easy one, and Dick was given every kind of assistance by his comrades, most of whom were at once attracted by Jan, and inclined to regard him as an acquisition to be proud of. Before the day was out Jan had successfully passed through a number of tolerably severe tests of trustworthiness, and Dick was satisfied that he might safely be spared the indignity of the chain.

For example, being left on his rough bench with an old dandy-brush to guard, Jan was approached in turn by half a dozen of Dick's comrades, who exhausted their ingenuity in trying to entice, frighten, or persuade him from his post. Jan eyed them all quite good-humoredly, wagging his tail in response to enticements, and growling a little, very quietly, when they tried harsher tactics, but remaining throughout immovably in charge of his post.

Then Dick went well out into the barrack-yard, and called quietly to Jan. Instantly the long, silky ears lifted. Snatching up his dandy-brush and gripping it firmly between his jaws, Jan rushed out into the yard, there to be rewarded with the assurance of Dick's affectionate approval and the enthusiastic plaudits of the other troopers.

"You've put the Indian sign on him, all right," said French, the Devonshire man. "It must have taken some doing to lick him into that shape."

"There's no Indian sign about it, old man," said Dick. "It isn't any lambasting Jan's afraid of. You watch his face now, when I lift this stick."

The men all watched, and noted that Jan did not move so much as an eyelid in response to the lifting of a stick.

"Well, that's queer," said old Cartier, the French-Canadian dealer, who was visiting a friend in the barracks. "Don't seem as though that dog ever was licked."

"And so far as I know," said Dick, "he never has been. But, mind you, that's not to say he never will be. I'd never hesitate to thrash a dog if he deserved it, and thrash him good and hard, too. But so far Master Jan has never asked for lickings. Have you Jan? That's why he's not afraid of a stick; for I'd never hit a dog or a horse unless really to punish him, so that he'd know it was a thrashing--not just a bit of bad luck for him, or temper in me."

"H'm! I believe you could get two hundred an' feefty dollar for that dog, up north," said Cartier, musingly; "maybe three hundred, if you broke him to harness."

Dick smiled quietly, and nodded.

"No, no," said O'Malley, the man of Cork; "he's going to stay right here an' be our mascot. Aren't ye, Jan?" And Jan affably signified his agreement.

"That's all right," said French, knocking his pipe out against the heel of his boot. "But what's going to happen to-morrow when Sergeant Moore gets back with his Sourdough? You'll see some fun then, I fancy. Old Sourdough's been boss dog around here a goodish while now, you know. He won't stand for having this chap put his nose out of joint. And, mind you, there's no dog in Regina can cock his tail at Sourdough. I saw him knock the stuffing out of that big sheep-dog of MacDougall's last year, and I tell you he'd have buried the sheep-dog before he left him, if Sergeant Moore hadn't managed to get a halter through his collar and pretty near choked him. It was a close thing; an' they reckoned the sheep-dog had never met his master till then."

"Yep, that's a fact," said another man. "There'll be trouble with Sourdough if you're not careful, Vaughan. He's a demon of a dog, an', by gee! he's sourer than his boss, an' that's saying something."

"Well, yes, I'd thought about Sourdough," said Dick; "and I'm glad his quarters are the other side of the yard."

"The other side!" said French. "Why, man, he owns the whole place. You see how the other dogs kow-tow to him. He's sour, all right, and a fighter from way back; but the way he's built he somehow doesn't seem to make trouble with any dog that kow-tows to him. But God help the husky that don't kow-tow. Sourdough will have his salute as boss, or he'll have blood. That's the sort of a duck Sourdough is."

"Ah! Well, he'll get civility from us, won't he, Jan? and if that's all he wants, there'll be no trouble. But I'll tell you what, you fellows: if Jan's in the stable there with Paddy any time when I'm not about, don't you let Sourdough come into our quarters at all."

"It'd take a hefty chap to keep Sourdough out, if he meant coming in," said O'Malley. "But I guess we'll do our best--eh, boys? I reckon our Jan's a better mascot than the sergeant's tyke."

"But there mustn't be any fighting," added Dick; "and there won't be if we're careful; for there's nothing sour about Jan here, and you've seen he's obedient."

XXI

INTRODUCING SOURDOUGH

In some respect Jan's life at the R.N.W.M.P. headquarters might have been simpler if he had been less lovable and less popular. As a matter of fact, while pretty nearly every one in the barracks took a fancy to the big hound and felt a certain pride in his unique appearance as a R.N.W.M.P. dog, the members of Dick's own division adored Jan to a man. His docility, his affectionate nature, and his uniform courtesy bound them to him, even apart from their pride in him and the influence of Dick Vaughan as champion heavy-weight boxer and crack horseman of the force.

There were eight or ten other dogs in the barracks, all of whom (including the bellicose fox-terrier who first welcomed Jan at the gates) took kindly to the big hound from Sussex as soon as they knew him and had tested his frank and kindly nature. They were none of them really big dogs, and that fact alone, apart from Dick's teaching, made Jan specially indulgent in his attitude toward them. After certain curt warnings, the two or three dogs among them whose natures inclined them to fighting seemed to realize contentedly enough that Jan was somewhat outside their class, and in any case not a good person to quarrel with.

But there were two people who hated Jan from the moment they first set eyes upon his fine form, and these were Sergeant Moore and his dog Sourdough. The sergeant and his dog had a good deal in common with each other and not very much in common with any one else. Sergeant Moore was one of the few really unpopular men in the force. But, if nobody in the district liked him, it is but fair to say that many feared him, and none could be found who spoke ill of him in the sense of calling his honesty or his competence into question.

The sergeant was a terror to evil-doers, a hard man to cross, and too grim and sour to be any one's companion. But no man doubted his honesty, and those who had no call to fear him entertained a certain respect for him, even though they could not like the man. In addition to his grimness he had a stingingly bitter tongue. He was not a fluent speaker; but most of his words had an edge to them, and he dealt not at all in compliments, never going beyond a curt nod by way of response to another man's "Good day!" When, with the punctiliousness of the perfectly disciplined man, he saluted an officer, there was that in his expression and in the almost fierce quality of his movement which made the salute something of a menace.

His forbidding disposition had probably stood between Sergeant Moore and further promotion. His contemporaries, the older men of the corps, knew he had once been married. His juniors had never seen the sergeant in converse with a woman. Withal it was believed that Sergeant Moore had one weakness, one soft spot in his armor. It was said that when he believed himself to be quite alone with his dog Sourdough he indulged himself in some of the tendernesses of a widowed father who lavishes all his heart upon a single child.

There was little enough about Sourdough to remind one of a human child, lovable or otherwise. If the master was grim and forbidding in manner and appearance, the dog exhibited a broadly magnified reflection of the same attributes. His color was a sandy grayish yellow without markings. His coat was coarse, rather ragged, and extraordinarily dense. His pricked ears were chipped and jagged from a hundred fights, and in a diagonal line across his muzzle was a broad white scar, gotten, men said, in combat with a timber-wolf in the Athabasca country.

It was a part of Sourdough's pose or policy in life to profess short-sightedness. He would walk past a group of dogs as though unaware of their existence. Yet let one of those dogs but cock an eye of impudence in his direction, or glance with lifting eyebrow at one of his fellows, with a sneer or jeer in his heart for Sourdough, and in that instant Sourdough would be upon him like an angry lynx, with a bitter snarl and a snap that was pretty certain to leave its scar. This done, Sourdough would pass on, with hackles erect and a hunch of his shoulders which seemed to say:

"When next you are inclined to rudeness, remember that Sourdough knows all things, forgets nothing, and bites deep."

The story went that in his youth Sourdough had led a team of sled-dogs, and that he had saved Moore's life on one occasion when every one of his team-mates had either died or deserted his post. He was of the mixed northern breed whose members are called huskies, but he was bigger and heavier than most huskies and weighed just upon a hundred pounds. A wagon-wheel had once gone over his tail (when nine dogs out of ten would have lost their lives by receiving the wheel on their hind quarters), and this appendage now had a curious bend in the middle of it, making it rather like a bulldog's "crank" tail, but long and bushy. He was far from being a handsome dog; but he looked every inch a fighter, and there was a certain invincibility about his appearance which, combined with his swiftness in action and the devastating severity of all his attacks, served to win for him the submissive respect of almost every dog he met. Occasionally, and upon a first meeting, some careless, undiscerning dog would overlook these qualities. The same dog never made the same mistake a second time.

Dick Vaughan made it his business to be on hand when Sourdough first met Jan. When ordered to do so, Jan had learned to keep his muzzle within a yard of Dick's heels, and that was his position when Sergeant Moore came striding across the yard with Sourdough. Jan's hackles rose the moment he set eyes on the big husky. Sourdough, as his way was, glared in another direction. But his hackles rose also, and his upper lip lifted slightly as the skin of his nose wrinkled. Clearly there was to be no sympathy between these two.

Suddenly, and without apparently having looked in Jan's direction, Sourdough leaped sideways at him, with an angry snarl.

"Keep in--Jan; keep in--boy!" said Dick, firmly, as he jumped between the two dogs.

"Who gave you permission to bring that dog here?" snapped the sergeant at Dick.

"Taking care of him for Captain Arnutt, sir," was the reply.

"H'm! Well, see you take care of him, then, and keep him out of the way. Sourdough's boss here, and if this one is to stay around, the sooner he learns it the better."

"Yes, sir. He's thoroughly good-tempered and obedient, though he is such a big fellow," said Dick, still manoeuvering his legs as a barrier betwixt the two dogs.

"It's little odds how big he is," growled the sergeant. "He'll have to learn his lesson, an' I guess Sourdough will teach him."

Just then Sourdough succeeded in evading Dick and got well home on Jan's right shoulder with a punishing slash of his razor fangs. Jan gave a snarl that was half a roar. His antipathy had been aroused at the outset. Now his blood was drawn. He had been ordered to keep to heel, but--

"Keep in, there--Jan; keep in--keep in!"

The warning came not a second too soon. Almost the hound had sprung.

"Would you call your dog off, sir?" said Dick.

"I guess Sourdough'll call himself off when he's good an' ready," replied the sergeant; and himself strode on across the yard.

Once more Jan had to submit to the bitter ordeal of being slashed at by Sourdough's teeth, as the big husky snarlingly passed him in the sergeant's wake. It was little Jan cared for the bite, shrewd as that was. His coat was dense. But again, and with a visible gulp of pain, he was compelled to swallow the humiliation of lowering his muzzle in answer to his lord's--

"Keep in, there! Steady! Keep in, Jan!"

It was a tough morsel to swallow. But the disciplined Jan swallowed it, in full view of several lesser dogs and of half a dozen of Dick's comrades. With it, however, came a natural swelling of the antipathy which his first glimpse of Sourdough had implanted in the big hound, and it may be, all things considered, that it would have been better for both of them if Dick Vaughan had allowed the dogs to settle matters in their own fashion. But he had Jan's future position in the barracks to think of, and wished to consult Captain Arnutt before permitting any open breach of the peace. Meantime, Jan's prestige had been lowered in the eyes of half a dozen other dogs, each one of whom would certainly presume upon the unresented affront they had seen put upon him by their common enemy.

Captain Arnutt's advice was to let the dogs take their chances.

"Every one knows Sourdough is a morose old devil," he said, "and every one has seen now that Jan is not a quarrelsome dog. If there's trouble, they won't blame Jan, and Master Sourdough will have to take his gruel. You don't think he'd seriously damage Jan, do you?"

"Well, he's got a deal more of ring-craft, sir, of course," said Dick, with a smile. "Jan has had very little fighting experience, but he's immensely strong and fit, and--No, I don't much think Sourdough could do him any permanent harm; but one can't be certain. Sourdough is practically a wolf, so far as fighting goes. He and his forebears have fought ever since their eyes were opened. Whereas, I suppose there's hardly been a fighter in a hundred generations of Jan's ancestors."

Dick Vaughan was probably thinking of the Lady Desdemona when he said this. And, of course, it was true that, even on Finn's side, Jan had had no fighting ancestors for very many generations. But Finn had been a mighty fighter, and in the wild at that. And Jan had been born in a cave and in his first weeks had tasted the wild life. Also he had fought Grip, who fought like a wolf. Also he had learned many things from Finn on the Sussex Downs; he did not know the meaning of fear, and his hundred and sixty-four pounds of perfect development consisted almost entirely of fighting material. There was no waste matter in Jan. Still, Sourdough was a veritable wolf in combat, and for so long as he could prevent a breach of the peace Dick decided he would do so. Accordingly, while in barracks, Jan was kept pretty closely to sentinel duty in Paddy's stall.

XXII

MURDER!

A day or so after Jan's first meeting with Sourdough a thing occurred in Regina which, for a little while, occupied the minds of most people, to the exclusion of such matters as the relations between any two dogs.

A woman and her husband were found murdered in a little fruiterer's and greengrocer's shop. Evidence showed that the murder must have occurred late at night. It was discovered quite early in the morning, and before the first passenger-trains of the day stopped at Regina the line was closely watched for a good many miles. It was believed that the murderer could not be very far away. Suspicion attached to a compatriot of the murdered pair, a Greek, who was found to be missing from his lodging. Within three hours Sergeant Moore had rounded this man up a few miles from the city, and placed him under arrest. But the man had been found in the act of fishing, and there was not a tittle of evidence of any kind against him.

Then a neighbor called at the R.N.W.M.P. barracks with word of an Italian, now nowhere to be found, who had done some casual work for the murdered couple, and had more than once been seen talking with the woman in the little yard behind their shop. As it happened, the bearer of this information imparted it to Dick Vaughan, who promptly went with it to Captain Arnutt.

"Look here, sir," said Dick, with suppressed excitement, "my Jan is half a bloodhound, and a splendid tracker. Will you let me take him down to the shop and--"

"Why the deuce didn't you think of that earlier, before all the world and his wife began investigating the place? Come on! Bring my horse and your own."

Within half an hour, Captain Arnutt, Dick Vaughan, Jan, and one town constable were alone in the little littered room of the tragedy, where the dead lay practically as they had been discovered. Two incriminating articles only had been found: a sheath-knife with a carved haft, and a black soft felt hat. There was no name or initials on either, and both might conceivably have belonged to the murdered man. As yet no one had identified either article with any owner. The hat had been trodden down by a boot-heel in a slither of blood on the floor-cloth of the squalid little room.

Some chances had to be taken. Dick believed the hat and knife belonged to the murderer, who had apparently ransacked the till of the little shop and broken open a small carved and painted box which may have contained money. It was perhaps impossible that Jan could understand that murder had been done. But there was no shadow of doubt he knew grave matters were toward. The concentrated earnestness of Dick Vaughan had somehow communicated itself to the hound's mind. It was the hat and not the knife to which Dick pinned his faith--the cheap, soiled, crimson-lined felt hat, with its horrid stains and its imprint of a boot-heel.