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diff --git a/1730-h/1730-h.htm b/1730-h/1730-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..999d83a --- /dev/null +++ b/1730-h/1730-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9614 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Michael, Brother of Jerry</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Michael, Brother of Jerry, by Jack London</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Michael, Brother of Jerry, by Jack London + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Michael, Brother of Jerry + + +Author: Jack London + +Release Date: April 28, 2005 [eBook #1730] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MICHAEL, BROTHER OF JERRY*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1917 Mills & Boon edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>MICHAEL, BROTHER OF JERRY</h1> +<h2>FOREWORD</h2> +<p>Very early in my life, possibly because of the insatiable curiosity +that was born in me, I came to dislike the performances of trained animals. +It was my curiosity that spoiled for me this form of amusement, for +I was led to seek behind the performance in order to learn how the performance +was achieved. And what I found behind the brave show and glitter +of performance was not nice. It was a body of cruelty so horrible +that I am confident no normal person exists who, once aware of it, could +ever enjoy looking on at any trained-animal turn.</p> +<p>Now I am not a namby-pamby. By the book reviewers and the namby-pambys +I am esteemed a sort of primitive beast that delights in the spilled +blood of violence and horror. Without arguing this matter of my +general reputation, accepting it at its current face value, let me add +that I have indeed lived life in a very rough school and have seen more +than the average man’s share of inhumanity and cruelty, from the +forecastle and the prison, the slum and the desert, the execution-chamber +and the lazar-house, to the battlefield and the military hospital. +I have seen horrible deaths and mutilations. I have seen imbeciles +hanged, because, being imbeciles, they did not possess the hire of lawyers. +I have seen the hearts and stamina of strong men broken, and I have +seen other men, by ill-treatment, driven to permanent and howling madness. +I have witnessed the deaths of old and young, and even infants, from +sheer starvation. I have seen men and women beaten by whips and +clubs and fists, and I have seen the rhinoceros-hide whips laid around +the naked torsos of black boys so heartily that each stroke stripped +away the skin in full circle. And yet, let me add finally, never +have I been so appalled and shocked by the world’s cruelty as +have I been appalled and shocked in the midst of happy, laughing, and +applauding audiences when trained-animal turns were being performed +on the stage.</p> +<p>One with a strong stomach and a hard head may be able to tolerate +much of the unconscious and undeliberate cruelty and torture of the +world that is perpetrated in hot blood and stupidity. I have such +a stomach and head. But what turns my head and makes my gorge +rise, is the cold-blooded, conscious, deliberate cruelty and torment +that is manifest behind ninety-nine of every hundred trained-animal +turns. Cruelty, as a fine art, has attained its perfect flower +in the trained-animal world.</p> +<p>Possessed myself of a strong stomach and a hard head, inured to hardship, +cruelty, and brutality, nevertheless I found, as I came to manhood, +that I unconsciously protected myself from the hurt of the trained-animal +turn by getting up and leaving the theatre whenever such turns came +on the stage. I say “unconsciously.” By this +I mean it never entered my mind that this was a programme by which the +possible death-blow might be given to trained-animal turns. I +was merely protecting myself from the pain of witnessing what it would +hurt me to witness.</p> +<p>But of recent years my understanding of human nature has become such +that I realize that no normal healthy human would tolerate such performances +did he or she know the terrible cruelty that lies behind them and makes +them possible. So I am emboldened to suggest, here and now, three +things:</p> +<p>First, let all humans inform themselves of the inevitable and eternal +cruelty by the means of which only can animals be compelled to perform +before revenue-paying audiences. Second, I suggest that all men +and women, and boys and girls, who have so acquainted themselves with +the essentials of the fine art of animal-training, should become members +of, and ally themselves with, the local and national organizations of +humane societies and societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals.</p> +<p>And the third suggestion I cannot state until I have made a preamble. +Like hundreds of thousands of others, I have worked in other fields, +striving to organize the mass of mankind into movements for the purpose +of ameliorating its own wretchedness and misery. Difficult as +this is to accomplish, it is still more difficult to persuade the human +into any organised effort to alleviate the ill conditions of the lesser +animals.</p> +<p>Practically all of us will weep red tears and sweat bloody sweats +as we come to knowledge of the unavoidable cruelty and brutality on +which the trained-animal world rests and has its being. But not +one-tenth of one per cent. of us will join any organization for the +prevention of cruelty to animals, and by our words and acts and contributions +work to prevent the perpetration of cruelties on animals. This +is a weakness of our own human nature. We must recognize it as +we recognize heat and cold, the opaqueness of the non-transparent, and +the everlasting down-pull of gravity.</p> +<p>And still for us, for the ninety-nine and nine-tenths per cent. of +us, under the easy circumstance of our own weakness, remains another +way most easily to express ourselves for the purpose of eliminating +from the world the cruelty that is practised by some few of us, for +the entertainment of the rest of us, on the trained animals, who, after +all, are only lesser animals than we on the round world’s surface. +It is so easy. We will not have to think of dues or corresponding +secretaries. We will not have to think of anything, save when, +in any theatre or place of entertainment, a trained-animal turn is presented +before us. Then, without premeditation, we may express our disapproval +of such a turn by getting up from our seats and leaving the theatre +for a promenade and a breath of fresh air outside, coming back, when +the turn is over, to enjoy the rest of the programme. All we have +to do is just that to eliminate the trained-animal turn from all public +places of entertainment. Show the management that such turns are +unpopular, and in a day, in an instant, the management will cease catering +such turns to its audiences.</p> +<p>JACK LONDON</p> +<p>GLEN ELLEN, SONOMA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA,</p> +<p>December 8, 1915</p> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<p>But Michael never sailed out of Tulagi, nigger-chaser on the <i>Eugénie</i>. +Once in five weeks the steamer <i>Makambo</i> made Tulagi its port of +call on the way from New Guinea and the Shortlands to Australia. +And on the night of her belated arrival Captain Kellar forgot Michael +on the beach. In itself, this was nothing, for, at midnight, Captain +Kellar was back on the beach, himself climbing the high hill to the +Commissioner’s bungalow while the boat’s crew vainly rummaged +the landscape and canoe houses.</p> +<p>In fact, an hour earlier, as the <i>Makambo’s</i> anchor was +heaving out and while Captain Kellar was descending the port gang-plank, +Michael was coming on board through a starboard port-hole. This +was because Michael was inexperienced in the world, because he was expecting +to meet Jerry on board this boat since the last he had seen of him was +on a boat, and because he had made a friend.</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry was a steward on the <i>Makambo</i>, who should have +known better and who would have known better and done better had he +not been fascinated by his own particular and peculiar reputation. +By luck of birth possessed of a genial but soft disposition and a splendid +constitution, his reputation was that for twenty years he had never +missed his day’s work nor his six daily quarts of bottled beer, +even, as he bragged, when in the German islands, where each bottle of +beer carried ten grains of quinine in solution as a specific against +malaria.</p> +<p>The captain of the <i>Makambo</i> (and, before that, the captains +of the <i>Moresby</i>, the <i>Masena</i>, the <i>Sir Edward Grace</i>, +and various others of the queerly named Burns Philp Company steamers +had done the same) was used to pointing him out proudly to the passengers +as a man-thing novel and unique in the annals of the sea. And +at such times Dag Daughtry, below on the for’ard deck, feigning +unawareness as he went about his work, would steal side-glances up at +the bridge where the captain and his passengers stared down on him, +and his breast would swell pridefully, because he knew that the captain +was saying: “See him! that’s Dag Daughtry, the human tank. +Never’s been drunk or sober in twenty years, and has never missed +his six quarts of beer per diem. You wouldn’t think it, +to look at him, but I assure you it’s so. I can’t +understand. Gets my admiration. Always does his time, his +time-and-a-half and his double-time over time. Why, a single glass +of beer would give me heartburn and spoil my next good meal. But +he flourishes on it. Look at him! Look at him!”</p> +<p>And so, knowing his captain’s speech, swollen with pride in +his own prowess, Dag Daughtry would continue his ship-work with extra +vigour and punish a seventh quart for the day in advertisement of his +remarkable constitution. It was a queer sort of fame, as queer +as some men are; and Dag Daughtry found in it his justification of existence.</p> +<p>Wherefore he devoted his energy and the soul of him to the maintenance +of his reputation as a six-quart man. That was why he made, in +odd moments of off-duty, turtle-shell combs and hair ornaments for profit, +and was prettily crooked in such a matter as stealing another man’s +dog. Somebody had to pay for the six quarts, which, multiplied +by thirty, amounted to a tidy sum in the course of the month; and, since +that man was Dag Daughtry, he found it necessary to pass Michael inboard +on the <i>Makambo</i> through a starboard port-hole.</p> +<p>On the beach, that night at Tulagi, vainly wondering what had become +of the whaleboat, Michael had met the squat, thick, hair-grizzled ship’s +steward. The friendship between them was established almost instantly, +for Michael, from a merry puppy, had matured into a merry dog. +Far beyond Jerry, was he a sociable good fellow, and this, despite the +fact that he had known very few white men. First, there had been +Mister Haggin, Derby and Bob, of Meringe; next, Captain Kellar and Captain +Kellar’s mate of the <i>Eugénie</i>; and, finally, Harley +Kennan and the officers of the <i>Ariel</i>. Without exception, +he had found them all different, and delightfully different, from the +hordes of blacks he had been taught to despise and to lord it over.</p> +<p>And Dag Daughtry had proved no exception from his first greeting +of “Hello, you white man’s dog, what ’r’ you +doin’ herein nigger country?” Michael had responded +coyly with an assumption of dignified aloofness that was given the lie +by the eager tilt of his ears and the good-humour that shone in his +eyes. Nothing of this was missed by Dag Daughtry, who knew a dog +when he saw one, as he studied Michael in the light of the lanterns +held by black boys where the whaleboats were landing cargo.</p> +<p>Two estimates the steward quickly made of Michael: he was a likable +dog, genial-natured on the face of it, and he was a valuable dog. +Because of those estimates Dag Daughtry glanced about him quickly. +No one was observing. For the moment, only blacks stood about, +and their eyes were turned seaward where the sound of oars out of the +darkness warned them to stand ready to receive the next cargo-laden +boat. Off to the right, under another lantern, he could make out +the Resident Commissioner’s clerk and the <i>Makambo’s</i> +super-cargo heatedly discussing some error in the bill of lading.</p> +<p>The steward flung another quick glance over Michael and made up his +mind. He turned away casually and strolled along the beach out +of the circle of lantern light. A hundred yards away he sat down +in the sand and waited.</p> +<p>“Worth twenty pounds if a penny,” he muttered to himself. +“If I couldn’t get ten pounds for him, just like that, with +a thank-you-ma’am, I’m a sucker that don’t know a +terrier from a greyhound.—Sure, ten pounds, in any pub on Sydney +beach.”</p> +<p>And ten pounds, metamorphosed into quart bottles of beer, reared +an immense and radiant vision, very like a brewery, inside his head.</p> +<p>A scurry of feet in the sand, and low sniffings, stiffened him to +alertness. It was as he had hoped. The dog had liked him +from the start, and had followed him.</p> +<p>For Dag Daughtry had a way with him, as Michael was quickly to learn, +when the man’s hand reached out and clutched him, half by the +jowl, half by the slack of the neck under the ear. There was no +threat in that reach, nothing tentative nor timorous. It was hearty, +all-confident, and it produced confidence in Michael. It was roughness +without hurt, assertion without threat, surety without seduction. +To him it was the most natural thing in the world thus to be familiarly +seized and shaken about by a total stranger, while a jovial voice muttered: +“That’s right, dog. Stick around, stick around, and +you’ll wear diamonds, maybe.”</p> +<p>Certainly, Michael had never met a man so immediately likable. +Dag Daughtry knew, instinctively to be sure, how to get on with dogs. +By nature there was no cruelty in him. He never exceeded in peremptoriness, +nor in petting. He did not overbid for Michael’s friendliness. +He did bid, but in a manner that conveyed no sense of bidding. +Scarcely had he given Michael that introductory jowl-shake, when he +released him and apparently forgot all about him.</p> +<p>He proceeded to light his pipe, using several matches as if the wind +blew them out. But while they burned close up to his fingers, +and while he made a simulation of prodigious puffing, his keen little +blue eyes, under shaggy, grizzled brows, intently studied Michael. +And Michael, ears cocked and eyes intent, gazed at this stranger who +seemed never to have been a stranger at all.</p> +<p>If anything, it was disappointment Michael experienced, in that this +delightful, two-legged god took no further notice of him. He even +challenged him to closer acquaintance with an invitation to play, with +an abrupt movement lifting his paws from the ground and striking them +down, stretched out well before, his body bent down from the rump in +such a curve that almost his chest touched the sand, his stump of a +tail waving signals of good nature while he uttered a sharp, inviting +bark. And the man was uninterested, pulling stolidly away at his +pipe, in the darkness following upon the third match.</p> +<p>Never was there a more consummate love-making, with all the base +intent of betrayal, than this cavalier seduction of Michael by the elderly, +six-quart ship’s steward. When Michael, not entirely unwitting +of the snub of the man’s lack of interest, stirred restlessly +with a threat to depart, he had flung at him gruffly:</p> +<p>“Stick around, dog, stick around.”</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry chuckled to himself, as Michael, advancing, sniffed +his trousers’ legs long and earnestly. And the man took +advantage of his nearness to study him some more, lighting his pipe +and running over the dog’s excellent lines.</p> +<p>“Some dog, some points,” he said aloud approvingly. +“Say, dog, you could pull down ribbons like a candy-kid in any +bench show anywheres. Only thing against you is that ear, and +I could almost iron it out myself. A vet. could do it.”</p> +<p>Carelessly he dropped a hand to Michael’s ear, and, with tips +of fingers instinct with sensuous sympathy, began to manipulate the +base of the ear where its roots bedded in the tightness of skin-stretch +over the skull. And Michael liked it. Never had a man’s +hand been so intimate with his ear without hurting it. But these +fingers were provocative only of physical pleasure so keen that he twisted +and writhed his whole body in acknowledgment.</p> +<p>Next came a long, steady, upward pull of the ear, the ear slipping +slowly through the fingers to the very tip of it while it tingled exquisitely +down to its roots. Now to one ear, now to the other, this happened, +and all the while the man uttered low words that Michael did not understand +but which he accepted as addressed to him.</p> +<p>“Head all right, good ’n’ flat,” Dag Daughtry +murmured, first sliding his fingers over it, and then lighting a match. +“An’ no wrinkles, ’n’ some jaw, good ’n’ +punishing, an’ not a shade too full in the cheek or too empty.”</p> +<p>He ran his fingers inside Michael’s mouth and noted the strength +and evenness of the teeth, measured the breadth of shoulders and depth +of chest, and picked up a foot. In the light of another match +he examined all four feet.</p> +<p>“Black, all black, every nail of them,” said Daughtry, +“an’ as clean feet as ever a dog walked on, straight-out +toes with the proper arch ’n’ small ’n’ not +too small. I bet your daddy and your mother cantered away with +the ribbons in their day.”</p> +<p>Michael was for growing restless at such searching examination, but +Daughtry, in the midst of feeling out the lines and build of the thighs +and hocks, paused and took Michael’s tail in his magic fingers, +exploring the muscles among which it rooted, pressing and prodding the +adjacent spinal column from which it sprang, and twisting it about in +a most daringly intimate way. And Michael was in an ecstasy, bracing +his hindquarters to one side or the other against the caressing fingers. +With open hands laid along his sides and partly under him, the man suddenly +lifted him from the ground. But before he could feel alarm he +was back on the ground again.</p> +<p>“Twenty-six or -seven—you’re over twenty-five right +now, I’ll bet you on it, shillings to ha’pennies, and you’ll +make thirty when you get your full weight,” Dag Daughtry told +him. “But what of it? Lots of the judges fancy the +thirty-mark. An’ you could always train off a few ounces. +You’re all dog n’ all correct conformation. You’ve +got the racing build and the fighting weight, an’ there ain’t +no feathers on your legs.”</p> +<p>“No, sir, Mr. Dog, your weight’s to the good, and that +ear can be ironed out by any respectable dog—doctor. I bet +there’s a hundred men in Sydney right now that would fork over +twenty quid for the right of calling you his.”</p> +<p>And then, just that Michael should not make the mistake of thinking +he was being much made over, Daughtry leaned back, relighted his pipe, +and apparently forgot his existence. Instead of bidding for good +will, he was bent on making Michael do the bidding.</p> +<p>And Michael did, bumping his flanks against Daughtry’s knee; +nudging his head against Daughtry’s hand, in solicitation for +more of the blissful ear-rubbing and tail-twisting. Daughtry caught +him by the jowl instead and slowly moved his head back and forth as +he addressed him:</p> +<p>“What man’s dog are you? Maybe you’re a nigger’s +dog, an’ that ain’t right. Maybe some nigger’s +stole you, an’ that’d be awful. Think of the cruel +fates that sometimes happens to dogs. It’s a damn shame. +No white man’s stand for a nigger ownin’ the likes of you, +an’ here’s one white man that ain’t goin’ to +stand for it. The idea! A nigger ownin’ you an’ +not knowin’ how to train you. Of course a nigger stole you. +If I laid eyes on him right now I’d up and knock seven bells and +the Saint Paul chimes out of ’m. Sure thing I would. +Just show ’m to me, that’s all, an’ see what I’d +do to him. The idea of you takin’ orders from a nigger an’ +fetchin’ ’n’ carryin’ for him! No, sir, +dog, you ain’t goin’ to do it any more. You’re +comin’ along of me, an’ I reckon I won’t have to urge +you.”</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry stood up and turned carelessly along the beach. +Michael looked after him, but did not follow. He was eager to, +but had received no invitation. At last Daughtry made a low kissing +sound with his lips. So low was it that he scarcely heard it himself +and almost took it on faith, or on the testimony of his lips rather +than of his ears, that he had made it. No human being could have +heard it across the distance to Michael; but Michael heard it, and sprang +away after in a great delighted rush.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<p>Dag Daughtry strolled along the beach, Michael at his heels or running +circles of delight around him at every repetition of that strange low +lip-noise, and paused just outside the circle of lantern light where +dusky forms laboured with landing cargo from the whaleboats and where +the Commissioner’s clerk and the <i>Makambo’s</i> super-cargo +still wrangled over the bill of lading. When Michael would have +gone forward, the man withstrained him with the same inarticulate, almost +inaudible kiss.</p> +<p>For Daughtry did not care to be seen on such dog-stealing enterprises +and was planning how to get on board the steamer unobserved. He +edged around outside the lantern shine and went on along the beach to +the native village. As he had foreseen, all the able-bodied men +were down at the boat-landing working cargo. The grass houses +seemed lifeless, but at last, from one of them, came a challenge in +the querulous, high-pitched tones of age:</p> +<p>“What name?”</p> +<p>“Me walk about plenty too much,” he replied in the bêche-de-mer +English of the west South Pacific. “Me belong along steamer. +Suppose ’m you take ’m me along canoe, washee-washee, me +give ’m you fella boy two stick tobacco.”</p> +<p>“Suppose ’m you give ’m me ten stick, all right +along me,” came the reply.</p> +<p>“Me give ’m five stick,” the six-quart steward +bargained. “Suppose ’m you no like ’m five stick +then you fella boy go to hell close up.”</p> +<p>There was a silence.</p> +<p>“You like ’m five stick?” Daughtry insisted of +the dark interior.</p> +<p>“Me like ’m,” the darkness answered, and through +the darkness the body that owned the voice approached with such strange +sounds that the steward lighted a match to see.</p> +<p>A blear-eyed ancient stood before him, balancing on a single crutch. +His eyes were half-filmed over by a growth of morbid membrane, and what +was not yet covered shone red and irritated. His hair was mangy, +standing out in isolated patches of wispy grey. His skin was scarred +and wrinkled and mottled, and in colour was a purplish blue surfaced +with a grey coating that might have been painted there had it not indubitably +grown there and been part and parcel of him.</p> +<p>A blighted leper—was Daughtry’s thought as his quick +eyes leapt from hands to feet in quest of missing toe- and finger-joints. +But in those items the ancient was intact, although one leg ceased midway +between knee and thigh.</p> +<p>“My word! What place stop ’m that fella leg?” +quoth Daughtry, pointing to the space which the member would have occupied +had it not been absent.</p> +<p>“Big fella shark-fish, that fella leg stop ’m along him,” +the ancient grinned, exposing a horrible aperture of toothlessness for +a mouth.</p> +<p>“Me old fella boy too much,” the one-legged Methuselah +quavered. “Long time too much no smoke ’m tobacco. +Suppose ’m you big fella white marster give ’m me one fella +stick, close up me washee-washee you that fella steamer.”</p> +<p>“Suppose ’m me no give?” the steward impatiently +temporized.</p> +<p>For reply, the old man half-turned, and, on his crutch, swinging +his stump of leg in the air, began sidling hippity-hop into the grass +hut.</p> +<p>“All right,” Daughtry cried hastily. “Me +give ’m you smoke ’m quick fella.”</p> +<p>He dipped into a side coat-pocket for the mintage of the Solomons +and stripped off a stick from the handful of pressed sticks. The +old man was transfigured as he reached avidly for the stick and received +it. He uttered little crooning noises, alternating with sharp +cries akin to pain, half-ecstatic, half-petulant, as he drew a black +clay pipe from a hole in his ear-lobe, and into the bowl of it, with +trembling fingers, untwisted and crumbled the cheap leaf of spoiled +Virginia crop.</p> +<p>Pressing down the contents of the full bowl with his thumb, he suddenly +plumped upon the ground, the crutch beside him, the one limb under him +so that he had the seeming of a legless torso. From a small bag +of twisted coconut hanging from his neck upon his withered and sunken +chest, he drew out flint and steel and tinder, and, even while the impatient +steward was proffering him a box of matches, struck a spark, caught +it in the tinder, blew it into strength and quantity, and lighted his +pipe from it.</p> +<p>With the first full puff of the smoke he gave over his moans and +yelps, the agitation began to fade out of him, and Daughtry, appreciatively +waiting, saw the trembling go out of his hands, the pendulous lip-quivering +cease, the saliva stop flowing from the corners of his mouth, and placidity +come into the fiery remnants of his eyes.</p> +<p>What the old man visioned in the silence that fell, Daughtry did +not try to guess. He was too occupied with his own vision, and +vividly burned before him the sordid barrenness of a poor-house ward, +where an ancient, very like what he himself would become, maundered +and gibbered and drooled for a crumb of tobacco for his old clay pipe, +and where, of all horrors, no sip of beer ever obtained, much less six +quarts of it.</p> +<p>And Michael, by the dim glows of the pipe surveying the scene of +the two old men, one squatted in the dark, the other standing, knew +naught of the tragedy of age, and was only aware, and overwhelmingly +aware, of the immense likableness of this two-legged white god, who, +with fingers of magic, through ear-roots and tail-roots and spinal column, +had won to the heart of him.</p> +<p>The clay pipe smoked utterly out, the old black, by aid of the crutch, +with amazing celerity raised himself upstanding on his one leg and hobbled, +with his hippity-hop, to the beach. Daughtry was compelled to +lend his strength to the hauling down from the sand into the water of +the tiny canoe. It was a dug-out, as ancient and dilapidated as +its owner, and, in order to get into it without capsizing, Daughtry +wet one leg to the ankle and the other leg to the knee. The old +man contorted himself aboard, rolling his body across the gunwale so +quickly, that, even while it started to capsize, his weight was across +the danger-point and counterbalancing the canoe to its proper equilibrium.</p> +<p>Michael remained on the beach, waiting invitation, his mind not quite +made up, but so nearly so that all that was required was that lip-noise. +Dag Daughtry made the lip-noise so low that the old man did not hear, +and Michael, springing clear from sand to canoe, was on board without +wetting his feet. Using Daughtry’s shoulder for a stepping-place, +he passed over him and down into the bottom of the canoe. Daughtry +kissed with his lips again, and Michael turned around so as to face +him, sat down, and rested his head on the steward’s knees.</p> +<p>“I reckon I can take my affydavy on a stack of Bibles that +the dog just up an’ followed me,” he grinned in Michael’s +ear.</p> +<p>“Washee-washee quick fella,” he commanded.</p> +<p>The ancient obediently dipped his paddle and started pottering an +erratic course in the general direction of the cluster of lights that +marked the <i>Makambo</i>. But he was too feeble, panting and +wheezing continually from the exertion and pausing to rest off strokes +between strokes. The steward impatiently took the paddle away +from him and bent to the work.</p> +<p>Half-way to the steamer the ancient ceased wheezing and spoke, nodding +his head at Michael.</p> +<p>“That fella dog he belong big white marster along schooner +. . . You give ’m me ten stick tobacco,” he added after +due pause to let the information sink in.</p> +<p>“I give ’m you bang alongside head,” Daughtry assured +him cheerfully. “White marster along schooner plenty friend +along me too much. Just now he stop ’m along <i>Makambo</i>. +Me take ’m dog along him along <i>Makambo</i>.”</p> +<p>There was no further conversation from the ancient, and though he +lived long years after, he never mentioned the midnight passenger in +the canoe who carried Michael away with him. When he saw and heard +the confusion and uproar on the beach later that night when Captain +Kellar turned Tulagi upside-down in his search for Michael, the old +one-legged one remained discreetly silent. Who was he to seek +trouble with the strange ones, the white masters who came and went and +roved and ruled?</p> +<p>In this the ancient was in nowise unlike the rest of his dark-skinned +Melanesian race. The whites were possessed of unguessed and unthinkable +ways and purposes. They constituted another world and were as +a play of superior beings on an exalted stage where was no reality such +as black men might know as reality, where, like the phantoms of a dream, +the white men moved and were as shadows cast upon the vast and mysterious +curtain of the Cosmos.</p> +<p>The gang-plank being on the port side, Dag Daughtry paddled around +to the starboard and brought the canoe to a stop under a certain open +port.</p> +<p>“Kwaque!” he called softly, once, and twice.</p> +<p>At the second call the light of the port was obscured apparently +by a head that piped down in a thin squeak.</p> +<p>“Me stop ’m, marster.”</p> +<p>“One fella dog stop ’m along you,” the steward +whispered up. “Keep ’m door shut. You wait along +me. Stand by! Now!”</p> +<p>With a quick catch and lift, he passed Michael up and into unseen +hands outstretched from the iron wall of the ship, and paddled ahead +to an open cargo port. Dipping into his tobacco pocket, he thrust +a loose handful of sticks into the ancient’s hand and shoved the +canoe adrift with no thought of how its helpless occupant would ever +reach shore.</p> +<p>The old man did not touch the paddle, and he was unregardless of +the lofty-sided steamer as the canoe slipped down the length of it into +the darkness astern. He was too occupied in counting the wealth +of tobacco showered upon him. No easy task, his counting. +Five was the limit of his numerals. When he had counted five, +he began over again and counted a second five. Three fives he +found in all, and two sticks over; and thus, at the end of it, he possessed +as definite a knowledge of the number of sticks as would be possessed +by the average white man by means of the single number <i>seventeen</i>.</p> +<p>More it was, far more, than his avarice had demanded. Yet he +was unsurprised. Nothing white men did could surprise. Had +it been two sticks instead of seventeen, he would have been equally +unsurprised. Since all acts of white men were surprises, the only +surprise of action they could achieve for a black man would be the doing +of an unsurprising thing.</p> +<p>Paddling, wheezing, resting, oblivious of the shadow-world of the +white men, knowing only the reality of Tulagi Mountain cutting its crest-line +blackly across the dim radiance of the star-sprinkled sky, the reality +of the sea and of the canoe he so feebly urged across it, and the reality +of his fading strength and of the death into which he would surely end, +the ancient black man slowly made his shoreward way.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<p>In the meanwhile, Michael. Lifted through the air, exchanged +into invisible hands that drew him through a narrow diameter of brass +into a lighted room, Michael looked about him in expectancy of Jerry. +But Jerry, at that moment, lay cuddled beside Villa Kennan’s sleeping-cot +on the slant deck of the <i>Ariel</i>, as that trim craft, the Shortlands +astern and New Guinea dead ahead, heeled her scuppers a-whisper and +garrulous to the sea-welter alongside as she logged her eleven knots +under the press of the freshening trades. Instead of Jerry, from +whom he had last parted on board a boat, Michael saw Kwaque.</p> +<p>Kwaque? Well, Kwaque was Kwaque, an individual, more unlike +all other men than most men are unlike one another. No queerer +estray ever drifted along the stream of life. Seventeen years +old he was, as men measure time; but a century was measured in his lean-lined +face, his wrinkled forehead, his hollowed temples, and his deep-sunk +eyes. From his thin legs, fragile-looking as windstraws, the bones +of which were sheathed in withered skin with apparently no muscle padding +in between—from such frail stems sprouted the torso of a fat man. +The huge and protuberant stomach was amply supported by wide and massive +hips, and the shoulders were broad as those of a Hercules. But, +beheld sidewise, there was no depth to those shoulders and the top of +the chest. Almost, at that part of his anatomy, he seemed builded +in two dimensions. Thin his arms were as his legs, and, as Michael +first beheld him, he had all the seeming of a big-bellied black spider.</p> +<p>He proceeded to dress, a matter of moments, slipping into duck trousers +and blouse, dirty and frayed from long usage. Two fingers of his +left hand were doubled into a permanent bend, and, to an expert, would +have advertised that he was a leper. Although he belonged to Dag +Daughtry just as much as if the steward possessed a chattel bill of +sale of him, his owner did not know that his anæsthetic twist +of ravaged nerves tokened the dread disease.</p> +<p>The manner of the ownership was simple. At King William Island, +in the Admiralties, Kwaque had made, in the parlance of the South Pacific, +a pier-head jump. So to speak, leprosy and all, he had jumped +into Dag Daughtry’s arms. Strolling along the native runways +in the fringe of jungle just beyond the beach, as was his custom, to +see whatever he might pick up, the steward had picked up Kwaque. +And he had picked him up in extremity.</p> +<p>Pursued by two very active young men armed with fire-hardened spears, +tottering along with incredible swiftness on his two spindle legs, Kwaque +had fallen exhausted at Daughtry’s feet and looked up at him with +the beseeching eyes of a deer fleeing from the hounds. Daughtry +had inquired into the matter, and the inquiry was violent; for he had +a wholesome fear of germs and bacilli, and when the two active young +men tried to run him through with their filth-corroded spears, he caught +the spear of one young man under his arm and put the other young man +to sleep with a left hook to the jaw. A moment later the young +man whose spear he held had joined the other in slumber.</p> +<p>The elderly steward was not satisfied with the mere spears. +While the rescued Kwaque continued to moan and slubber thankfulness +at his feet, he proceeded to strip them that were naked. Nothing +they wore in the way of clothing, but from around each of their necks +he removed a necklace of porpoise teeth that was worth a gold sovereign +in mere exchange value. From the kinky locks of one of the naked +young men he drew a hand-carved, fine-toothed comb, the lofty back of +which was inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which he later sold in Sydney +to a curio shop for eight shillings. Nose and ear ornaments of +bone and turtle-shell he also rifled, as well as a chest-crescent of +pearl shell, fourteen inches across, worth fifteen shillings anywhere. +The two spears ultimately fetched him five shillings each from the tourists +at Port Moresby. Not lightly may a ship steward undertake to maintain +a six-quart reputation.</p> +<p>When he turned to depart from the active young men, who, back to +consciousness, were observing him with bright, quick, wild-animal eyes, +Kwaque followed so close at his heels as to step upon them and make +him stumble. Whereupon he loaded Kwaque with his trove and put +him in front to lead along the runway to the beach. And for the +rest of the way to the steamer, Dag Daughtry grinned and chuckled at +sight of his plunder and at sight of Kwaque, who fantastically titubated +and ambled along, barrel-like, on his pipe-stems.</p> +<p>On board the steamer, which happened to be the <i>Cockspur</i>, Daughtry +persuaded the captain to enter Kwaque on the ship’s articles as +steward’s helper with a rating of ten shillings a month. +Also, he learned Kwaque’s story.</p> +<p>It was all an account of a pig. The two active young men were +brothers who lived in the next village to his, and the pig had been +theirs—so Kwaque narrated in atrocious bêche-de-mer English. +He, Kwaque, had never seen the pig. He had never known of its +existence until after it was dead. The two young men had loved +the pig. But what of that? It did not concern Kwaque, who +was as unaware of their love for the pig as he was unaware of the pig +itself.</p> +<p>The first he knew, he averred, was the gossip of the village that +the pig was dead, and that somebody would have to die for it. +It was all right, he said, in reply to a query from the steward. +It was the custom. Whenever a loved pig died its owners were in +custom bound to go out and kill somebody, anybody. Of course, +it was better if they killed the one whose magic had made the pig sick. +But, failing that one, any one would do. Hence Kwaque was selected +for the blood-atonement.</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry drank a seventh quart as he listened, so carried away +was he by the sombre sense of romance of this dark jungle event wherein +men killed even strangers because a pig was dead.</p> +<p>Scouts out on the runways, Kwaque continued, brought word of the +coming of the two bereaved pig-owners, and the village had fled into +the jungle and climbed trees—all except Kwaque, who was unable +to climb trees.</p> +<p>“My word,” Kwaque concluded, “me no make ’m +that fella pig sick.”</p> +<p>“My word,” quoth Dag Daughtry, “you devil-devil +along that fella pig too much. You look ’m like hell. +You make ’m any fella thing sick look along you. You make +’m me sick too much.”</p> +<p>It became quite a custom for the steward, as he finished his sixth +bottle before turning in, to call upon Kwaque for his story. It +carried him back to his boyhood when he had been excited by tales of +wild cannibals in far lands and dreamed some day to see them for himself. +And here he was, he would chuckle to himself, with a real true cannibal +for a slave.</p> +<p>A slave Kwaque was, as much as if Daughtry had bought him on the +auction-block. Whenever the steward transferred from ship to ship +of the Burns Philp fleet, he always stipulated that Kwaque should accompany +him and be duly rated at ten shillings. Kwaque had no say in the +matter. Even had he desired to escape in Australian ports, there +was no need for Daughtry to watch him. Australia, with her “all-white” +policy, attended to that. No dark-skinned human, whether Malay, +Japanese, or Polynesian, could land on her shore without putting into +the Government’s hand a cash security of one hundred pounds.</p> +<p>Nor at the other islands visited by the <i>Makambo</i> had Kwaque +any desire to cut and run for it. King William Island, which was +the only land he had ever trod, was his yard-stick by which he measured +all other islands. And since King William Island was cannibalistic, +he could only conclude that the other islands were given to similar +dietary practice.</p> +<p>As for King William Island, the <i>Makambo</i>, on the former run +of the <i>Cockspur</i>, stopped there every ten weeks; but the direst +threat Daughtry ever held over him was the putting ashore of him at +the place where the two active young men still mourned their pig. +In fact, it was their regular programme, each trip, to paddle out and +around the <i>Makambo</i> and make ferocious grimaces up at Kwaque, +who grimaced back at them from over the rail. Daughtry even encouraged +this exchange of facial amenities for the purpose of deterring him from +ever hoping to win ashore to the village of his birth.</p> +<p>For that matter, Kwaque had little desire to leave his master, who, +after all, was kindly and just, and never lifted a hand to him. +Having survived sea-sickness at the first, and never setting foot upon +the land so that he never again knew sea-sickness, Kwaque was certain +he lived in an earthly paradise. He never had to regret his inability +to climb trees, because danger never threatened him. He had food +regularly, and all he wanted, and it was such food! No one in +his village could have dreamed of any delicacy of the many delicacies +which he consumed all the time. Because of these matters he even +pulled through a light attack of home-sickness, and was as contented +a human as ever sailed the seas.</p> +<p>And Kwaque it was who pulled Michael through the port-hole into Dag +Daughtry’s stateroom and waited for that worthy to arrive by the +roundabout way of the door. After a quick look around the room +and a sniff of the bunk and under the bunk which informed him that Jerry +was not present, Michael turned his attention to Kwaque.</p> +<p>Kwaque tried to be friendly. He uttered a clucking noise in +advertisement of his friendliness, and Michael snarled at this black +who had dared to lay hands upon him—a contamination, according +to Michael’s training—and who now dared to address him who +associated only with white gods.</p> +<p>Kwaque passed off the rebuff with a silly gibbering laugh and started +to step nearer the door to be in readiness to open it at his master’s +coming. But at first lift of his leg, Michael flew at it. +Kwaque immediately put it down, and Michael subsided, though he kept +a watchful guard. What did he know of this strange black, save +that he was a black and that, in the absence of a white master, all +blacks required watching? Kwaque tried slowly sliding his foot +along the floor, but Michael knew the trick and with bristle and growl +put a stop to it.</p> +<p>It was upon this tableau that Daughtry entered, and, while he admired +Michael much under the bright electric light, he realized the situation.</p> +<p>“Kwaque, you make ’m walk about leg belong you,” +he commanded, in order to make sure.</p> +<p>Kwaque’s glance of apprehension at Michael was convincing enough, +but the steward insisted. Kwaque gingerly obeyed, but scarcely +had his foot moved an inch when Michael’s was upon him. +The foot and leg petrified, while Michael stiff-leggedly drew a half-circle +of intimidation about him.</p> +<p>“Got you nailed to the floor, eh?” Daughtry chuckled. +“Some nigger-chaser, my word, any amount.”</p> +<p>“Hey, you, Kwaque, go fetch ’m two fella bottle of beer +stop ’m along icey-chestis,” he commanded in his most peremptory +manner.</p> +<p>Kwaque looked beseechingly, but did not stir. Nor did he stir +at a harsher repetition of the order.</p> +<p>“My word!” the steward bullied. “Suppose +’m you no fetch ’m beer close up, I knock ’m eight +bells ’n ’a dog-watch onta you. Suppose ’m you +no fetch ’m close up, me make ’m you go ashore ’n’ +walk about along King William Island.”</p> +<p>“No can,” Kwaque murmured timidly. “Eye belong +dog look along me too much. Me no like ’m dog kai-kai along +me.”</p> +<p>“You fright along dog?” his master demanded.</p> +<p>“My word, me fright along dog any amount.”</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry was delighted. Also, he was thirsty from his trip +ashore and did not prolong the situation.</p> +<p>“Hey, you, dog,” he addressed Michael. “This +fella boy he all right. Savvee? He all right.”</p> +<p>Michael bobbed his tail and flattened his ears in token that he was +trying to understand. When the steward patted the black on the +shoulder, Michael advanced and sniffed both the legs he had kept nailed +to the floor.</p> +<p>“Walk about,” Daughtry commanded. “Walk about +slow fella,” he cautioned, though there was little need.</p> +<p>Michael bristled, but permitted the first timid step. At the +second he glanced up at Daughtry to make certain.</p> +<p>“That’s right,” he was reassured. “That +fella boy belong me. He all right, you bet.”</p> +<p>Michael smiled with his eyes that he understood, and turned casually +aside to investigate an open box on the floor which contained plates +of turtle-shell, hack-saws, and emery paper.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>“And now,” Dag Daughtry muttered weightily aloud, as, +bottle in hand, he leaned back in his arm-chair while Kwaque knelt at +his feet to unlace his shoes, “now to consider a name for you, +Mister Dog, that will be just to your breeding and fair to my powers +of invention.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<p>Irish terriers, when they have gained maturity, are notable, not +alone for their courage, fidelity, and capacity for love, but for their +cool-headedness and power of self-control and restraint. They +are less easily excited off their balance; they can recognize and obey +their master’s voice in the scuffle and rage of battle; and they +never fly into nervous hysterics such as are common, say, with fox-terriers.</p> +<p>Michael possessed no trace of hysteria, though he was more temperamentally +excitable and explosive than his blood-brother Jerry, while his father +and mother were a sedate old couple indeed compared with him. +Far more than mature Jerry, was mature Michael playful and rowdyish. +His ebullient spirits were always on tap to spill over on the slightest +provocation, and, as he was afterwards to demonstrate, he could weary +a puppy with play. In short, Michael was a merry soul.</p> +<p>“Soul” is used advisedly. Whatever the human soul +may be—informing spirit, identity, personality, consciousness—that +intangible thing Michael certainly possessed. His soul, differing +only in degree, partook of the same attributes as the human soul. +He knew love, sorrow, joy, wrath, pride, self-consciousness, humour. +Three cardinal attributes of the human soul are memory, will, and understanding; +and memory, will, and understanding were Michael’s.</p> +<p>Just like a human, with his five senses he contacted with the world +exterior to him. Just like a human, the results to him of these +contacts were sensations. Just like a human, these sensations +on occasion culminated in emotions. Still further, like a human, +he could and did perceive, and such perceptions did flower in his brain +as concepts, certainly not so wide and deep and recondite as those of +humans, but concepts nevertheless.</p> +<p>Perhaps, to let the human down a trifle from such disgraceful identity +of the highest life-attributes, it would be well to admit that Michael’s +sensations were not quite so poignant, say in the matter of a needle-thrust +through his foot as compared with a needle-thrust through the palm of +a hand. Also, it is admitted, when consciousness suffused his +brain with a thought, that the thought was dimmer, vaguer than a similar +thought in a human brain. Furthermore, it is admitted that never, +never, in a million lifetimes, could Michael have demonstrated a proposition +in Euclid or solved a quadratic equation. Yet he was capable of +knowing beyond all peradventure of a doubt that three bones are more +than two bones, and that ten dogs compose a more redoubtable host than +do two dogs.</p> +<p>One admission, however, will not be made, namely, that Michael could +not love as devotedly, as wholeheartedly, unselfishly, madly, self-sacrificingly +as a human. He did so love—not because he was Michael, but +because he was a dog.</p> +<p>Michael had loved Captain Kellar more than he loved his own life. +No more than Jerry for Skipper, would he have hesitated to risk his +life for Captain Kellar. And he was destined, as time went by +and the conviction that Captain Kellar had passed into the inevitable +nothingness along with Meringe and the Solomons, to love just as absolutely +this six-quart steward with the understanding ways and the fascinating +lip-caress. Kwaque, no; for Kwaque was black. Kwaque he +merely accepted, as an appurtenance, as a part of the human landscape, +as a chattel of Dag Daughtry.</p> +<p>But he did not know this new god as Dag Daughtry. Kwaque called +him “marster”; but Michael heard other white men so addressed +by the blacks. Many blacks had he heard call Captain Kellar “marster.” +It was Captain Duncan who called the steward “Steward.” +Michael came to hear him, and his officers, and all the passengers, +so call him; and thus, to Michael, his god’s name was Steward, +and for ever after he was to know him and think of him as Steward.</p> +<p>There was the question of his own name. The next evening after +he came on board, Dag Daughtry talked it over with him. Michael +sat on his haunches, the length of his lower jaw resting on Daughtry’s +knee, the while his eyes dilated, contracted and glowed, his ears ever +pricking and repricking to listen, his stump tail thumping ecstatically +on the floor.</p> +<p>“It’s this way, son,” the steward told him. +“Your father and mother were Irish. Now don’t be denying +it, you rascal—”</p> +<p>This, as Michael, encouraged by the unmistakable geniality and kindness +in the voice, wriggled his whole body and thumped double knocks of delight +with his tail. Not that he understood a word of it, but that he +did understand the something behind the speech that informed the string +of sounds with all the mysterious likeableness that white gods possessed.</p> +<p>“Never be ashamed of your ancestry. An’ remember, +God loves the Irish—Kwaque! Go fetch ’m two bottle +beer fella stop ’m along icey-chestis!—Why, the very mug +of you, my lad, sticks out Irish all over it.” (Michael’s +tail beat a tattoo.) “Now don’t be blarneyin’ +me. ’Tis well I’m wise to your insidyous, snugglin’, +heart-stealin’ ways. I’ll have ye know my heart’s +impervious. ’Tis soaked too long this many a day in beer. +I stole you to sell you, not to be lovin’ you. I could’ve +loved you once; but that was before me and beer was introduced. +I’d sell you for twenty quid right now, coin down, if the chance +offered. An’ I ain’t goin’ to love you, so you +can put that in your pipe ’n’ smoke it.”</p> +<p>“But as I was about to say when so rudely interrupted by your +’fectionate ways—”</p> +<p>Here he broke off to tilt to his mouth the opened bottle Kwaque handed +him. He sighed, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and +proceeded.</p> +<p>“’Tis a strange thing, son, this silly matter of beer. +Kwaque, the Methusalem-faced ape grinnin’ there, belongs to me. +But by my faith do I belong to beer, bottles ’n’ bottles +of it ’n’ mountains of bottles of it enough to sink the +ship. Dog, truly I envy you, settin’ there comfortable-like +inside your body that’s untainted of alcohol. I may own +you, and the man that gives me twenty quid will own you, but never will +a mountain of bottles own you. You’re a freer man than I +am, Mister Dog, though I don’t know your name. Which reminds +me—”</p> +<p>He drained the bottle, tossed it to Kwaque, and made signs for him +to open the remaining one.</p> +<p>“The namin’ of you, son, is not lightly to be considered. +Irish, of course, but what shall it be? Paddy? Well may +you shake your head. There’s no smack of distinction to +it. Who’d mistake you for a hod-carrier? Ballymena +might do, but it sounds much like a lady, my boy. Ay, boy you +are. ’Tis an idea. Boy! Let’s see. +Banshee Boy? Rotten. Lad of Erin!”</p> +<p>He nodded approbation and reached for the second bottle. He +drank and meditated, and drank again.</p> +<p>“I’ve got you,” he announced solemnly. “Killeny +is a lovely name, and it’s Killeny Boy for you. How’s +that strike your honourableness?—high-soundin’, dignified +as a earl or . . . or a retired brewer. Many’s the one of +that gentry I’ve helped to retire in my day.”</p> +<p>He finished his bottle, caught Michael suddenly by both jowls, and, +leaning forward, rubbed noses with him. As suddenly released, +with thumping tail and dancing eyes, Michael gazed up into the god’s +face. A definite soul, or entity, or spirit-thing glimmered behind +his dog’s eyes, already fond with affection for this hair-grizzled +god who talked with him he knew not what, but whose very talking carried +delicious and unguessable messages to his heart.</p> +<p>“Hey! Kwaque, you!”</p> +<p>Kwaque, squatted on the floor, his hams on his heels, paused from +the rough-polishing of a shell comb designed and cut out by his master, +and looked up, eager to receive command and serve.</p> +<p>“Kwaque, you fella this time now savvee name stop along this +fella dog. His name belong ’m him, Killeny Boy. You +make ’m name stop ’m inside head belong you. All the +time you speak ’m this fella dog, you speak ’m Killeny Boy. +Savvee? Suppose ’m you no savvee, I knock ’m block +off belong you. Killeny Boy, savvee! Killeny Boy. +Killeny Boy.”</p> +<p>As Kwaque removed his shoes and helped him undress, Daughtry regarded +Michael with sleepy eyes.</p> +<p>“I’ve got you, laddy,” he announced, as he stood +up and swayed toward bed. “I’ve got your name, an’ +here’s your number—I got that, too: <i>high-strung but reasonable</i>. +It fits you like the paper on the wall.</p> +<p>“High-strung but reasonable, that’s what you are, Killeny +Boy, high-strung but reasonable,” he continued to mumble as Kwaque +helped to roll him into his bunk.</p> +<p>Kwaque returned to his polishing. His lips stammered and halted +in the making of noiseless whispers, as, with corrugated brows of puzzlement, +he addressed the steward:</p> +<p>“Marster, what name stop ’m along that fella dog?”</p> +<p>“Killeny Boy, you kinky-head man-eater, Killeny Boy, Killeny +Boy,” Dag Daughtry murmured drowsily. “Kwaque, you +black blood-drinker, run n’ fetch ’m one fella bottle stop +’m along icey-chestis.”</p> +<p>“No stop ’m, marster,” the black quavered, with +eyes alert for something to be thrown at him. “Six fella +bottle he finish altogether.”</p> +<p>The steward’s sole reply was a snore.</p> +<p>The black, with the twisted hand of leprosy and with a barely perceptible +infiltration of the same disease thickening the skin of the forehead +between the eyes, bent over his polishing, and ever his lips moved, +repeating over and over, “Killeny Boy.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<p>For a number of days Michael saw only Steward and Kwaque. This +was because he was confined to the steward’s stateroom. +Nobody else knew that he was on board, and Dag Daughtry, thoroughly +aware that he had stolen a white man’s dog, hoped to keep his +presence secret and smuggle him ashore when the <i>Makambo</i> docked +in Sydney.</p> +<p>Quickly the steward learned Michael’s pre-eminent teachableness. +In the course of his careful feeding of him, he gave him an occasional +chicken bone. Two lessons, which would scarcely be called lessons, +since both of them occurred within five minutes and each was not over +half a minute in duration, sufficed to teach Michael that only on the +floor of the room in the corner nearest the door could he chew chicken +bones. Thereafter, without prompting, as a matter of course when +handed a bone, he carried it to the corner.</p> +<p>And why not? He had the wit to grasp what Steward desired of +him; he had the heart that made it a happiness for him to serve. +Steward was a god who was kind, who loved him with voice and lip, who +loved him with touch of hand, rub of nose, or enfolding arm. As +all service flourishes in the soil of love, so with Michael. Had +Steward commanded him to forego the chicken bone after it was in the +corner, he would have served him by foregoing. Which is the way +of the dog, the only animal that will cheerfully and gladly, with leaping +body of joy, leave its food uneaten in order to accompany or to serve +its human master.</p> +<p>Practically all his waking time off duty, Dag Daughtry spent with +the imprisoned Michael, who, at command, had quickly learned to refrain +from whining and barking. And during these hours of companionship +Michael learned many things. Daughtry found that he already understood +and obeyed simple things such as “no,” “yes,” +“get up,” and “lie down,” and he improved on +them, teaching him, “Go into the bunk and lie down,” “Go +under the bunk,” “Bring one shoe,” “Bring two +shoes.” And almost without any work at all, he taught him +to roll over, to say his prayers, to play dead, to sit up and smoke +a pipe with a hat on his head, and not merely to stand up on his hind +legs but to walk on them.</p> +<p>Then, too, was the trick of “no can and can do.” +Placing a savoury, nose-tantalising bit of meat or cheese on the edge +of the bunk on a level with Michael’s nose, Daughtry would simply +say, “No can.” Nor would Michael touch the food till +he received the welcome, “Can do.” Daughtry, with +the “no can” still in force, would leave the stateroom, +and, though he remained away half an hour or half a dozen hours, on +his return he would find the food untouched and Michael, perhaps, asleep +in the corner at the head of the bunk which had been allotted him for +a bed. Early in this trick once when the steward had left the +room and Michael’s eager nose was within an inch of the prohibited +morsel, Kwaque, playfully inclined, reached for the morsel himself and +received a lacerated hand from the quick flash and clip of Michael’s +jaws.</p> +<p>None of the tricks that he was ever eager to do for Steward, would +Michael do for Kwaque, despite the fact that Kwaque had no touch of +meanness or viciousness in him. The point was that Michael had +been trained, from his first dawn of consciousness, to differentiate +between black men and white men. Black men were always the servants +of white men—or such had been his experience; and always they +were objects of suspicion, ever bent on wreaking mischief and requiring +careful watching. The cardinal duty of a dog was to serve his +white god by keeping a vigilant eye on all blacks that came about.</p> +<p>Yet Michael permitted Kwaque to serve him in matters of food, water, +and other offices, at first in the absence of Steward attending to his +ship duties, and, later, at any time. For he realized, without +thinking about it at all, that whatever Kwaque did for him, whatever +food Kwaque spread for him, really proceeded, not from Kwaque, but from +Kwaque’s master who was also his master. Yet Kwaque bore +no grudge against Michael, and was himself so interested in his lord’s +welfare and comfort—this lord who had saved his life that terrible +day on King William Island from the two grief-stricken pig-owners—that +he cherished Michael for his lord’s sake. Seeing the dog +growing into his master’s affection, Kwaque himself developed +a genuine affection for Michael—much in the same way that he worshipped +anything of the steward’s, whether the shoes he polished for him, +the clothes he brushed and cleaned for him, or the six bottles of beer +he put into the ice-chest each day for him.</p> +<p>In truth, there was nothing of the master-quality in Kwaque, while +Michael was a natural aristocrat. Michael, out of love, would +serve Steward, but Michael lorded it over the kinky-head. Kwaque +possessed overwhelmingly the slave-nature, while in Michael there was +little more of the slave-nature than was found in the North American +Indians when the vain attempt was made to make them into slaves on the +plantations of Cuba. All of which was no personal vice of Kwaque +or virtue of Michael. Michael’s heredity, rigidly selected +for ages by man, was chiefly composed of fierceness and faithfulness. +And fierceness and faithfulness, together, invariably produce pride. +And pride cannot exist without honour, nor can honour without poise.</p> +<p>Michael’s crowning achievement, under Daughtry’s tutelage, +in the first days in the stateroom, was to learn to count up to five. +Many hours of work were required, however, in spite of his unusual high +endowment of intelligence. For he had to learn, first, the spoken +numerals; second, to see with his eyes and in his brain differentiate +between one object, and all other groups of objects up to and including +the group of five; and, third, in his mind, to relate an object, or +any group of objects, with its numerical name as uttered by Steward.</p> +<p>In the training Dag Daughtry used balls of paper tied about with +twine. He would toss the five balls under the bunk and tell Michael +to fetch three, and neither two, nor four, but three would Michael bring +forth and deliver into his hand. When Daughtry threw three under +the bunk and demanded four, Michael would deliver the three, search +about vainly for the fourth, then dance pleadingly with bobs of tail +and half-leaps about Steward, and finally leap into the bed and secure +the fourth from under the pillow or among the blankets.</p> +<p>It was the same with other known objects. Up to five, whether +shoes or shirts or pillow-slips, Michael would fetch the number requested. +And between the mathematical mind of Michael, who counted to five, and +the mind of the ancient black at Tulagi, who counted sticks of tobacco +in units of five, was a distance shorter than that between Michael and +Dag Daughtry who could do multiplication and long division. In +the same manner, up the same ladder of mathematical ability, a still +greater distance separated Dag Daughtry from Captain Duncan, who by +mathematics navigated the <i>Makambo</i>. Greatest mathematical +distance of all was that between Captain Duncan’s mind and the +mind of an astronomer who charted the heavens and navigated a thousand +million miles away among the stars and who tossed, a mere morsel of +his mathematical knowledge, the few shreds of information to Captain +Duncan that enabled him to know from day to day the place of the <i>Makambo</i> +on the sea.</p> +<p>In one thing only could Kwaque rule Michael. Kwaque possessed +a jews’ harp, and, whenever the world of the <i>Makambo</i> and +the servitude to the steward grew wearisome, he could transport himself +to King William Island by thrusting the primitive instrument between +his jaws and fanning weird rhythms from it with his hand, and when he +thus crossed space and time, Michael sang—or howled, rather, though +his howl possessed the same soft mellowness as Jerry’s. +Michael did not want to howl, but the chemistry of his being was such +that he reacted to music as compulsively as elements react on one another +in the laboratory.</p> +<p>While he lay perdu in Steward’s stateroom, his voice was the +one thing that was not to be heard, so Kwaque was forced to seek the +solace of his jews’ harp in the sweltering heat of the gratings +over the fire-room. But this did not continue long, for, either +according to blind chance, or to the lines of fate written in the book +of life ere ever the foundations of the world were laid, Michael was +scheduled for an adventure that was profoundly to affect, not alone +his own destiny, but the destinies of Kwaque and Dag Daughtry and determine +the very place of their death and burial.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<p>The adventure that was so to alter the future occurred when Michael, +in no uncertain manner, announced to all and sundry his presence on +the <i>Makambo</i>. It was due to Kwaque’s carelessness, +to commence with, for Kwaque left the stateroom without tight-closing +the door. As the <i>Makambo</i> rolled on an easy sea the door +swung back and forth, remaining wide open for intervals and banging +shut but not banging hard enough to latch itself.</p> +<p>Michael crossed the high threshold with the innocent intention of +exploring no farther than the immediate vicinity. But scarcely +was he through, when a heavier roll slammed the door and latched it. +And immediately Michael wanted to get back. Obedience was strong +in him, for it was his heart’s desire to serve his lord’s +will, and from the few days’ confinement he sensed, or guessed, +or divined, without thinking about it, that it was Steward’s will +for him to stay in the stateroom.</p> +<p>For a long time he sat down before the closed door, regarding it +wistfully but being too wise to bark or speak to such inanimate object. +It had been part of his early puppyhood education to learn that only +live things could be moved by plea or threat, and that while things +not alive did move, as the door had moved, they never moved of themselves, +and were deaf to anything life might have to say to them. Occasionally +he trotted down the short cross-hall upon which the stateroom opened, +and gazed up and down the long hall that ran fore and aft.</p> +<p>For the better part of an hour he did this, returning always to the +door that would not open. Then he achieved a definite idea. +Since the door would not open, and since Steward and Kwaque did not +return, he would go in search of them. Once with this concept +of action clear in his brain, without timidities of hesitation and irresolution, +he trotted aft down the long hall. Going around the right angle +in which it ended, he encountered a narrow flight of steps. Among +many scents, he recognized those of Kwaque and Steward and knew they +had passed that way.</p> +<p>Up the stairs and on the main deck, he began to meet passengers. +Being white gods, he did not resent their addresses to him, though he +did not linger and went out on the open deck where more of the favoured +gods reclined in steamer-chairs. Still no Kwaque or Steward. +Another flight of narrow, steep stairs invited, and he came out on the +boat-deck. Here, under the wide awnings, were many more of the +gods—many times more than he had that far seen in his life.</p> +<p>The for’ard end of the boat-deck terminated in the bridge, +which, instead of being raised above it, was part of it. Trotting +around the wheel-house to the shady lee-side of it, he came upon his +fate; for be it known that Captain Duncan possessed on board in addition +to two fox-terriers, a big Persian cat, and that cat possessed a litter +of kittens. Her chosen nursery was the wheel-house, and Captain +Duncan had humoured her, giving her a box for her kittens and threatening +the quartermasters with all manner of dire fates did they so much as +step on one of the kittens.</p> +<p>But Michael knew nothing of this. And the big Persian knew +of his existence before he did of hers. In fact, the first he +knew was when she launched herself upon him out of the open wheel-house +doorway. Even as he glimpsed this abrupt danger, and before he +could know what it was, he leaped sideways and saved himself. +From his point of view, the assault was unprovoked. He was staring +at her with bristling hair, recognizing her for what she was, a cat, +when she sprang again, her tail the size of a large man’s arm, +all claws and spitting fury and vindictiveness.</p> +<p>This was too much for a self-respecting Irish terrier. His +wrath was immediate with her second leap, and he sprang to the side +to avoid her claws, and in from the side to meet her, his jaws clamping +together on her spinal column with a jerk while she was still in mid-air. +The next moment she lay sprawling and struggling on the deck with a +broken back.</p> +<p>But for Michael this was only the beginning. A shrill yelling, +rather than yelping, of more enemies made him whirl half about, but +not quick enough. Struck in flank by two full-grown fox-terriers, +he was slashed and rolled on the deck. The two, by the way, had +long before made their first appearance on the <i>Makambo</i> as little +puppies in Dag Daughtry’s coat pockets—Daughtry, in his +usual fashion, having appropriated them ashore in Sydney and sold them +to Captain Duncan for a guinea apiece.</p> +<p>By this time, scrambling to his feet, Michael was really angry. +In truth, it was raining cats and dogs, such belligerent shower all +unprovoked by him who had picked no quarrels nor even been aware of +his enemies until they assailed him. Brave the fox-terriers were, +despite the hysterical rage they were in, and they were upon him as +he got his legs under him. The fangs of one clashed with his, +cutting the lips of both of them, and the lighter dog recoiled from +the impact. The other succeeded in taking Michael in flank, fetching +blood and hurt with his teeth. With an instant curve, that was +almost spasmodic, of his body, Michael flung his flank clear, leaving +the other’s mouth full of his hair, and at the same moment drove +his teeth through an ear till they met. The fox-terrier, with +a shrill yelp of pain, sprang back so impetuously as to ribbon its ear +as Michael’s teeth combed through it.</p> +<p>The first terrier was back upon him, and he was whirling to meet +it, when a new and equally unprovoked assault was made upon him. +This time it was Captain Duncan, in a rage at sight of his slain cat. +The instep of his foot caught Michael squarely under the chest, half +knocking the breath out of him and wholly lifting him into the air, +so that he fell heavily on his side. The two terriers were upon +him, filling their mouths with his straight, wiry hair as they sank +their teeth in. Still on his side, as he was beginning to struggle +to his feet, he clipped his jaws together on a leg of one, who screamed +with pain and retreated on three legs, holding up the fourth, a fore +leg, the bone of which Michael’s teeth had all but crushed.</p> +<p>Twice Michael slashed the other four-footed foe and then pursued +him in a circle with Captain Duncan pursuing him in turn. Shortening +the distance by leaping across a chord of the arc of the other’s +flight, Michael closed his jaws on the back and side of the neck. +Such abrupt arrest in mid-flight by the heavier dog brought the fox-terrier +down on deck with, a heavy thump. Simultaneous with this, Captain +Duncan’s second kick landed, communicating such propulsion to +Michael as to tear his clenched teeth through the flesh and out of the +flesh of the fox-terrier.</p> +<p>And Michael turned on the Captain. What if he were a white +god? In his rage at so many assaults of so many enemies, Michael, +who had been peacefully looking for Kwaque and Steward, did not stop +to reckon. Besides, it was a strange white god upon whom he had +never before laid eyes.</p> +<p>At the beginning he had snarled and growled. But it was a more +serious affair to attack a god, and no sound came from him as he leaped +to meet the leg flying toward him in another kick. As with the +cat, he did not leap straight at it. To the side to avoid, and +in with a curve of body as it passed, was his way. He had learned +the trick with many blacks at Meringe and on board the <i>Eugénie</i>, +so that as often he succeeded as failed at it. His teeth came +together in the slack of the white duck trousers. The consequent +jerk on Captain Duncan’s leg made that infuriated mariner lose +his balance. Almost he fell forward on his face, part recovered +himself with a violent effort, stumbled over Michael who was in for +another bite, tottered wildly around, and sat down on the deck.</p> +<p>How long he might have sat there to recover his breath is problematical, +for he rose as rapidly as his stoutness would permit, spurred on by +Michael’s teeth already sunk into the fleshy part of his shoulder. +Michael missed his calf as he uprose, but tore the other leg of the +trousers to shreds and received a kick that lifted him a yard above +the deck in a half-somersault and landed him on his back on deck.</p> +<p>Up to this time the Captain had been on the ferocious offensive, +and he was in the act of following up the kick when Michael regained +his feet and soared up in the air, not for leg or thigh, but for the +throat. Too high it was for him to reach it, but his teeth closed +on the flowing black scarf and tore it to tatters as his weight drew +him back to deck.</p> +<p>It was not this so much that turned Captain Duncan to the pure defensive +and started him retreating backward, as it was the silence of Michael. +Ominous as death it was. There were no snarls nor throat-threats. +With eyes straight-looking and unblinking, he sprang and sprang again. +Neither did he growl when he attacked nor yelp when he was kicked. +Fear of the blow was not in him. As Tom Haggin had so often bragged +of Biddy and Terrence, they bred true in Jerry and Michael in the matter +of not wincing at a blow. Always—they were so made—they +sprang to meet the blow and to encounter the creature who delivered +the blow. With a silence that was invested with the seriousness +of death, they were wont to attack and to continue to attack.</p> +<p>And so Michael. As the Captain retreated kicking, he attacked, +leaping and slashing. What saved Captain Duncan was a sailor with +a deck mop on the end of a stick. Intervening, he managed to thrust +it into Michael’s mouth and shove him away. This first time +his teeth closed automatically upon it. But, spitting it out, +he declined thereafter to bite it, knowing it for what it was, an inanimate +thing upon which his teeth could inflict no hurt.</p> +<p>Nor, beyond trying to avoid him, was he interested in the sailor. +It was Captain Duncan, leaning his back against the rail, breathing +heavily, and wiping the streaming sweat from his face, who was Michael’s +meat. Long as it has taken to tell the battle, beginning with +the slaying of the Persian cat to the thrusting of the mop into Michael’s +jaws, so swift had been the rush of events that the passengers, springing +from their deck-chairs and hurrying to the scene, were just arriving +when Michael eluded the mop of the sailor by a successful dodge and +plunged in on Captain Duncan, this time sinking his teeth so savagely +into a rotund calf as to cause its owner to splutter an incoherent curse +and howl of wrathful surprise.</p> +<p>A fortunate kick hurled Michael away and enabled the sailor to intervene +once again with the mop. And upon the scene came Dag Daughtry, +to behold his captain, frayed and bleeding and breathing apoplectically, +Michael raging in ghastly silence at the end of a mop, and a large Persian +mother-cat writhing with a broken back.</p> +<p>“Killeny Boy!” the steward cried imperatively.</p> +<p>Through no matter what indignation and rage that possessed him, his +lord’s voice penetrated his consciousness, so that, cooling almost +instantly, Michael’s ears flattened, his bristling hair lay down, +and his lips covered his fangs as he turned his head to look acknowledgment.</p> +<p>“Come here, Killeny!”</p> +<p>Michael obeyed—not crouching cringingly, but trotting eagerly, +gladly, to Steward’s feet.</p> +<p>“Lie down, Boy.”</p> +<p>He turned half around as he flumped himself down with a sigh of relief, +and, with a red flash of tongue, kissed Steward’s foot.</p> +<p>“Your dog, Steward?” Captain Duncan demanded in a smothered +voice wherein struggled anger and shortness of breath.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir. My dog. What’s he been up to, +sir?”</p> +<p>The totality of what Michael had been up to choked the Captain completely. +He could only gesture around from the dying cat to his torn clothes +and bleeding wounds and the fox-terriers licking their injuries and +whimpering at his feet.</p> +<p>“It’s too bad, sir . . . ” Daughtry began.</p> +<p>“Too bad, hell!” the captain shut him off. “Bo’s’n! +Throw that dog overboard.”</p> +<p>“Throw the dog overboard, sir, yes, sir,” the boatswain +repeated, but hesitated.</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry’s face hardened unconsciously with the stiffening +of his will to dogged opposition, which, in its own slow quiet way, +would go to any length to have its way. But he answered respectfully +enough, his features, by a shrewd effort, relaxing into a seeming of +his customary good-nature.</p> +<p>“He’s a good dog, sir, and an unoffending dog. +I can’t imagine what could a-made ’m break loose this way. +He must a-had cause, sir—”</p> +<p>“He had,” one of the passengers, a coconut planter from +the Shortlands, interjected.</p> +<p>The steward threw him a grateful glance and continued.</p> +<p>“He’s a good dog, sir, a most obedient dog, sir—look +at the way he minded me right in the thick of the scrap an’ come +’n’ lay down. He’s smart as chain-lightnin’, +sir; do anything I tell him. I’ll make him make friends. +See. . . ”</p> +<p>Stepping over to the two hysterical terriers, Daughtry called Michael +to him.</p> +<p>“He’s all right, savvee, Killeny, he all right,” +he crooned, at the same time resting one hand on a terrier and the other +on Michael.</p> +<p>The terrier whimpered and backed solidly against Captain Duncan’s +legs, but Michael, with a slow bob of tail and unbelligerent ears, advanced +to him, looked up to Steward to make sure, then sniffed his late antagonist, +and even ran out his tongue in a caress to the side of the other’s +ear.</p> +<p>“See, sir, no bad feelings,” Daughtry exulted. +“He plays the game, sir. He’s a proper dog, he’s +a man-dog.—Here, Killeny! The other one. He all right. +Kiss and make up. That’s the stuff.”</p> +<p>The other fox-terrier, the one with the injured foreleg, endured +Michael’s sniff with no more than hysterical growls deep in the +throat; but the flipping out of Michael’s tongue was too much. +The wounded terrier exploded in a futile snap at Michael’s tongue +and nose.</p> +<p>“He all right, Killeny, he all right, sure,” Steward +warned quickly.</p> +<p>With a bob of his tail in token of understanding, without a shade +of resentment, Michael lifted a paw and with a playful casual stroke, +dab-like, brought its weight on the other’s neck and rolled him, +head-downward, over on the deck. Though he snarled wrathily, Michael +turned away composedly and looked up into Steward’s face for approval.</p> +<p>A roar of laughter from the passengers greeted the capsizing of the +fox-terrier and the good-natured gravity of Michael. But not alone +at this did they laugh, for at the moment of the snap and the turning +over, Captain Duncan’s unstrung nerves had exploded, causing him +to jump as he tensed his whole body.</p> +<p>“Why, sir,” the steward went on with growing confidence, +“I bet I can make him friends with you, too, by this time to-morrow +. . . ”</p> +<p>“By this time five minutes he’ll be overboard,” +the captain answered. “Bo’s’n! Over with +him!”</p> +<p>The boatswain advanced a tentative step, while murmurs of protest +arose from the passengers.</p> +<p>“Look at my cat, and look at me,” Captain Duncan defended +his action.</p> +<p>The boatswain made another step, and Dag Daughtry glared a threat +at him.</p> +<p>“Go on!” the Captain commanded.</p> +<p>“Hold on!” spoke up the Shortlands planter. “Give +the dog a square deal. I saw the whole thing. He wasn’t +looking for trouble. First the cat jumped him. She had to +jump twice before he turned loose. She’d have scratched +his eyes out. Then the two dogs jumped him. He hadn’t +bothered them. Then you jumped him. He hadn’t bothered +you. And then came that sailor with the mop. And now you +want the bo’s’n to jump him and throw him overboard. +Give him a square deal. He’s only been defending himself. +What do you expect any dog that is a dog to do?—lie down and be +walked over by every strange dog and cat that comes along? Play +the game, Skipper. You gave him some mighty hard kicks. +He only defended himself.”</p> +<p>“He’s some defender,” Captain Duncan grinned, with +a hint of the return of his ordinary geniality, at the same time tenderly +pressing his bleeding shoulder and looking woefully down at his tattered +duck trousers. “All right, Steward. If you can make +him friends with me in five minutes, he stays on board. But you’ll +have to make it up to me with a new pair of trousers.”</p> +<p>“And gladly, sir, thank you, sir,” Daughtry cried. +“And I’ll make it up with a new cat as well, sir—Come +on, Killeny Boy. This big fella marster he all right, you bet.”</p> +<p>And Michael listened. Not with the smouldering, smothering, +choking hysteria that still worked in the fox-terriers did he listen, +nor with quivering of muscles and jumps of over-wrought nerves, but +coolly, composedly, as if no battle royal had just taken place and no +rips of teeth and kicks of feet still burned and ached his body.</p> +<p>He could not help bristling, however, when first he sniffed a trousers’ +leg into which his teeth had so recently torn.</p> +<p>“Put your hand down on him, sir,” Daughtry begged.</p> +<p>And Captain Duncan, his own good self once more, bent and rested +a firm, unhesitating hand on Michael’s head. Nay, more; +he even caressed the ears and rubbed about the roots of them. +And Michael the merry-hearted, who fought like a lion and forgave and +forgot like a man, laid his neck hair smoothly down, wagged his stump +tail, smiled with his eyes and ears and mouth, and kissed with his tongue +the hand with which a short time before he had been at war.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<p>For the rest of the voyage Michael had the run of the ship. +Friendly to all, he reserved his love for Steward alone, though he was +not above many an undignified romp with the fox-terriers.</p> +<p>“The most playful-minded dog, without being silly, I ever saw,” +was Dag Daughtry’s verdict to the Shortlands planter, to whom +he had just sold one of his turtle-shell combs. “You see, +some dogs never get over the play-idea, an’ they’re never +good for anything else. But not Killeny Boy. He can come +down to seriousness in a second. I’ll show you, and I’ll +show you he’s got a brain that counts to five an’ knows +wireless telegraphy. You just watch.”</p> +<p>At the moment the steward made his faint lip-noise—so faint +that he could not hear it himself and was almost for wondering whether +or not he had made it; so faint that the Shortlands planter did not +dream that he was making it. At that moment Michael was lying +squirming on his back a dozen feet away, his legs straight up in the +air, both fox-terriers worrying with well-stimulated ferociousness. +With a quick out-thrust of his four legs, he rolled over on his side +and with questioning eyes and pricked ears looked and listened. +Again Daughtry made the lip-noise; again the Shortlands planter did +not hear nor guess; and Michael bounded to his feet and to his lord’s +side.</p> +<p>“Some dog, eh?” the steward boasted.</p> +<p>“But how did he know you wanted him?” the planter queried. +“You never called him.”</p> +<p>“Mental telepathy, the affinity of souls pitched in the same +whatever-you-call-it harmony,” the steward mystified. “You +see, Killeny an’ me are made of the same kind of stuff, only run +into different moulds. He might a-been my full brother, or me +his, only for some mistake in the creation factory somewhere. +Now I’ll show you he knows his bit of arithmetic.”</p> +<p>And, drawing the paper balls from his pocket, Dag Daughtry demonstrated +to the amazement and satisfaction of the ring of passengers Michael’s +ability to count to five.</p> +<p>“Why, sir,” Daughtry concluded the performance, “if +I was to order four glasses of beer in a public-house ashore, an’ +if I was absent-minded an’ didn’t notice the waiter ’d +only brought three, Killeny Boy there ’d raise a row instanter.”</p> +<p>Kwaque was no longer compelled to enjoy his jews’ harp on the +gratings over the fire-room, now that Michael’s presence on the +<i>Makambo</i> was known, and, in the stateroom, on stolen occasions, +he made experiments of his own with Michael. Once the jews’ +harp began emitting its barbaric rhythms, Michael was helpless. +He needs must open his mouth and pour forth an unwilling, gushing howl. +But, as with Jerry, it was not mere howl. It was more akin to +a mellow singing; and it was not long before Kwaque could lead his voice +up and down, in rough time and tune, within a definite register.</p> +<p>Michael never liked these lessons, for, looking down upon Kwaque, +he hated in any way to be under the black’s compulsion. +But all this was changed when Dag Daughtry surprised them at a singing +lesson. He resurrected the harmonica with which it was his wont, +ashore in public-houses, to while away the time between bottles. +The quickest way to start Michael singing, he discovered, was with minors; +and, once started, he would sing on and on for as long as the music +played. Also, in the absence of an instrument, Michael would sing +to the prompting and accompaniment of Steward’s voice, who would +begin by wailing “kow-kow” long and sadly, and then branch +out on some old song or ballad. Michael had hated to sing with +Kwaque, but he loved to do it with Steward, even when Steward brought +him on deck to perform before the laughter-shrieking passengers.</p> +<p>Two serious conversations were held by the steward toward the close +of the voyage: one with Captain Duncan and one with Michael.</p> +<p>“It’s this way, Killeny,” Daughtry began, one evening, +Michael’s head resting on his lord’s knees as he gazed adoringly +up into his lord’s face, understanding no whit of what was spoken +but loving the intimacy the sounds betokened. “I stole you +for beer money, an’ when I saw you there on the beach that night +I knew you’d bring ten quid anywheres. Ten quid’s +a horrible lot of money. Fifty dollars in the way the Yankees +reckon it, an’ a hundred Mex in China fashion.</p> +<p>“Now, fifty dollars gold ’d buy beer to beat the band—enough +to drown me if I fell in head first. Yet I want to ask you one +question. Can you see me takin’ ten quid for you? . . . +Go on. Speak up. Can you?”</p> +<p>And Michael, with thumps of tail to the floor and a high sharp bark, +showed that he was in entire agreement with whatever had been propounded.</p> +<p>“Or say twenty quid, now. That’s a fair offer. +Would I? Eh! Would I? Not on your life. What +d’ye say to fifty quid? That might begin to interest me, +but a hundred quid would interest me more. Why, a hundred quid +all in beer ’d come pretty close to floatin’ this old hooker. +But who in Sam Hill’d offer a hundred quid? I’d like +to clap eyes on him once, that’s all, just once. D’ye +want to know what for? All right. I’ll whisper it. +So as I could tell him to go to hell. Sure, Killeny Boy, just +like that—oh, most polite, of course, just a kindly directin’ +of his steps where he’d never suffer from frigid extremities.”</p> +<p>Michael’s love for Steward was so profound as almost to be +a mad but enduring infatuation. What the steward’s regard +for Michael was coming to be was best evidenced by his conversation +with Captain Duncan.</p> +<p>“Sure, sir, he must ’ve followed me on board,” +Daughtry finished his unveracious recital. “An’ I +never knew it. Last I seen of ’m was on the beach. +Next I seen of ’m there, he was fast asleep in my bunk. +Now how’d he get there, sir? How’d he pick out my +room? I leave it to you, sir. I call it marvellous, just +plain marvellous.”</p> +<p>“With a quartermaster at the head of the gangway!” Captain +Duncan snorted. “As if I didn’t know your tricks, +Steward. There’s nothing marvellous about it. Just +a plain case of steal. Followed you on board? That dog never +came over the side. He came through a port-hole, and he never +came through by himself. That nigger of yours, I’ll wager, +had a hand in the helping. But let’s have done with beating +about the bush. Give me the dog, and I’ll say no more about +the cat.”</p> +<p>“Seein’ you believe what you believe, then you’d +be for compoundin’ the felony,” Daughtry retorted, the habitual +obstinate tightening of his brows showing which way his will set. +“Me, sir, I’m only a ship’s steward, an’ it +wouldn’t mean nothin’ at all bein’ arrested for dog-stealin’; +but you, sir, a captain of a fine steamer, how’d it sound for +you, sir? No, sir; it’d be much wiser for me to keep the +dog that followed me aboard.”</p> +<p>“I’ll give ten pounds in the bargain,” the captain +proffered.</p> +<p>“No, it wouldn’t do, it wouldn’t do at all, sir, +an’ you a captain,” the steward continued to reiterate, +rolling his head sombrely. “Besides, I know where’s +a peach of an Angora in Sydney. The owner is gone to the country +an’ has no further use of it, an’ it’d be a kindness +to the cat, air to give it a good regular home like the <i>Makambo</i>.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIIII</h2> +<p>Another trick Dag Daughtry succeeded in teaching Michael so enhanced +him in Captain Duncan’s eyes as to impel him to offer fifty pounds, +“and never mind the cat.” At first, Daughtry practised +the trick in private with the chief engineer and the Shortlands planter. +Not until thoroughly satisfied did he make a public performance of it.</p> +<p>“Now just suppose you’re policemen, or detectives,” +Daughtry told the first and third officers, “an’ suppose +I’m guilty of some horrible crime. An’ suppose Killeny +is the only clue, an’ you’ve got Killeny. When he +recognizes his master—me, of course—you’ve got your +man. You go down the deck with him, leadin’ by the rope. +Then you come back this way with him, makin’ believe this is the +street, an’ when he recognizes me you arrest me. But if +he don’t realize me, you can’t arrest me. See?”</p> +<p>The two officers led Michael away, and after several minutes returned +along the deck, Michael stretched out ahead on the taut rope seeking +Steward.</p> +<p>“What’ll you take for the dog?” Daughtry demanded, +as they drew near—this the cue he had trained Michael to know.</p> +<p>And Michael, straining at the rope, went by, without so much as a +wag of tail to Steward or a glance of eye. The officers stopped +before Daughtry and drew Michael back into the group.</p> +<p>“He’s a lost dog,” said the first officer.</p> +<p>“We’re trying to find his owner,” supplemented +the third.</p> +<p>“Some dog that—what’ll you take for ’m?” +Daughtry asked, studying Michael with critical eyes of interest. +“What kind of a temper’s he got?”</p> +<p>“Try him,” was the answer.</p> +<p>The steward put out his hand to pat him on the head, but withdrew +it hastily as Michael, with bristle and growl, viciously bared his teeth.</p> +<p>“Go on, go on, he won’t hurt you,” the delighted +passengers urged.</p> +<p>This time the steward’s hand was barely missed by a snap, and +he leaped back as Michael ferociously sprang the length of the rope +at him.</p> +<p>“Take ’m away!” Dag Daughtry roared angrily. +“The treacherous beast! I wouldn’t take ’m for +gift!”</p> +<p>And as they obeyed, Michael strained backward in a paroxysm of rage, +making fierce short jumps to the end of the tether as he snarled and +growled with utmost fierceness at the steward.</p> +<p>“Eh? Who’d say he ever seen me in his life?” +Daughtry demanded triumphantly. “It’s a trick I never +seen played myself, but I’ve heard tell about it. The old-time +poachers in England used to do it with their lurcher dogs. If +they did get the dog of a strange poacher, no gamekeeper or constable +could identify ’m by the dog—mum was the word.”</p> +<p>“Tell you what, he knows things, that Killeny. He knows +English. Right now, in my room, with the door open, an’ +so as he can find ’m, is shoes, slippers, cap, towel, hair-brush, +an’ tobacco pouch. What’ll it be? Name it an’ +he’ll fetch it.”</p> +<p>So immediately and variously did the passengers respond that every +article was called for.</p> +<p>“Just one of you choose,” the steward advised. +“The rest of you pick ’m out.”</p> +<p>“Slipper,” said Captain Duncan, selected by acclamation.</p> +<p>“One or both?” Daughtry asked.</p> +<p>“Both.”</p> +<p>“Come here, Killeny,” Daughtry began, bending toward +him but leaping back from the snap of jaws that clipped together close +to his nose.</p> +<p>“My mistake,” he apologized. “I ain’t +told him the other game was over. Now just listen an, watch. +’n’ see if you can catch on to the tip I’m goin’ +to give ’m.”</p> +<p>No one saw anything, heard anything, yet Michael, with a whine of +eagerness and joy, with laughing mouth and wriggling body, was upon +the steward, licking his hands madly, squirming and twisting in the +embrace of the loved hands he had so recently threatened, making attempts +at short upward leaps as he flashed his tongue upward toward his lord’s +face. For hard it was on Michael, a nerve and mental strain of +the severest for him so to control himself as to play-act anger and +threat of hurt to his beloved Steward.</p> +<p>“Takes him a little time to get over a thing like that,” +Daughtry explained, as he soothed Michael down.</p> +<p>“Now, Killeny! Go fetch ’m slipper! Wait! +Fetch ’m <i>one</i> slipper. Fetch ’m <i>two</i> slipper.”</p> +<p>Michael looked up with pricked ears, and with eyes filled with query +as all his intelligent consciousness suffused them.</p> +<p>“<i>Two</i> slipper! Fetch ’m quick!”</p> +<p>He was off and away in a scurry of speed that seemed to flatten him +close to the deck, and that, as he turned the corner of the deck-house +to the stairs, made his hind feet slip and slide across the smooth planks.</p> +<p>Almost in a trice he was back, both slippers in his mouth, which +he deposited at the steward’s feet.</p> +<p>“The more I know dogs the more amazin’ marvellous they +are to me,” Dag Daughtry, after he had compassed his fourth bottle, +confided in monologue to the Shortlands planter that night just before +bedtime. “Take Killeny Boy. He don’t do things +for me mechanically, just because he’s learned to do ’m. +There’s more to it. He does ’m because he likes me. +I can’t give you the hang of it, but I feel it, I <i>know</i> +it.</p> +<p>“Maybe, this is what I’m drivin’ at. Killeny +can’t talk, as you ’n’ me talk, I mean; so he can’t +tell me how he loves me, an’ he’s all love, every last hair +of ’m. An’ actions speakin’ louder ’n’ +words, he tells me how he loves me by doin’ these things for me. +Tricks? Sure. But they make human speeches of eloquence +cheaper ’n dirt. Sure it’s speech. Dog-talk +that’s tongue-tied. Don’t I know? Sure as I’m +a livin’ man born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, just as +sure am I that it makes ’m happy to do tricks for me . . . just +as it makes a man happy to lend a hand to a pal in a ticklish place, +or a lover happy to put his coat around the girl he loves to keep her +warm. I tell you . . . ”</p> +<p>Here, Dag Daughtry broke down from inability to express the concepts +fluttering in his beer-excited, beer-sodden brain, and, with a stutter +or two, made a fresh start.</p> +<p>“You know, it’s all in the matter of talkin’, an’ +Killeny can’t talk. He’s got thoughts inside that +head of his—you can see ’m shinin’ in his lovely brown +eyes—but he can’t get ’em across to me. Why, +I see ’m tryin’ to tell me sometimes so hard that he almost +busts. There’s a big hole between him an’ me, an’ +language is about the only bridge, and he can’t get over the hole, +though he’s got all kinds of ideas an’ feelings just like +mine.</p> +<p>“But, say! The time we get closest together is when I +play the harmonica an’ he yow-yows. Music comes closest +to makin’ the bridge. It’s a regular song without +words. And . . . I can’t explain how . . . but just the +same, when we’ve finished our song, I know we’ve passed +a lot over to each other that don’t need words for the passin’.”</p> +<p>“Why, d’ye know, when I’m playin’ an’ +he’s singin’, it’s a regular duet of what the sky-pilots +’d call religion an’ knowin’ God. Sure, when +we sing together I’m absorbin’ religion an’ gettin’ +pretty close up to God. An’ it’s big, I tell you. +Big as the earth an’ ocean an’ sky an’ all the stars. +I just seem to get hold of a sense that we’re all the same stuff +after all—you, me, Killeny Boy, mountains, sand, salt water, worms, +mosquitoes, suns, an’ shootin’ stars an’ blazin comets +. . . ”</p> +<p>Day Daughtry left his flight as beyond his own grasp of speech, and +concluded, his half embarrassment masked by braggadocio over Michael:</p> +<p>“Oh, believe me, they don’t make dogs like him every +day in the week. Sure, I stole ’m. He looked good +to me. An’ if I had it over, knowin’ as I do known +’m now, I’d steal ’m again if I lost a leg doin’ +it. That’s the kind of a dog <i>he</i> is.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<p>The morning the <i>Makambo</i> entered Sydney harbour, Captain Duncan +had another try for Michael. The port doctor’s launch was +coming alongside, when he nodded up to Daughtry, who was passing along +the deck:</p> +<p>“Steward, I’ll give you twenty pounds.”</p> +<p>“No, sir, thank you, sir,” was Dag Daughtry’s answer. +“I couldn’t bear to part with him.”</p> +<p>“Twenty-five pounds, then. I can’t go beyond that. +Besides, there are plenty more Irish terriers in the world.”</p> +<p>“That’s what I’m thinkin’, sir. An’ +I’ll get one for you. Right here in Sydney. An’ +it won’t cost you a penny, sir.”</p> +<p>“But I want Killeny Boy,” the captain persisted.</p> +<p>“An’ so do I, which is the worst of it, sir. Besides, +I got him first.”</p> +<p>“Twenty-five sovereigns is a lot of money . . . for a dog,” +Captain Duncan said.</p> +<p>“An’ Killeny Boy’s a lot of dog . . . for the money,” +the steward retorted. “Why, sir, cuttin’ out all sentiment, +his tricks is worth more ’n that. Him not recognizing me +when I don’t want ’m to is worth fifty pounds of itself. +An’ there’s his countin’ an’ his singin’, +an’ all the rest of his tricks. Now, no matter how I got +him, he didn’t have them tricks. Them tricks are mine. +I taught him them. He ain’t the dog he was when he come +on board. He’s a whole lot of me now, an’ sellin’ +him would be like sellin’ a piece of myself.”</p> +<p>“Thirty pounds,” said the captain with finality.</p> +<p>“No, sir, thankin’ you just the same, sir,” was +Daughtry’s refusal.</p> +<p>And Captain Duncan was forced to turn away in order to greet the +port doctor coming over the side.</p> +<p>Scarcely had the <i>Makambo</i> passed quarantine, and while on her +way up harbour to dock, when a trim man-of-war launch darted in to her +side and a trim lieutenant mounted the <i>Makambo’s</i> boarding-ladder. +His mission was quickly explained. The <i>Albatross</i>, British +cruiser of the second class, of which he was fourth lieutenant, had +called in at Tulagi with dispatches from the High Commissioner of the +English South Seas. A scant twelve hours having intervened between +her arrival and the <i>Makambo’s</i> departure, the Commissioner +of the Solomons and Captain Kellar had been of the opinion that the +missing dog had been carried away on the steamer. Knowing that +the <i>Albatross</i> would beat her to Sydney, the captain of the <i>Albatross</i> +had undertaken to look up the dog. Was the dog, an Irish terrier +answering to the name of Michael, on board?</p> +<p>Captain Duncan truthfully admitted that it was, though he most unveraciously +shielded Dag Daughtry by repeating his yarn of the dog coming on board +of itself. How to return the dog to Captain Kellar?—was +the next question; for the <i>Albatross</i> was bound on to New Zealand. +Captain Duncan settled the matter.</p> +<p>“The <i>Makambo</i> will be back in Tulagi in eight weeks,” +he told the lieutenant, “and I’ll undertake personally to +deliver the dog to its owner. In the meantime we’ll take +good care of it. Our steward has sort of adopted it, so it will +be in good hands.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>“Seems we don’t either of us get the dog,” Daughtry +commented resignedly, when Captain Duncan had explained the situation.</p> +<p>But when Daughtry turned his back and started off along the deck, +his constitutional obstinacy tightened his brows so that the Shortlands +planter, observing it, wondered what the captain had been rowing him +about.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Despite his six quarts a day and all his easy-goingness of disposition, +Dag Daughtry possessed certain integrities. Though he could steal +a dog, or a cat, without a twinge of conscience, he could not but be +faithful to his salt, being so made. He could not draw wages for +being a ship steward without faithfully performing the functions of +ship steward. Though his mind was firmly made up, during the several +days of the <i>Makambo</i> in Sydney, lying alongside the Burns Philp +Dock, he saw to every detail of the cleaning up after the last crowd +of outgoing passengers, and to every detail of preparation for the next +crowd of incoming passengers who had tickets bought for the passage +far away to the coral seas and the cannibal isles.</p> +<p>In the midst of this devotion to his duty, he took a night off and +part of two afternoons. The night off was devoted to the public-houses +which sailors frequent, and where can be learned the latest gossip and +news of ships and of men who sail upon the sea. Such information +did he gather, over many bottles of beer, that the next afternoon, hiring +a small launch at a cost of ten shillings, he journeyed up the harbour +to Jackson Bay, where lay the lofty-poled, sweet-lined, three-topmast +American schooner, the <i>Mary Turner</i>.</p> +<p>Once on board, explaining his errand, he was taken below into the +main cabin, where he interviewed, and was interviewed by, a quartette +of men whom Daughtry qualified to himself as “a rum bunch.”</p> +<p>It was because he had talked long with the steward who had left the +ship, that Dag Daughtry recognized and identified each of the four men. +That, surely, was the “Ancient Mariner,” sitting back and +apart with washed eyes of such palest blue that they seemed a faded +white. Long thin wisps of silvery, unkempt hair framed his face +like an aureole. He was slender to emaciation, cavernously checked, +roll after roll of skin, no longer encasing flesh or muscle, hanging +grotesquely down his neck and swathing the Adam’s apple so that +only occasionally, with queer swallowing motions, did it peep out of +the mummy-wrappings of skin and sink back again from view.</p> +<p>A proper ancient mariner, thought Daughtry. Might be seventy-five, +might just as well be a hundred and five, or a hundred and seventy-five.</p> +<p>Beginning at the right temple, a ghastly scar split the cheek-bone, +sank into the depths of the hollow cheek, notched across the lower jaw, +and plunged to disappearance among the prodigious skin-folds of the +neck. The withered lobes of both ears were perforated by tiny +gypsy-like circles of gold. On the skeleton fingers of his right +hand were no less than five rings—not men’s rings, nor women’s, +but foppish rings—“that would fetch a price,” Daughtry +adjudged. On the left hand were no rings, for there were no fingers +to wear them. Only was there a thumb; and, for that matter, most +of the hand was missing as well, as if it had been cut off by the same +slicing edge that had cleaved him from temple to jaw and heaven alone +knew how far down that skin-draped neck.</p> +<p>The Ancient Mariner’s washed eyes seemed to bore right through +Daughtry (or at least so Daughtry felt), and rendered him so uncomfortable +as to make him casually step to the side for the matter of a yard. +This was possible, because, a servant seeking a servant’s billet, +he was expected to stand and face the four seated ones as if they were +judges on the bench and he the felon in the dock. Nevertheless, +the gaze of the ancient one pursued him, until, studying it more closely, +he decided that it did not reach to him at all. He got the impression +that those washed pale eyes were filmed with dreams, and that the intelligence, +the <i>thing</i>, that dwelt within the skull, fluttered and beat against +the dream-films and no farther.</p> +<p>“How much would you expect?” the captain was asking,—a +most unsealike captain, in Daughtry’s opinion; rather, a spick-and-span, +brisk little business-man or floor-walker just out of a bandbox.</p> +<p>“He shall not share,” spoke up another of the four, huge, +raw-boned, middle-aged, whom Daughtry identified by his ham-like hands +as the California wheat-farmer described by the departed steward.</p> +<p>“Plenty for all,” the Ancient Mariner startled Daughtry +by cackling shrilly. “Oodles and oodles of it, my gentlemen, +in cask and chest, in cask and chest, a fathom under the sand.”</p> +<p>“Share—<i>what</i>, sir?” Daughtry queried, though +well he knew, the other steward having cursed to him the day he sailed +from San Francisco on a blind lay instead of straight wages. “Not +that it matters, sir,” he hastened to add. “I spent +a whalin’ voyage once, three years of it, an’ paid off with +a dollar. Wages for mine, an’ sixty gold a month, seein’ +there’s only four of you.”</p> +<p>“And a mate,” the captain added.</p> +<p>“And a mate,” Daughtry repeated. “Very good, +sir. An’ no share.”</p> +<p>“But yourself?” spoke up the fourth man, a huge-bulking, +colossal-bodied, greasy-seeming grossness of flesh—the Armenian +Jew and San Francisco pawnbroker the previous steward had warned Daughtry +about. “Have you papers—letters of recommendation, +the documents you receive when you are paid off before the shipping +commissioners?”</p> +<p>“I might ask, sir,” Dag Daughtry brazened it, “for +your own papers. This ain’t no regular cargo-carrier or +passenger-carrier, no more than you gentlemen are a regular company +of ship-owners, with regular offices, doin’ business in a regular +way. How do I know if you own the ship even, or that the charter +ain’t busted long ago, or that you’re being libelled ashore +right now, or that you won’t dump me on any old beach anywheres +without a soo-markee of what’s comin’ to me? Howsoever”—he +anticipated by a bluff of his own the show of wrath from the Jew that +he knew would be wind and bluff—“howsoever, here’s +my papers . . . ”</p> +<p>With a swift dip of his hand into his inside coat-pocket he scattered +out in a wealth of profusion on the cabin table all the papers, sealed +and stamped, that he had collected in forty-five years of voyaging, +the latest date of which was five years back.</p> +<p>“I don’t ask your papers,” he went on. “What +I ask is, cash payment in full the first of each month, sixty dollars +a month gold—”</p> +<p>“Oodles and oodles of it, gold and gold and better than gold, +in cask and chest, in cask and chest, a fathom under the sand,” +the Ancient Mariner assured him in beneficent cackles. “Kings, +principalities and powers!—all of us, the least of us. And +plenty more, my gentlemen, plenty more. The latitude and longitude +are mine, and the bearings from the oak ribs on the shoal to Lion’s +Head, and the cross-bearings from the points unnamable, I only know. +I only still live of all that brave, mad, scallywag ship’s company +. . . ”</p> +<p>“Will you sign the articles to that?” the Jew demanded, +cutting in on the ancient’s maunderings.</p> +<p>“What port do you wind up the cruise in?” Daughtry asked.</p> +<p>“San Francisco.”</p> +<p>“I’ll sign the articles that I’m to sign off in +San Francisco then.”</p> +<p>The Jew, the captain, and the farmer nodded.</p> +<p>“But there’s several other things to be agreed upon,” +Daughtry continued. “In the first place, I want my six quarts +a day. I’m used to it, and I’m too old a stager to +change my habits.”</p> +<p>“Of spirits, I suppose?” the Jew asked sarcastically.</p> +<p>“No; of beer, good English beer. It must be understood +beforehand, no matter what long stretches we may be at sea, that a sufficient +supply is taken along.”</p> +<p>“Anything else?” the captain queried.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” Daughtry answered. “I got a dog +that must come along.”</p> +<p>“Anything else?—a wife or family maybe?” the farmer +asked.</p> +<p>“No wife or family, sir. But I got a nigger, a perfectly +good nigger, that’s got to come along. He can sign on for +ten dollars a month if he works for the ship all his time. But +if he works for me all the time, I’ll let him sign on for two +an’ a half a month.”</p> +<p>“Eighteen days in the longboat,” the Ancient Mariner +shrilled, to Daughtry’s startlement. “Eighteen days +in the longboat, eighteen days of scorching hell.”</p> +<p>“My word,” quoth Daughtry, “the old gentleman’d +give one the jumps. There’ll sure have to be plenty of beer.”</p> +<p>“Sea stewards put on some style, I must say,” commented +the wheat-farmer, oblivious to the Ancient Mariner, who still declaimed +of the heat of the longboat.</p> +<p>“Suppose we don’t see our way to signing on a steward +who travels in such style?” the Jew asked, mopping the inside +of his collar-band with a coloured silk handkerchief.</p> +<p>“Then you’ll never know what a good steward you’ve +missed, sir,” Daughtry responded airily.</p> +<p>“I guess there’s plenty more stewards on Sydney beach,” +the captain said briskly. “And I guess I haven’t forgotten +old days, when I hired them like so much dirt, yes, by Jinks, so much +dirt, there were so many of them.”</p> +<p>“Thank you, Mr. Steward, for looking us up,” the Jew +took up the idea with insulting oiliness. “We very much +regret our inability to meet your wishes in the matter—”</p> +<p>“And I saw it go under the sand, a fathom under the sand, on +cross-bearings unnamable, where the mangroves fade away, and the coconuts +grow, and the rise of land lifts from the beach to the Lion’s +Head.”</p> +<p>“Hold your horses,” the wheat-farmer said, with a flare +of irritation, directed, not at the Ancient Mariner, but at the captain +and the Jew. “Who’s putting up for this expedition? +Don’t I get no say so? Ain’t my opinion ever to be +asked? I like this steward. Strikes me he’s the real +goods. I notice he’s as polite as all get-out, and I can +see he can take an order without arguing. And he ain’t no +fool by a long shot.”</p> +<p>“That’s the very point, Grimshaw,” the Jew answered +soothingly. “Considering the unusualness of our . . . of +the expedition, we’d be better served by a steward who is more +of a fool. Another point, which I’d esteem a real favour +from you, is not to forget that you haven’t put a red copper more +into this trip than I have—”</p> +<p>“And where’d either of you be, if it wasn’t for +me with my knowledge of the sea?” the captain demanded aggrievedly. +“To say nothing of the mortgage on my house and on the nicest +little best paying flat building in San Francisco since the earthquake.”</p> +<p>“But who’s still putting up?—all of you, I ask +you.” The wheat-farmer leaned forward, resting the heels +of his hands on his knees so that the fingers hung down his long shins, +in Daughtry’s appraisal, half-way to his feet. “You, +Captain Doane, can’t raise another penny on your properties. +My land still grows the wheat that brings the ready. You, Simon +Nishikanta, won’t put up another penny—yet your loan-shark +offices are doing business at the same old stands at God knows what +per cent. to drunken sailors. And you hang the expedition up here +in this hole-in-the-wall waiting for my agent to cable more wheat-money. +Well, I guess we’ll just sign on this steward at sixty a month +and all he asks, or I’ll just naturally quit you cold on the next +fast steamer to San Francisco.”</p> +<p>He stood up abruptly, towering to such height that Daughtry looked +to see the crown of his head collide with the deck above.</p> +<p>“I’m sick and tired of you all, yes, I am,” he +continued. “Get busy! Well, let’s get busy. +My money’s coming. It’ll be here by to-morrow. +Let’s be ready to start by hiring a steward that is a steward. +I don’t care if he brings two families along.”</p> +<p>“I guess you’re right, Grimshaw,” Simon Nishikanta +said appeasingly. “The trip is beginning to get on all our +nerves. Forget it if I fly off the handle. Of course we’ll +take this steward if you want him. I thought he was too stylish +for you.”</p> +<p>He turned to Daughtry.</p> +<p>“Naturally, the least said ashore about us the better.”</p> +<p>“That’s all right, sir. I can keep my mouth shut, +though I might as well tell you there’s some pretty tales about +you drifting around the beach right now.”</p> +<p>“The object of our expedition?” the Jew queried quickly.</p> +<p>Daughtry nodded.</p> +<p>“Is that why you want to come?” was demanded equally +quickly.</p> +<p>Daughtry shook his head.</p> +<p>“As long as you give me my beer each day, sir, I ain’t +goin’ to be interested in your treasure-huntin’. It +ain’t no new tale to me. The South Seas is populous with +treasure-hunters—” Almost could Daughtry have sworn +that he had seen a flash of anxiety break through the dream-films that +bleared the Ancient Mariner’s eyes. “And I must say, +sir,” he went on easily, though saying what he would not have +said had it not been for what he was almost certain he sensed of the +ancient’s anxiousness, “that the South Seas is just naturally +lousy with buried treasure. There’s Keeling-Cocos, millions +’n’ millions of it, pounds sterling, I mean, waiting for +the lucky one with the right steer.”</p> +<p>This time Daughtry could have sworn to having sensed a change toward +relief in the Ancient Mariner, whose eyes were again filmy with dreams.</p> +<p>“But I ain’t interested in treasure, sir,” Daughtry +concluded. “It’s beer I’m interested in. +You can chase your treasure, an’ I don’t care how long, +just as long as I’ve got six quarts to open each day. But +I give you fair warning, sir, before I sign on: if the beer dries up, +I’m goin’ to get interested in what you’re after. +Fair play is my motto.”</p> +<p>“Do you expect us to pay for your beer in addition?” +Simon Nishikanta demanded.</p> +<p>To Daughtry it was too good to be true. Here, with the Jew +healing the breach with the wheat-farmer whose agents still cabled money, +was the time to take advantage.</p> +<p>“Sure, it’s one of our agreements, sir. What time +would it suit you, sir, to-morrow afternoon, for me to sign on at the +shipping commissioner’s?”</p> +<p>“Casks and chests of it, casks and chests of it, oodles and +oodles, a fathom under the sand,” chattered the Ancient Mariner.</p> +<p>“You’re all touched up under the roof,” Daughtry +grinned. “Which ain’t got nothing to do with me as +long as you furnish the beer, pay me due an’ proper what’s +comin’ to me the first of each an’ every month, an’ +pay me off final in San Francisco. As long as you keep up your +end, I’ll sail with you to the Pit ’n’ back an’ +watch you sweatin’ the casks ’n’ chests out of the +sand. What I want is to sail with you if you want me to sail with +you enough to satisfy me.”</p> +<p>Simon Nishikanta glanced about. Grimshaw and Captain Doane +nodded.</p> +<p>“At three o’clock to-morrow afternoon, at the shipping +commissioner’s,” the Jew agreed. “When will +you report for duty?”</p> +<p>“When will you sail, sir?” Daughtry countered.</p> +<p>“Bright and early next morning.”</p> +<p>“Then I’ll be on board and on duty some time to-morrow +night, sir.”</p> +<p>And as he went up the cabin companion, he could hear the Ancient +Mariner maundering: “Eighteen days in the longboat, eighteen days +of scorching hell . . . ”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> +<p>Michael left the <i>Makambo</i> as he had come on board, through +a port-hole. Likewise, the affair occurred at night, and it was +Kwaque’s hands that received him. It had been quick work, +and daring, in the dark of early evening. From the boat-deck, +with a bowline under Kwaque’s arms and a turn of the rope around +a pin, Dag Daughtry had lowered his leprous servitor into the waiting +launch.</p> +<p>On his way below, he encountered Captain Duncan, who saw fit to warn +him:</p> +<p>“No shannigan with Killeny Boy, Steward. He must go back +to Tulagi with us.”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” the steward agreed. “An’ +I’m keepin’ him tight in my room to make safe. Want +to see him, sir?”</p> +<p>The very frankness of the invitation made the captain suspicious, +and the thought flashed through his mind that perhaps Killeny Boy was +already hidden ashore somewhere by the dog-stealing steward.</p> +<p>“Yes, indeed I’d like to say how-do-you-do to him,” +Captain Duncan answered.</p> +<p>And his was genuine surprise, on entering the steward’s room, +to behold Michael just rousing from his curled-up sleep on the floor. +But when he left, his surprise would have been shocking could he have +seen through the closed door what immediately began to take place. +Out through the open port-hole, in a steady stream, Daughtry was passing +the contents of the room. Everything went that belonged to him, +including the turtle-shell and the photographs and calendars on the +wall. Michael, with the command of silence laid upon him, went +last. Remained only a sea-chest and two suit-cases, themselves +too large for the port-hole but bare of contents.</p> +<p>When Daughtry sauntered along the main deck a few minutes later and +paused for a gossip with the customs officer and a quartermaster at +the head of the gang-plank, Captain Duncan little dreamed that his casual +glance was resting on his steward for the last time. He watched +him go down the gang-plank empty-handed, with no dog at his heels, and +stroll off along the wharf under the electric lights.</p> +<p>Ten minutes after Captain Duncan saw the last of his broad back, +Daughtry, in the launch with his belongings and heading for Jackson +Bay, was hunched over Michael and caressing him, while Kwaque, crooning +with joy under his breath that he was with all that was precious to +him in the world, felt once again in the side-pocket of his flimsy coat +to make sure that his beloved jews’ harp had not been left behind.</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry was paying for Michael, and paying well. Among +other things, he had not cared to arouse suspicion by drawing his wages +from Burns Philp. The twenty pounds due him he had abandoned, +and this was the very sum, that night on the beach at Tulagi, he had +decided he could realize from the sale of Michael. He had stolen +him to sell. He was paying for him the sales price that had tempted +him.</p> +<p>For, as one has well said: the horse abases the base, ennobles the +noble. Likewise the dog. The theft of a dog to sell for +a price had been the abasement worked by Michael on Dag Daughtry. +To pay the price out of sheer heart-love that could recognize no price +too great to pay, had been the ennoblement of Dag Daughtry which Michael +had worked. And as the launch chug-chugged across the quiet harbour +under the southern stars, Dag Daughtry would have risked and tossed +his life into the bargain in a battle to continue to have and to hold +the dog he had originally conceived of as being interchangeable for +so many dozens of beer.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>The <i>Mary Turner</i>, towed out by a tug, sailed shortly after +daybreak, and Daughtry, Kwaque, and Michael looked their last for ever +on Sydney Harbour.</p> +<p>“Once again these old eyes have seen this fair haven,” +the Ancient Mariner, beside them gazing, babbled; and Daughtry could +not help but notice the way the wheat-farmer and the pawnbroker pricked +their ears to listen and glanced each to the other with scant eyes. +“It was in ’52, in 1852, on such a day as this, all drinking +and singing along the decks, we cleared from Sydney in the <i>Wide Awake</i>. +A pretty craft, oh sirs, a most clever and pretty craft. A crew, +a brave crew, all youngsters, all of us, fore and aft, no man was forty, +a mad, gay crew. The captain was an elderly gentleman of twenty-eight, +the third officer another of eighteen, the down, untouched of steel, +like so much young velvet on his cheek. He, too, died in the longboat. +And the captain gasped out his last under the palm trees of the isle +unnamable while the brown maidens wept about him and fanned the air +to his parching lungs.”</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry heard no more, for he turned below to take up his new +routine of duty. But while he made up bunks with fresh linen and +directed Kwaque’s efforts to cleaning long-neglected floors, he +shook his head to himself and muttered, “He’s a keen ’un. +He’s a keen ’un. All ain’t fools that look it.”</p> +<p>The fine lines of the <i>Mary Turner</i> were explained by the fact +that she had been built for seal-hunting; and for the same reason on +board of her was room and to spare. The forecastle with bunk-space +for twelve, bedded but eight Scandinavian seamen. The five staterooms +of the cabin accommodated the three treasure-hunters, the Ancient Mariner, +and the mate—the latter a large-bodied, gentle-souled Russian-Finn, +known as Mr. Jackson through inability of his shipmates to pronounce +the name he had signed on the ship’s articles.</p> +<p>Remained the steerage, just for’ard of the cabin, separated +from it by a stout bulkhead and entered by a companionway on the main +deck. On this deck, between the break of the poop and the steerage +companion, stood the galley. In the steerage itself, which possessed +a far larger living-space than the cabin, were six capacious bunks, +each double the width of the forecastle bunks, and each curtained and +with no bunk above it.</p> +<p>“Some fella glory-hole, eh, Kwaque?” Daughtry told his +seventeen-years-old brown-skinned Papuan with the withered ancient face +of a centenarian, the legs of a living skeleton, and the huge-stomached +torso of an elderly Japanese wrestler. “Eh, Kwaque! +What you fella think?”</p> +<p>And Kwaque, too awed by the spaciousness to speak, eloquently rolled +his eyes in agreement.</p> +<p>“You likee this piecee bunk?” the cook, a little old +Chinaman, asked the steward with eager humility, inviting the white +man’s acceptance of his own bunk with a wave of arm.</p> +<p>Daughtry shook his head. He had early learned that it was wise +to get along well with sea-cooks, since sea-cocks were notoriously given +to going suddenly lunatic and slicing and hacking up their shipmates +with butcher knives and meat cleavers on the slightest remembered provocation. +Besides, there was an equally good bunk all the way across the width +of the steerage from the Chinaman’s. The bunk next on the +port side to the cook’s and abaft of it Daughtry allotted to Kwaque. +Thus he retained for himself and Michael the entire starboard side with +its three bunks. The next one abaft of his own he named “Killeny +Boy’s,” and called on Kwaque and the cook to take notice. +Daughtry had a sense that the cook, whose name had been quickly volunteered +as Ah Moy, was not entirely satisfied with the arrangement; but it affected +him no more than a momentary curiosity about a Chinaman who drew the +line at a dog taking a bunk in the same apartment with him.</p> +<p>Half an hour later, returning, from setting the cabin aright, to +the steerage for Kwaque to serve him with a bottle of beer, Daughtry +observed that Ah Moy had moved his entire bunk belongings across the +steerage to the third bunk on the starboard side. This had put +him with Daughtry and Michael and left Kwaque with half the steerage +to himself. Daughtry’s curiosity recrudesced.</p> +<p>“What name along that fella Chink?” he demanded of Kwaque. +“He no like ’m you fella boy stop ’m along same fella +side along him. What for? My word! What name? +That fella Chink make ’m me cross along him too much!”</p> +<p>“Suppose ’m that fella Chink maybe he think ’m +me kai-kai along him,” Kwaque grinned in one of his rare jokes.</p> +<p>“All right,” the steward concluded. “We find +out. You move ’m along my bunk, I move ’m along that +fella Chink’s bunk.”</p> +<p>This accomplished, so that Kwaque, Michael, and Ah Moy occupied the +starboard side and Daughtry alone bunked on the port side, he went on +deck and aft to his duties. On his next return he found Ah Moy +had transferred back to the port side, but this time into the last bunk +aft.</p> +<p>“Seems the beggar’s taken a fancy to me,” the steward +smiled to himself.</p> +<p>Nor was he capable of guessing Ah Moy’s reason for bunking +always on the opposite side from Kwaque.</p> +<p>“I changee,” the little old cook explained, with anxious +eyes to please and placate, in response to Daughtry’s direct question. +“All the time like that, changee, plentee changee. You savvee?”</p> +<p>Daughtry did not savvee, and shook his head, while Ah Moy’s +slant eyes betrayed none of the anxiety and fear with which he privily +gazed on Kwaque’s two permanently bent fingers of the left hand +and on Kwaque’s forehead, between the eyes, where the skin appeared +a shade darker, a trifle thicker, and was marked by the first beginning +of three short vertical lines or creases that were already giving him +the lion-like appearance, the leonine face so named by the experts and +technicians of the fell disease.</p> +<p>As the days passed, the steward took facetious occasions, when he +had drunk five quarts of his daily allowance, to shift his and Kwaque’s +bunks about. And invariably Ah Moy shifted, though Daughtry failed +to notice that he never shifted into a bunk which Kwaque had occupied. +Nor did he notice that it was when the time came that Kwaque had variously +occupied all the six bunks that Ah Moy made himself a canvas hammock, +suspended it from the deck beams above and thereafter swung clear in +space and unmolested.</p> +<p>Daughtry dismissed the matter from his thoughts as no more than a +thing in keeping with the general inscrutability of the Chinese mind. +He did notice, however, that Kwaque was never permitted to enter the +galley. Another thing he noticed, which, expressed in his own +words, was: “That’s the all-dangdest cleanest Chink I’ve +ever clapped my lamps on. Clean in galley, clean in steerage, +clean in everything. He’s always washing the dishes in boiling +water, when he isn’t washing himself or his clothes or bedding. +My word, he actually boils his blankets once a week!”</p> +<p>For there were other things to occupy the steward’s mind. +Getting acquainted with the five men aft in the cabin, and lining up +the whole situation and the relations of each of the five to that situation +and to one another, consumed much time. Then there was the path +of the <i>Mary Turner</i> across the sea. No old sailor breathes +who does not desire to know the casual course of his ship and the next +port-of-call.</p> +<p>“We ought to be moving along a line that’ll cross somewhere +northard of New Zealand,” Daughtry guessed to himself, after a +hundred stolen glances into the binnacle. But that was all the +information concerning the ship’s navigation he could steal; for +Captain Doane took the observations and worked them out, to the exclusion +of the mate, and Captain Doane always methodically locked up his chart +and log. That there were heated discussions in the cabin, in which +terms of latitude and longitude were bandied back and forth, Daughtry +did know; but more than that he could not know, because it was early +impressed upon him that the one place for him never to be, at such times +of council, was the cabin. Also, he could not but conclude that +these councils were real battles wherein Messrs. Doane, Nishikanta, +and Grimahaw screamed at each other and pounded the table at each other, +when they were not patiently and most politely interrogating the Ancient +Mariner.</p> +<p>“He’s got their goat,” the steward early concluded +to himself; but, thereafter, try as he would, he failed to get the Ancient +Mariner’s goat.</p> +<p>Charles Stough Greenleaf was the Ancient Mariner’s name. +This, Daughtry got from him, and nothing else did he get save maunderings +and ravings about the heat of the longboat and the treasure a fathom +deep under the sand.</p> +<p>“There’s some of us plays games, an’ some of us +as looks on an’ admires the games they see,” the steward +made his bid one day. “And I’m sure these days lookin’ +on at a pretty game. The more I see it the more I got to admire.”</p> +<p>The Ancient Mariner dreamed back into the steward’s eyes with +a blank, unseeing gaze.</p> +<p>“On the <i>Wide Awake</i> all the stewards were young, mere +boys,” he murmured.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” Daughtry agreed pleasantly. “From +all you say, the <i>Wide Awake</i>, with all its youngsters, was sure +some craft. Not like the crowd of old ’uns on this here +hooker. But I doubt, sir, that them youngsters ever played as +clever games as is being played aboard us right now. I just got +to admire the fine way it’s being done, sir.”</p> +<p>“I’ll tell you something,” the Ancient Mariner +replied, with such confidential air that almost Daughtry leaned to hear. +“No steward on the <i>Wide Awake</i> could mix a highball in just +the way I like, as well as you. We didn’t know cocktails +in those days, but we had sherry and bitters. A good appetizer, +too, a most excellent appetizer.”</p> +<p>“I’ll tell you something more,” he continued, just +as it seemed he had finished, and just in time to interrupt Daughtry +away from his third attempt to ferret out the true inwardness of the +situation on the <i>Mary Turner</i> and of the Ancient Mariner’s +part in it. “It is mighty nigh five bells, and I should +be very pleased to have one of your delicious cocktails ere I go down +to dine.”</p> +<p>More suspicious than ever of him was Daughtry after this episode. +But, as the days went by, he came more and more to the conclusion that +Charles Stough Greenleaf was a senile old man who sincerely believed +in the abiding of a buried treasure somewhere in the South Seas.</p> +<p>Once, polishing the brass-work on the hand-rails of the cabin companionway, +Daughtry overheard the ancient one explaining his terrible scar and +missing fingers to Grimshaw and the Armenian Jew. The pair of +them had plied him with extra drinks in the hope of getting more out +of him by way of his loosened tongue.</p> +<p>“It was in the longboat,” the aged voice cackled up the +companion. “On the eleventh day it was that the mutiny broke. +We in the sternsheets stood together against them. It was all +a madness. We were starved sore, but we were mad for water. +It was over the water it began. For, see you, it was our custom +to lick the dew from the oar-blades, the gunwales, the thwarts, and +the inside planking. And each man of us had developed property +in the dew-collecting surfaces. Thus, the tiller and the rudder-head +and half of the plank of the starboard stern-sheet had become the property +of the second officer. No one of us lacked the honour to respect +his property. The third officer was a lad, only eighteen, a brave +and charming boy. He shared with the second officer the starboard +stern-sheet plank. They drew a line to mark the division, and +neither, lapping up what scant moisture fell during the night-hours, +ever dreamed of trespassing across the line. They were too honourable.</p> +<p>“But the sailors—no. They squabbled amongst themselves +over the dew-surfaces, and only the night before one of them was knifed +because he so stole. But on this night, waiting for the dew, a +little of it, to become more, on the surfaces that were mine, I heard +the noises of a dew-lapper moving aft along the port-gunwale—which +was my property aft of the stroke-thwart clear to the stern. I +emerged from a nightmare dream of crystal springs and swollen rivers +to listen to this night-drinker that I feared might encroach upon what +was mine.</p> +<p>“Nearer he came to the line of my property, and I could hear +him making little moaning, whimpering noises as he licked the damp wood. +It was like listening to an animal grazing pasture-grass at night and +ever grazing nearer.</p> +<p>“It chanced I was holding a boat-stretcher in my hand—to +catch what little dew might fall upon it. I did not know who it +was, but when he lapped across the line and moaned and whimpered as +he licked up my precious drops of dew, I struck out. The boat-stretcher +caught him fairly on the nose—it was the bo’s’n—and +the mutiny began. It was the bo’s’n’s knife +that sliced down my face and sliced away my fingers. The third +officer, the eighteen-year-old lad, fought well beside me, and saved +me, so that, just before I fainted, he and I, between us, hove the bo’s’n’s +carcass overside.”</p> +<p>A shifting of feet and changing of positions of those in the cabin +plunged Daughtry back into his polishing, which he had for the time +forgotten. And, as he rubbed the brass-work, he told himself under +his breath: “The old party’s sure been through the mill. +Such things just got to happen.”</p> +<p>“No,” the Ancient Mariner was continuing, in his thin +falsetto, in reply to a query. “It wasn’t the wounds +that made me faint. It was the exertion I made in the struggle. +I was too weak. No; so little moisture was there in my system +that I didn’t bleed much. And the amazing thing, under the +circumstances, was the quickness with which I healed. The second +officer sewed me up next day with a needle he’d made out of an +ivory toothpick and with twine he twisted out of the threads from a +frayed tarpaulin.”</p> +<p>“Might I ask, Mr. Greenleaf, if there were rings at the time +on the fingers that were cut off?” Daughtry heard Simon Nishikanta +ask.</p> +<p>“Yes, and one beauty. I found it afterward in the boat +bottom and presented it to the sandalwood trader who rescued me. +It was a large diamond. I paid one hundred and eighty guineas +for it to an English sailor in the Barbadoes. He’d stolen +it, and of course it was worth more. It was a beautiful gem. +The sandalwood man did not merely save my life for it. In addition, +he spent fully a hundred pounds in outfitting me and buying me a passage +from Thursday Island to Shanghai.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>“There’s no getting away from them rings he wears,” +Daughtry overheard Simon Nishikanta that evening telling Grimshaw in +the dark on the weather poop. “You don’t see that +kind nowadays. They’re old, real old. They’re +not men’s rings so much as what you’d call, in the old-fashioned +days, gentlemen’s rings. Real gentlemen, I mean, grand gentlemen, +wore rings like them. I wish collateral like them came into my +loan offices these days. They’re worth big money.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>“I just want to tell you, Killeny Boy, that maybe I’ll +be wishin’ before the voyage is over that I’d gone on a +lay of the treasure instead of straight wages,” Dag Daughtry confided +to Michael that night at turning-in time as Kwaque removed his shoes +and as he paused midway in the draining of his sixth bottle. “Take +it from me, Killeny, that old gentleman knows what he’s talkin’ +about, an’ has been some hummer in his days. Men don’t +lose the fingers off their hands and get their faces chopped open just +for nothing—nor sport rings that makes a Jew pawnbroker’s +mouth water.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<p>Before the voyage of the <i>Mary Turner</i> came to an end, Dag Daughtry, +sitting down between the rows of water-casks in the main-hold, with +a great laugh rechristened the schooner “the Ship of Fools.” +But that was some weeks after. In the meantime he so fulfilled +his duties that not even Captain Doane could conjure a shadow of complaint.</p> +<p>Especially did the steward attend upon the Ancient Mariner, for whom +he had come to conceive a strong admiration, if not affection. +The old fellow was different from his cabin-mates. They were money-lovers; +everything in them had narrowed down to the pursuit of dollars. +Daughtry, himself moulded on generously careless lines, could not but +appreciate the spaciousness of the Ancient Mariner, who had evidently +lived spaciously and who was ever for sharing the treasure they sought.</p> +<p>“You’ll get your whack, steward, if it comes out of my +share,” he frequently assured Daughtry at times of special kindness +on the latter’s part. “There’s oodles of it, +and oodles of it, and, without kith or kin, I have so little time longer +to live that I shall not need it much or much of it.”</p> +<p>And so the Ship of Fools sailed on, all aft fooling and befouling, +from the guileless-eyed, gentle-souled Finnish mate, who, with the scent +of treasure pungent in his nostrils, with a duplicate key stole the +ship’s daily position from Captain Doane’s locked desk, +to Ah Moy, the cook, who kept Kwaque at a distance and never whispered +warning to the others of the risk they ran from continual contact with +the carrier of the terrible disease.</p> +<p>Kwaque himself had neither thought nor worry of the matter. +He knew the thing as a thing that occasionally happened to human creatures. +It bothered him, from the pain standpoint, scarcely at all, and it never +entered his kinky head that his master did not know about it. +For the same reason he never suspected why Ah Moy kept him so at a distance. +Nor had Kwaque other worries. His god, over all gods of sea and +jungle, he worshipped, and, himself ever intimately allowed in the presence, +paradise was wherever he and his god, the steward, might be.</p> +<p>And so Michael. Much in the same way that Kwaque loved and +worshipped did he love and worship the six-quart man. To Michael +and Kwaque, the daily, even hourly, recognition and consideration of +Dag Daughtry was tantamount to resting continuously in the bosom of +Abraham. The god of Messrs. Doane, Nishikanta, and Grimshaw was +a graven god whose name was Gold. The god of Kwaque and Michael +was a living god, whose voice could be always heard, whose arms could +be always warm, the pulse of whose heart could be always felt throbbing +in a myriad acts and touches.</p> +<p>No greater joy was Michael’s than to sit by the hour with Steward +and sing with him all songs and tunes he sang or hummed. With +a quantity or pitch even more of genius or unusualness in him than in +Jerry, Michael learned more quickly, and since the way of his education +was singing, he came to sing far beyond the best Villa Kennan ever taught +Jerry.</p> +<p>Michael could howl, or sing, rather (because his howling was so mellow +and so controlled), any air that was not beyond his register that Steward +elected to sing with him. In addition, he could sing by himself, +and unmistakably, such simple airs as “Home, Sweet Home,” +“God save the King,” and “The Sweet By and By.” +Even alone, prompted by Steward a score of feet away from him, could +he lift up his muzzle and sing “Shenandoah” and “Roll +me down to Rio.”</p> +<p>Kwaque, on stolen occasions when Steward was not around, would get +out his Jews’ harp and by the sheer compellingness of the primitive +instrument make Michael sing with him the barbaric and devil-devil rhythms +of King William Island. Another master of song, but one in whom +Michael delighted, came to rule over him. This master’s +name was Cocky. He so introduced himself to Michael at their first +meeting.</p> +<p>“Cocky,” he said bravely, without a quiver of fear or +flight, when Michael had charged upon him at sight to destroy him. +And the human voice, the voice of a god, issuing from the throat of +the tiny, snow-white bird, had made Michael go back on his haunches, +while, with eyes and nostrils, he quested the steerage for the human +who had spoken. And there was no human . . . only a small cockatoo +that twisted his head impudently and sidewise at him and repeated, “Cocky.”</p> +<p>The taboo of the chicken Michael had been well taught in his earliest +days at Meringe. Chickens, esteemed by <i>Mister</i> Haggin and +his white-god fellows, were things that dogs must even defend instead +of ever attack. But this thing, itself no chicken, with the seeming +of a wild feathered thing of the jungle that was fair game for any dog, +talked to him with the voice of a god.</p> +<p>“Get off your foot,” it commanded so peremptorily, so +humanly, as again to startle Michael and made him quest about the steerage +for the god-throat that had uttered it.</p> +<p>“Get off your foot, or I’ll throw the leg of Moses at +you,” was the next command from the tiny feathered thing.</p> +<p>After that came a farrago of Chinese, so like the voice of Ah Moy, +that again, though for the last time, Michael sought about the steerage +for the utterer.</p> +<p>At this Cocky burst into such wild and fantastic shrieks of laughter +that Michael, ears pricked, head cocked to one side, identified in the +fibres of the laughter the fibres of the various voices he had just +previously heard.</p> +<p>And Cocky, only a few ounces in weight, less than half a pound, a +tiny framework of fragile bone covered with a handful of feathers and +incasing a heart that was as big in pluck as any heart on the <i>Mary +Turner</i>, became almost immediately Michael’s friend and comrade, +as well as ruler. Minute morsel of daring and courage that Cocky +was, he commanded Michael’s respect from the first. And +Michael, who with a single careless paw-stroke could have broken Cocky’s +slender neck and put out for ever the brave brightness of Cocky’s +eyes, was careful of him from the first. And he permitted him +a myriad liberties that he would never have permitted Kwaque.</p> +<p>Ingrained in Michael’s heredity, from the very beginning of +four-legged dogs on earth, was the <i>defence of the meat</i>. +He never reasoned it. Automatic and involuntary as his heart-beating +and air-breathing, was his defence of his meat once he had his paw on +it, his teeth in it. Only to Steward, by an extreme effort of +will and control, could he accord the right to touch his meat once he +had himself touched it. Even Kwaque, who most usually fed him +under Steward’s instructions, knew that the safety of fingers +and flesh resided in having nothing further whatever to do with anything +of food once in Michael’s possession. But Cocky, a bit of +feathery down, a morsel-flash of light and life with the throat of a +god, violated with sheer impudence and daring Michael’s taboo, +the defence of the meat.</p> +<p>Perched on the rim of Michael’s pannikin, this inconsiderable +adventurer from out of the dark into the sun of life, a mere spark and +mote between the darks, by a ruffing of his salmon-pink crest, a swift +and enormous dilation of his bead-black pupils, and a raucous imperative +cry, as of all the gods, in his throat, could make Michael give back +and permit the fastidious selection of the choicest tidbits of his dish.</p> +<p>For Cocky had a way with him, and ways and ways. He, who was +sheer bladed steel in the imperious flashing of his will, could swashbuckle +and bully like any over-seas roisterer, or wheedle as wickedly winningly +as the first woman out of Eden or the last woman of that descent. +When Cocky, balanced on one leg, the other leg in the air as the foot +of it held the scruff of Michael’s neck, leaned to Michael’s +ear and wheedled, Michael could only lay down silkily the bristly hair-waves +of his neck, and with silly half-idiotic eyes of bliss agree to whatever +was Cocky’s will or whimsey so delivered.</p> +<p>Cocky became more intimately Michael’s because, very early, +Ah Moy washed his hands of the bird. Ah Moy had bought him in +Sydney from a sailor for eighteen shillings and chaffered an hour over +the bargain. And when he saw Cocky, one day, perched and voluble, +on the twisted fingers of Kwaque’s left hand, Ah Moy discovered +such instant distaste for the bird that not even eighteen shillings, +coupled with possession of Cocky and possible contact, had any value +to him.</p> +<p>“You likee him? You wanchee?” he proffered.</p> +<p>“Changee for changee!” Kwaque queried back, taking for +granted that it was an offer to exchange and wondering whether the little +old cook had become enamoured of his precious jews’ harp.</p> +<p>“No changee for changee,” Ah Moy answered. “You +wanchee him, all right, can do.”</p> +<p>“How fashion can do?” Kwaque demanded, who to his bêche-de-mer +English was already adding pidgin English. “Suppose ’m +me fella no got ’m what you fella likee?”</p> +<p>“No fashion changee,” Ah Moy reiterated. “You +wanchee, you likee he stop along you fella all right, my word.”</p> +<p>And so did pass the brave bit of feathered life with the heart of +pluck, called of men, and of himself, “Cocky,” who had been +birthed in the jungle roof of the island of Santo, in the New Hebrides, +who had been netted by a two-legged black man-eater and sold for six +sticks of tobacco and a shingle hatchet to a Scotch trader dying of +malaria, and in turn had been traded from hand to hand, for four shillings +to a blackbirder, for a turtle-shell comb made by an English coal-passer +after an old Spanish design, for the appraised value of six shillings +and sixpence in a poker game in the firemen’s forecastle, for +a second-hand accordion worth at least twenty shillings, and on for +eighteen shillings cash to a little old withered Chinaman—so did +pass Cocky, as mortal or as immortal as any brave sparkle of life on +the planet, from the possession of one, Ah Moy, a sea-cock who, forty +years before, had slain his young wife in Macao for cause and fled away +to sea, to Kwaque, a leprous Black Papuan who was slave to one, Dag +Daughtry, himself a servant of other men to whom he humbly admitted +“Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” and “Thank +you, sir.”</p> +<p>One other comrade Michael found, although Cocky was no party to the +friendship. This was Scraps, the awkward young Newfoundland puppy, +who was the property of no one, unless of the schooner <i>Mary Turner</i> +herself, for no man, fore or aft, claimed ownership, while every man +disclaimed having brought him on board. So he was called Scraps, +and, since he was nobody’s dog, was everybody’s dog—so +much so, that Mr. Jackson promised to knock Ah Moy’s block off +if he did not feed the puppy well, while Sigurd Halvorsen, in the forecastle, +did his best to knock off Henrik Gjertsen’s block when the latter +was guilty of kicking Scraps out of his way. Yea, even more. +When Simon Nishikanta, huge and gross as in the flesh he was and for +ever painting delicate, insipid, feministic water-colours, when he threw +his deck-chair at Scraps for clumsily knocking over his easel, he found +the ham-like hand of Grimshaw so instant and heavy on his shoulder as +to whirl him half about, almost fling him to the deck, and leave him +lame-muscled and black-and-blued for days.</p> +<p>Michael, full grown, mature, was so merry-hearted an individual that +he found all delight in interminable romps with Scraps. So strong +was the play-instinct in him, as well as was his constitution strong, +that he continually outplayed Scraps to abject weariness, so that he +could only lie on the deck and pant and laugh through air-draughty lips +and dab futilely in the air with weak forepaws at Michael’s continued +ferocious-acted onslaughts. And this, despite the fact that Scraps +out-bullied him and out-scaled him at least three times, and was as +careless and unwitting of the weight of his legs or shoulders as a baby +elephant on a lawn of daisies. Given his breath back again, Scraps +was as ripe as ever for another frolic, and Michael was just as ripe +to meet him. All of which was splendid training for Michael, keeping +him in the tiptop of physical condition and mental wholesomeness.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<p>So sailed the Ship of Fools—Michael playing with Scraps, respecting +Cocky and by Cocky being bullied and wheedled, singing with Steward +and worshipping him; Daughtry drinking his six quarts of beer each day, +collecting his wages the first of each month, and admiring Charles Stough +Greenleaf as the finest man on board; Kwaque serving and loving his +master and thickening and darkening and creasing his brow with the growing +leprous infiltration; Ah Moy avoiding the Black Papuan as the very plague, +washing himself continuously and boiling his blankets once a week; Captain +Doane doing the navigating and worrying about his flat-building in San +Francisco; Grimshaw resting his ham-hands on his colossal knees and +girding at the pawnbroker to contribute as much to the adventure as +he was contributing from his wheat-ranches; Simon Nishikanta wiping +his sweaty neck with the greasy silk handkerchief and painting endless +water-colours; the mate patiently stealing the ship’s latitude +and longitude with his duplicate key; and the Ancient Mariner, solacing +himself with Scotch highballs, smoking fragrant three-for-a-dollar Havanas +that were charged to the adventure, and for ever maundering about the +hell of the longboat, the cross-bearings unnamable, and the treasure +a fathom under the sand.</p> +<p>Came a stretch of ocean that to Daughtry was like all other stretches +of ocean and unidentifiable from them. No land broke the sea-rim. +The ship the centre, the horizon was the invariable and eternal circle +of the world. The magnetic needle in the binnacle was the point +on which the <i>Mary Turner</i> ever pivoted. The sun rose in +the undoubted east and set in the undoubted west, corrected and proved, +of course, by declination, deviation, and variation; and the nightly +march of the stars and constellations proceeded across the sky.</p> +<p>And in this stretch of ocean, lookouts were mastheaded at day-dawn +and kept mastheaded until twilight of evening, when the <i>Mary Turner</i> +was hove-to, to hold her position through the night. As time went +by, and the scent, according to the Ancient Mariner, grow hotter, all +three of the investors in the adventure came to going aloft. Grimshaw +contented himself with standing on the main crosstrees. Captain +Doane climbed even higher, seating himself on the stump of the foremast +with legs a-straddle of the butt of the fore-topmast. And Simon +Nishikanta tore himself away from his everlasting painting of all colour-delicacies +of sea and sky such as are painted by seminary maidens, to be helped +and hoisted up the ratlines of the mizzen rigging, the huge bulk of +him, by two grinning, slim-waisted sailors, until they lashed him squarely +on the crosstrees and left him to stare with eyes of golden desire, +across the sun-washed sea through the finest pair of unredeemed binoculars +that had ever been pledged in his pawnshops.</p> +<p>“Strange,” the Ancient Mariner would mutter, “strange, +and most strange. This is the very place. There can be no +mistake. I’d have trusted that youngster of a third officer +anywhere. He was only eighteen, but he could navigate better than +the captain. Didn’t he fetch the atoll after eighteen days +in the longboat? No standard compasses, and you know what a small-boat +horizon is, with a big sea, for a sextant. He died, but the dying +course he gave me held good, so that I fetched the atoll the very next +day after I hove his body overboard.”</p> +<p>Captain Doane would shrug his shoulders and defiantly meet the mistrustful +eyes of the Armenian Jew.</p> +<p>“It cannot have sunk, surely,” the Ancient Mariner would +tactfully carry across the forbidding pause. “The island +was no mere shoal or reef. The Lion’s Head was thirty-eight +hundred and thirty-five feet. I saw the captain and the third +officer triangulate it.”</p> +<p>“I’ve raked and combed the sea,” Captain Doane +would then break out, “and the teeth of my comb are not so wide +apart as to let slip through a four-thousand-foot peak.”</p> +<p>“Strange, strange,” the Ancient Mariner would next mutter, +half to his cogitating soul, half aloud to the treasure-seekers. +Then, with a sudden brightening, he would add:</p> +<p>“But, of course, the variation has changed, Captain Doane. +Have you allowed for the change in variation for half a century! +That should make a grave difference. Why, as I understand it, +who am no navigator, the variation was not so definitely and accurately +known in those days as now.”</p> +<p>“Latitude was latitude, and longitude was longitude,” +would be the captain’s retort. “Variation and deviation +are used in setting courses and estimating dead reckoning.”</p> +<p>All of which was Greek to Simon Nishikanta, who would promptly take +the Ancient Mariner’s side of the discussion.</p> +<p>But the Ancient Mariner was fair-minded. What advantage he +gave the Jew one moment, he balanced the next moment with an advantage +to the skipper.</p> +<p>“It’s a pity,” he would suggest to Captain Doane, +“that you have only one chronometer. The entire fault may +be with the chronometer. Why did you sail with only one chronometer?”</p> +<p>“But I <i>was</i> willing for two,” the Jew would defend. +“You know that, Grimshaw?”</p> +<p>The wheat-farmer would nod reluctantly and Captain would snap:</p> +<p>“But not for three chronometers.”</p> +<p>“But if two was no better than one, as you said so yourself +and as Grimshaw will bear witness, then three was no better than two +except for an expense.”</p> +<p>“But if you only have two chronometers, how can you tell which +has gone wrong?” Captain Doane would demand.</p> +<p>“Search me,” would come the pawnbroker’s retort, +accompanied by an incredulous shrug of the shoulders. “If +you can’t tell which is wrong of two, then how much harder must +it be to tell which is wrong of two dozen? With only two, it’s +a fifty-fifty split that one or the other is wrong.”</p> +<p>“But don’t you realize—”</p> +<p>“I realize that it’s all a great foolishness, all this +highbrow stuff about navigation. I’ve got clerks fourteen +years old in my offices that can figure circles all around you and your +navigation. Ask them that if two chronometers ain’t better +than one, then how can two thousand be better than one? And they’d +answer quick, snap, like that, that if two dollars ain’t any better +than one dollar, then two thousand dollars ain’t any better than +one dollar. That’s common sense.”</p> +<p>“Just the same, you’re wrong on general principle,” +Grimshaw would oar in. “I said at the time that the only +reason we took Captain Doane in with us on the deal was because we needed +a navigator and because you and me didn’t know the first thing +about it. You said, ‘Yes, sure’; and right away knew +more about it than him when you wouldn’t stand for buying three +chronometers. What was the matter with you was that the expense +hurt you. That’s about as big an idea as your mind ever +had room for. You go around looking for to dig out ten million +dollars with a second-hand spade you call buy for sixty-eight cents.”</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry could not fail to overhear some of these conversations, +which were altercations rather than councils. The invariable ending, +for Simon Nishikanta, would be what sailors name “the sea-grouch.” +For hours afterward the sulky Jew would speak to no one nor acknowledge +speech from any one. Vainly striving to paint, he would suddenly +burst into violent rage, tear up his attempt, stamp it into the deck, +then get out his large-calibred automatic rifle, perch himself on the +forecastle-head, and try to shoot any stray porpoise, albacore, or dolphin. +It seemed to give him great relief to send a bullet home into the body +of some surging, gorgeous-hued fish, arrest its glorious flashing motion +for ever, and turn it on its side slowly to sink down into the death +and depth of the sea.</p> +<p>On occasion, when a school of blackfish disported by, each one of +them a whale of respectable size, Nishikanta would be beside himself +in the ecstasy of inflicting pain. Out of the school perhaps he +would reach a score of the leviathans, his bullets biting into them +like whip-lashes, so that each, like a colt surprised by the stock-whip, +would leap in the air, or with a flirt of tail dive under the surface, +and then charge madly across the ocean and away from sight in a foam-churn +of speed.</p> +<p>The Ancient Mariner would shake his head sadly; and Daughtry, who +likewise was hurt by the infliction of hurt on unoffending animals, +would sympathize with him and fetch him unbidden another of the expensive +three-for-a-dollar cigars so that his feelings might be soothed. +Grimshaw would curl his lip in a sneer and mutter: “The cheap +skate. The skunk. No man with half the backbone of a man +would take it out of the harmless creatures. He’s that kind +that if he didn’t like you, or if you criticised his grammar or +arithmetic, he’d kick your dog to get even . . . or poison it. +In the good old days up in Colusa we used to hang men like him just +to keep the air we breathed clean and wholesome.”</p> +<p>But it was Captain Doane who protested outright.</p> +<p>“Look at here, Nishikanta,” he would say, his face white +and his lips trembling with anger. “That’s rough stuff, +and all you can get back for it is rough stuff. I know what I’m +talking about. You’ve got no right to risk our lives that +way. Wasn’t the pilot boat <i>Annie Mine</i> sunk by a whale +right in the Golden Gate? Didn’t I sail in as a youngster, +second mate on the brig <i>Berncastle</i>, into Hakodate, pumping double +watches to keep afloat just because a whale took a smash at us? +Didn’t the full-rigged ship, the whaler <i>Essex</i>, sink off +the west coast of South America, twelve hundred miles from the nearest +land for the small boats to cover, and all because of a big cow whale +that butted her into kindling-wood?”</p> +<p>And Simon Nishikanta, in his grouch, disdaining to reply, would continue +to pepper the last whale into flight beyond the circle of the sea their +vision commanded.</p> +<p>“I remember the whaleship <i>Essex</i>,” the Ancient +Mariner told Dag Daughtry. “It was a cow with a calf that +did for her. Her barrels were two-thirds full, too. She +went down in less than an hour. One of the boats never was heard +of.”</p> +<p>“And didn’t another one of her boats get to Hawaii, sir?” +Daughtry queried with all due humility of respect. “Leastwise, +thirty years ago, when I was in Honolulu, I met a man, an old geezer, +who claimed he’d been a harpooner on a whaleship sunk by a whale +off the coast of South America. That was the first and last I +heard of it, until right now you speaking of it, sir. It must +a-been the same ship, sir, don’t you think?”</p> +<p>“Unless two different ships were whale-sunk off the west coast,” +the Ancient Mariner replied. “And of the one ship, the <i>Essex</i>, +there is no discussion. It is historical. The chance is +likely, steward, that the man you mentioned was from the <i>Essex</i>.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<p>Captain Doane worked hard, pursuing the sun in its daily course through +the sky, by the equation of time correcting its aberrations due to the +earth’s swinging around the great circle of its orbit, and charting +Sumner lines innumerable, working assumed latitudes for position until +his head grew dizzy.</p> +<p>Simon Nishikanta sneered openly at what he considered the captain’s +inefficient navigation, and continued to paint water-colours when he +was serene, and to shoot at whales, sea-birds, and all things hurtable +when he was downhearted and sea-sore with disappointment at not sighting +the Lion’s Head peak of the Ancient Mariner’s treasure island.</p> +<p>“I’ll show I ain’t a pincher,” Nishikanta +announced one day, after having broiled at the mast-head for five hours +of sea-searching. “Captain Doane, how much could we have +bought extra chronometers for in San Francisco—good second-hand +ones, I mean?”</p> +<p>“Say a hundred dollars,” the captain answered.</p> +<p>“Very well. And this ain’t a piker’s proposition. +The cost of such a chronometer would have been divided between the three +of us. I stand for its total cost. You just tell the sailors +that I, Simon Nishikanta, will pay one hundred dollars gold money for +the first one that sights land on Mr. Greenleaf’s latitude and +longitude.”</p> +<p>But the sailors who swarmed the mast-heads were doomed to disappointment, +in that for only two days did they have opportunity to stare the ocean +surface for the reward. Nor was this due entirely to Dag Daughtry, +despite the fact that his own intention and act would have been sufficient +to spoil their chance for longer staring.</p> +<p>Down in the lazarette, under the main-cabin floor, it chanced that +he took toll of the cases of beer which had been shipped for his especial +benefit. He counted the cases, doubted the verdict of his senses, +lighted more matches, counted again, then vainly searched the entire +lazarette in the hope of finding more cases of beer stored elsewhere.</p> +<p>He sat down under the trap door of the main-cabin floor and thought +for a solid hour. It was the Jew again, he concluded—the +Jew who had been willing to equip the <i>Mary Turner</i> with two chronometers, +but not with three; the Jew who had ratified the agreement of a sufficient +supply to permit Daughtry his daily six quarts. Once again the +steward counted the cases to make sure. There were three. +And since each case contained two dozen quarts, and since his whack +each day was half a dozen quarts, it was patent that, the supply that +stared him in the face would last him only twelve days. And twelve +days were none too long to sail from this unidentifiable naked sea-stretch +to the nearest possible port where beer could be purchased.</p> +<p>The steward, once his mind was made up, wasted no time. The +clock marked a quarter before twelve when he climbed up out of the lazarette, +replaced the trapdoor, and hurried to set the table. He served +the company through the noon meal, although it was all he could do to +refrain from capsizing the big tureen of split-pea soup over the head +of Simon Nishikanta. What did effectually withstrain him was the +knowledge of the act which in the lazarette he had already determined +to perform that afternoon down in the main hold where the water-casks +were stored.</p> +<p>At three o’clock, while the Ancient Mariner supposedly drowned +in his room, and while Captain Doane, Grimshaw, and half the watch on +deck clustered at the mast-heads to try to raise the Lion’s Head +from out the sapphire sea, Dag Daughtry dropped down the ladder of the +open hatchway into the main hold. Here, in long tiers, with alleyways +between, the water-casks were chocked safely on their sides.</p> +<p>From inside his shirt the steward drew a brace, and to it fitted +a half-inch bit from his hip-pocket. On his knees, he bored through +the head of the first cask until the water rushed out upon the deck +and flowed down into the bilge. He worked quickly, boring cask +after cask down the alleyway that led to deeper twilight. When +he had reached the end of the first row of casks he paused a moment +to listen to the gurglings of the many half-inch streams running to +waste. His quick ears caught a similar gurgling from the right +in the direction of the next alleyway. Listening closely, he could +have sworn he heard the sounds of a bit biting into hard wood.</p> +<p>A minute later, his own brace and bit carefully secreted, his hand +was descending on the shoulder of a man he could not recognize in the +gloom, but who, on his knees and wheezing, was steadily boring into +the head of a cask. The culprit made no effort to escape, and +when Daughtry struck a match he gazed down into the upturned face of +the Ancient Mariner.</p> +<p>“My word!” the steward muttered his amazement softly. +“What in hell are you running water out for?”</p> +<p>He could feel the old man’s form trembling with violent nervousness, +and his own heart smote him for gentleness.</p> +<p>“It’s all right,” he whispered. “Don’t +mind me. How many have you bored?”</p> +<p>“All in this tier,” came the whispered answer. +“You will not inform on me to the . . . the others?”</p> +<p>“Inform?” Daughtry laughed softly. “I don’t +mind telling you that we’re playing the same game, though I don’t +know why you should play it. I’ve just finished boring all +of the starboard row. Now I tell you, sir, you skin out right +now, quietly, while the goin’ is good. Everybody’s +aloft, and you won’t be noticed. I’ll go ahead and +finish this job . . . all but enough water to last us say a dozen days.”</p> +<p>“I should like to talk with you . . . to explain matters,” +the Ancient Mariner whispered.</p> +<p>“Sure, sir, an’ I don’t mind sayin’, sir, +that I’m just plain mad curious to hear. I’ll join +you down in the cabin, say in ten minutes, and we can have a real gam. +But anyway, whatever your game is, I’m with you. Because +it happens to be my game to get quick into port, and because, sir, I +have a great liking and respect for you. Now shoot along. +I’ll be with you inside ten minutes.”</p> +<p>“I like you, steward, very much,” the old man quavered.</p> +<p>“And I like you, sir—and a damn sight more than them +money-sharks aft. But we’ll just postpone this. You +beat it out of here, while I finish scuppering the rest of the water.”</p> +<p>A quarter of an hour later, with the three money-sharks still at +the mast-heads, Charles Stough Greenleaf was seated in the cabin and +sipping a highball, and Dag Daughtry was standing across the table from +him, drinking directly from a quart bottle of beer.</p> +<p>“Maybe you haven’t guessed it,” the Ancient Mariner +said; “but this is my fourth voyage after this treasure.”</p> +<p>“You mean . . . ?” Daughtry asked.</p> +<p>“Just that. There isn’t any treasure. There +never was one—any more than the Lion’s Head, the longboat, +or the bearings unnamable.”’</p> +<p>Daughtry rumpled his grizzled thatch of hair in his perplexity, as +he admitted:</p> +<p>“Well, you got me, sir. You sure got me to believin’ +in that treasure.”</p> +<p>“And I acknowledge, steward, that I am pleased to hear it. +It shows that I have not lost my cunning when I can deceive a man like +you. It is easy to deceive men whose souls know only money. +But you are different. You don’t live and breathe for money. +I’ve watched you with your dog. I’ve watched you with +your nigger boy. I’ve watched you with your beer. +And just because your heart isn’t set on a great buried treasure +of gold, you are harder to deceive. Those whose hearts are set, +are most astonishingly easy to fool. They are of cheap kidney. +Offer them a proposition of one hundred dollars for one, and they are +like hungry pike snapping at the bait. Offer a thousand dollars +for one, or ten thousand for one, and they become sheer lunatic. +I am an old man, a very old man. I like to live until I die—I +mean, to live decently, comfortably, respectably.”</p> +<p>“And you like the voyages long? I begin to see, sir. +Just as they’re getting near to where the treasure ain’t, +a little accident like the loss of their water-supply sends them into +port and out again to start hunting all over.”</p> +<p>The Ancient Mariner nodded, and his sun-washed eyes twinkled.</p> +<p>“There was the <i>Emma Louisa</i>. I kept her on the +long voyage over eighteen months with water accidents and similar accidents. +And, besides, they kept me in one of the best hotels in New Orleans +for over four months before the voyage began, and advanced to me handsomely, +yes, bravely, handsomely.”</p> +<p>“But tell me more, sir; I am most interested,” Dag Daughtry +concluded his simple matter of the beer. “It’s +a good game. I might learn it for my old age, though I give you +my word, sir, I won’t butt in on your game. I wouldn’t +tackle it until you are gone, sir, good game that it is.”</p> +<p>“First of all, you must pick out men with money—with +plenty of money, so that any loss will not hurt them. Also, they +are easier to interest—”</p> +<p>“Because they are more hoggish,” the steward interrupted. +“The more money they’ve got the more they want.”</p> +<p>“Precisely,” the Ancient Mariner continued. “And, +at least, they are repaid. Such sea-voyages are excellent for +their health. After all, I do them neither hurt nor harm, but +only good, and add to their health.”</p> +<p>“But them scars—that gouge out of your face—all +them fingers missing on your hand? You never got them in the fight +in the longboat when the bo’s’n carved you up. Then +where in Sam Hill did you get the them? Wait a minute, sir. +Let me fill your glass first.” And with a fresh-brimmed +glass, Charles Stough Greanleaf narrated the history of his scars.</p> +<p>“First, you must know, steward, that I am—well, a gentleman. +My name has its place in the pages of the history of the United States, +even back before the time when they were the United States. I +graduated second in my class in a university that it is not necessary +to name. For that matter, the name I am known by is not my name. +I carefully compounded it out of names of other families. I have +had misfortunes. I trod the quarter-deck when I was a young man, +though never the deck of the <i>Wide Awake</i>, which is the ship of +my fancy—and of my livelihood in these latter days.</p> +<p>“The scars you asked about, and the missing fingers? +Thus it chanced. It was the morning, at late getting-up times +in a Pullman, when the accident happened. The car being crowded, +I had been forced to accept an upper berth. It was only the other +day. A few years ago. I was an old man then. We were +coming up from Florida. It was a collision on a high trestle. +The train crumpled up, and some of the cars fell over sideways and fell +off, ninety feet into the bottom of a dry creek. It was dry, though +there was a pool of water just ten feet in diameter and eighteen inches +deep. All the rest was dry boulders, and I bull’s-eyed that +pool.</p> +<p>“This is the way it was. I had just got on my shoes and +pants and shirt, and had started to get out of the bunk. There +I was, sitting on the edge of the bunk, my legs dangling down, when +the locomotives came together. The berths, upper and lower, on +the opposite side had already been made up by the porter.</p> +<p>“And there I was, sitting, legs dangling, not knowing where +I was, on a trestle or a flat, when the thing happened. I just +naturally left that upper berth, soared like a bird across the aisle, +went through the glass of the window on the opposite side clean head-first, +turned over and over through the ninety feet of fall more times than +I like to remember, and by some sort of miracle was mostly flat-out +in the air when I bull’s-eyed that pool of water. It was +only eighteen inches deep. But I hit it flat, and I hit it so +hard that it must have cushioned me. I was the only survivor of +my car. It struck forty feet away from me, off to the side. +And they took only the dead out of it. When they took me out of +the pool I wasn’t dead by any means. And when the surgeons +got done with me, there were the fingers gone from my hand, that scar +down the side of my face . . . and, though you’d never guess it, +I’ve been three ribs short of the regular complement ever since.</p> +<p>“Oh, I had no complaint coming. Think of the others in +that car—all dead. Unfortunately, I was riding on a pass, +and so could not sue the railroad company. But here I am, the +only man who ever dived ninety feet into eighteen inches of water and +lived to tell the tale.—Steward, if you don’t mind replenishing +my glass . . . ”</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry complied and in his excitement of interest pulled off +the top of another quart of beer for himself.</p> +<p>“Go on, go on, sir,” he murmured huskily, wiping his +lips, “and the treasure-hunting graft. I’m straight +dying to hear. Sir, I salute you.”</p> +<p>“I may say, steward,” the Ancient Mariner resumed, “that +I was born with a silver spoon that melted in my mouth and left me a +proper prodigal son. Also, that I was born with a backbone of +pride that would not melt. Not for a paltry railroad accident, +but for things long before as well as after, my family let me die, and +I . . . I let it live. That is the story. I let my family +live. Furthermore, it was not my family’s fault. I +never whimpered. I never let on. I melted the last of my +silver spoon—South Sea cotton, an’ it please you, cacao +in Tonga, rubber and mahogany in Yucatan. And do you know, at +the end, I slept in Bowery lodging-houses and ate scrapple in East-Side +feeding-dens, and, on more than one occasion, stood in the bread-line +at midnight and pondered whether or not I should faint before I fed.”</p> +<p>“And you never squealed to your family,” Dag Daughtry +murmured admiringly in the pause.</p> +<p>The Ancient Mariner straightened up his shoulders, threw his head +back, then bowed it and repeated, “No, I never squealed. +I went into the poor-house, or the county poor-farm as they call it. +I lived sordidly. I lived like a beast. For six months I +lived like a beast, and then I saw my way out. I set about building +the <i>Wide Awake</i>. I built her plank by plank, and copper-fastened +her, selected her masts and every timber of her, and personally signed +on her full ship’s complement fore-and-aft, and outfitted her +amongst the Jews, and sailed with her to the South Seas and the treasure +buried a fathom under the sand.</p> +<p>“You see,” he explained, “all this I did in my +mind, for all the time I was a hostage in the poor-farm of broken men.”</p> +<p>The Ancient Mariner’s face grew suddenly bleak and fierce, +and his right hand flashed out to Daughtry’s wrist, prisoning +it in withered fingers of steel.</p> +<p>“It was a long, hard way to get out of the poor-farm and finance +my miserable little, pitiful little, adventure of the <i>Wide Awake</i>. +Do you know that I worked in the poor-farm laundry for two years, for +one dollar and a half a week, with my one available hand and what little +I could do with the other, sorting dirty clothes and folding sheets +and pillow-slips until I thought a thousand times my poor old back would +break in two, and until I knew a million times the location in my chest +of every fraction of an inch of my missing ribs.”</p> +<p>“You are a young man yet—”</p> +<p>Daughtry grinned denial as he rubbed his grizzled mat of hair.</p> +<p>“You are a young man yet, steward,” the Ancient Mariner +insisted with a show of irritation. “You have never been +shut out from life. In the poor-farm one is shut out from life. +There is no respect—no, not for age alone, but for human life +in the poor-house. How shall I say it? One is not dead. +Nor is one alive. One is what once was alive and is in process +of becoming dead. Lepers are treated that way. So are the +insane. I know it. When I was young and on the sea, a brother-lieutenant +went mad. Sometimes he was violent, and we struggled with him, +twisting his arms, bruising his flesh, tying him helpless while we sat +and panted on him that he might not do harm to us, himself, or the ship. +And he, who still lived, died to us. Don’t you understand? +He was no longer of us, like us. He was something other. +That is it—<i>other</i>. And so, in the poor-farm, we, who +are yet unburied, are <i>other</i>. You have heard me chatter +about the hell of the longboat. That is a pleasant diversion in +life compared with the poor-farm. The food, the filth, the abuse, +the bullying, the—the sheer animalness of it!</p> +<p>“For two years I worked for a dollar and a half a week in the +laundry. And imagine me, who had melted a silver spoon in my mouth—a +sizable silver spoon steward—imagine me, my old sore bones, my +old belly reminiscent of youth’s delights, my old palate ticklish +yet and not all withered of the deviltries of taste learned in younger +days—as I say, steward, imagine me, who had ever been free-handed, +lavish, saving that dollar and a half intact like a miser, never spending +a penny of it on tobacco, never mitigating by purchase of any little +delicacy the sad condition of my stomach that protested against the +harshness and indigestibility of our poor fare. I cadged tobacco, +poor cheap tobacco, from poor doddering old chaps trembling on the edge +of dissolution. Ay, and when Samuel Merrivale I found dead in +the morning, next cot to mine, I first rummaged his poor old trousers’ +pocket for the half-plug of tobacco I knew was the total estate he left, +then announced the news.</p> +<p>“Oh, steward, I was careful of that dollar and a half. +Don’t you see?—I was a prisoner sawing my way out with a +tiny steel saw. And I sawed out!” His voice rose in +a shrill cackle of triumph. “Steward, I sawed out!”</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry held forth and up his beer-bottle as he said gravely +and sincerely:</p> +<p>“Sir, I salute you.”</p> +<p>“And I thank you, sir—you understand,” the Ancient +Mariner replied with simple dignity to the toast, touching his glass +to the bottle and drinking with the steward eyes to eyes.</p> +<p>“I should have had one hundred and fifty-six dollars when I +left the poor-farm,” the ancient one continued. “But +there were the two weeks I lost, with influenza, and the one week from +a confounded pleurisy, so that I emerged from that place of the living +dead with but one hundred and fifty-one dollars and fifty cents.”</p> +<p>“I see, sir,” Daughtry interrupted with honest admiration. +“The tiny saw had become a crowbar, and with it you were going +back to break into life again.”</p> +<p>All the scarred face and washed eyes of Charles Stough Greenleaf +beamed as he held his glass up.</p> +<p>“Steward, I salute you. You understand. And you +have said it well. I was going back to break into the house of +life. It was a crowbar, that pitiful sum of money accumulated +by two years of crucifixion. Think of it! A sum that in +the days ere the silver spoon had melted, I staked in careless moods +of an instant on a turn of the cards. But as you say, a burglar, +I came back to break into life, and I came to Boston. You have +a fine turn for a figure of speech, steward, and I salute you.”</p> +<p>Again bottle and glass tinkled together, and both men drank eyes +to eyes and each was aware that the eyes he gazed into were honest and +understanding.</p> +<p>“But it was a thin crowbar, steward. I dared not put +my weight on it for a proper pry. I took a room in a small but +respectable hotel, European plan. It was in Boston, I think I +said. Oh, how careful I was of my crowbar! I scarcely ate +enough to keep my frame inhabited. But I bought drinks for others, +most carefully selected—bought drinks with an air of prosperity +that was as a credential to my story; and in my cups (my apparent cups, +steward), spun an old man’s yarn of the <i>Wide Awake</i>, the +longboat, the bearings unnamable, and the treasure under the sand.—A +fathom under the sand; that was literary; it was psychological; it smacked +of the salt sea, and daring rovers, and the loot of the Spanish Main.</p> +<p>“You have noticed this nugget I wear on my watch-chain, steward? +I could not afford it at that time, but I talked golden instead, California +gold, nuggets and nuggets, oodles and oodles, from the diggings of forty-nine +and fifty. That was literary. That was colour. Later, +after my first voyage out of Boston I was financially able to buy a +nugget. It was so much bait to which men rose like fishes. +And like fishes they nibbled. These rings, also—bait. +You never see such rings now. After I got in funds, I purchased +them, too. Take this nugget: I am talking. I toy with it +absently as I am telling of the great gold treasure we buried under +the sand. Suddenly the nugget flashes fresh recollection into +my mind. I speak of the longboat, of our thirst and hunger, and +of the third officer, the fair lad with cheeks virgin of the razor, +and that he it was who used it as a sinker when we strove to catch fish.</p> +<p>“But back in Boston. Yarns and yarns, when seemingly +I was gone in drink, I told my apparent cronies—men whom I despised, +stupid dolts of creatures that they were. But the word spread, +until one day, a young man, a reporter, tried to interview me about +the treasure and the <i>Wide Awake</i>. I was indignant, angry.—Oh, +softly, steward, softly; in my heart was great joy as I denied that +young reporter, knowing that from my cronies he already had a sufficiency +of the details.</p> +<p>“And the morning paper gave two whole columns and headlines +to the tale. I began to have callers. I studied them out +well. Many were for adventuring after the treasure who themselves +had no money. I baffled and avoided them, and waited on, eating +even less as my little capital dwindled away.</p> +<p>“And then he came, my gay young doctor—doctor of philosophy +he was, for he was very wealthy. My heart sang when I saw him. +But twenty-eight dollars remained to me—after it was gone, the +poor-house, or death. I had already resolved upon death as my +choice rather than go back to be of that dolorous company, the living +dead of the poor-farm. But I did not go back, nor did I die. +The gay young doctor’s blood ran warm at thought of the South +Seas, and in his nostrils I distilled all the scents of the flower-drenched +air of that far-off land, and in his eyes I builded him the fairy visions +of the tradewind clouds, the monsoon skies, the palm isles and the coral +seas.</p> +<p>“He was a gay, mad young dog, grandly careless of his largess, +fearless as a lion’s whelp, lithe and beautiful as a leopard, +and mad, a trifle mad of the deviltries and whimsies that tickled in +that fine brain of his. Look you, steward. Before we sailed +in the <i>Gloucester</i> fishing-schooner, purchased by the doctor, +and that was like a yacht and showed her heels to most yachts, he had +me to his house to advise about personal equipment. We were overhauling +in a gear-room, when suddenly he spoke:</p> +<p>“‘I wonder how my lady will take my long absence. +What say you? Shall she go along?’</p> +<p>“And I had not known that he had any wife or lady. And +I looked my surprise and incredulity.</p> +<p>“‘Just that you do not believe I shall take her on the +cruise,’ he laughed, wickedly, madly, in my astonished face. +‘Come, you shall meet her.’</p> +<p>“Straight to his bedroom and his bed he led me, and, turning +down the covers, showed there to me, asleep as she had slept for many +a thousand years, the mummy of a slender Egyptian maid.</p> +<p>“And she sailed with us on the long vain voyage to the South +Seas and back again, and, steward, on my honour, I grew quite fond of +the dear maid myself.”</p> +<p>The Ancient Mariner gazed dreamily into his glass, and Dag Daughtry +took advantage of the pause to ask:</p> +<p>“But the young doctor? How did he take the failure to +find the treasure?”</p> +<p>The Ancient Mariner’s face lighted with joy.</p> +<p>“He called me a delectable old fraud, with his arm on my shoulder +while he did it. Why, steward, I had come to love that young man +like a splendid son. And with his arm on my shoulder, and I know +there was more than mere kindness in it, he told me we had barely reached +the River Plate when he discovered me. With laughter, and with +more than one slap of his hand on my shoulder that was more caress than +jollity, he pointed out the discrepancies in my tale (which I have since +amended, steward, thanks to him, and amended well), and told me that +the voyage had been a grand success, making him eternally my debtor.</p> +<p>“What could I do? I told him the truth. To him +even did I tell my family name, and the shame I had saved it from by +forswearing it.</p> +<p>“He put his arm on my shoulder, I tell you, and . . . ”</p> +<p>The Ancient Mariner ceased talking because of a huskiness in his +throat, and a moisture from his eyes trickled down both cheeks.</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry pledged him silently, and in the draught from his glass +he recovered himself.</p> +<p>“He told me that I should come and live with him, and, to his +great lonely house he took me the very day we landed in Boston. +Also, he told me he would make arrangements with his lawyers—the +idea tickled his fancy—‘I shall adopt you,’ he said. +‘I shall adopt you along with Isthar’—Isthar was the +little maid’s name, the little mummy’s name.</p> +<p>“Here was I, back in life, steward, and legally to be adopted. +But life is a fond betrayer. Eighteen hours afterward, in the +morning, we found him dead in his bed, the little mummy maid beside +him. Heart-failure, the burst of some blood-vessel in the brain—I +never learned.</p> +<p>“I prayed and pleaded with them for the pair to be buried together. +But they were a hard, cold, New England lot, his cousins and his aunts, +and they presented Isthar to the museum, and me they gave a week to +be quit of the house. I left in an hour, and they searched my +small baggage before they would let me depart.</p> +<p>“I went to New York. It was the same game there, only +that I had more money and could play it properly. It was the same +in New Orleans, in Galveston. I came to California. This +is my fifth voyage. I had a hard time getting these three interested, +and spent all my little store of money before they signed the agreement. +They were very mean. Advance any money to me! The very idea +of it was preposterous. Though I bided my time, ran up a comfortable +hotel bill, and, at the very last, ordered my own generous assortment +of liquors and cigars and charged the bill to the schooner. Such +a to-do! All three of them raged and all but tore their hair . +. . and mime. They said it could not be. I fell promptly +sick. I told them they got on my nerves and made me sick. +The more they raged, the sicker I got. Then they gave in. +As promptly I grew better. And here we are, out of water and heading +soon most likely for the Marquesas to fill our barrels. Then they +will return and try for it again!”</p> +<p>“You think so, sir?”</p> +<p>“I shall remember even more important data, steward,” +the Ancient Mariner smiled. “Without doubt they will return. +Oh, I know them well. They are meagre, narrow, grasping fools.”</p> +<p>“Fools! all fools! a ship of fools!” Dag Daughtry exulted; +repeating what he had expressed in the hold, as he bored the last barrel, +listened to the good water gurgling away into the bilge, and chuckled +over his discovery of the Ancient Mariner on the same lay as his own.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<p>Early next morning, the morning watch of sailors, whose custom was +to fetch the day’s supply of water for the galley and cabin, discovered +that the barrels were empty. Mr. Jackson was so alarmed that he +immediately called Captain Doane, and not many minutes elapsed ere Captain +Doane had routed out Grimshaw and Nishikanta to tell them the disaster.</p> +<p>Breakfast was an excitement shared in peculiarly by the Ancient Mariner +and Dag Daughtry, while the trio of partners raged and bewailed. +Captain Doane particularly wailed. Simon Nishikanta was fiendish +in his descriptions of whatever miscreant had done the deed and of how +he should be made to suffer for it, while Grimshaw clenched and repeatedly +clenched his great hands as if throttling some throat.</p> +<p>“I remember, it was in forty-seven—nay, forty-six—yes, +forty-six,” the Ancient Mariner chattered. “It was +a similar and worse predicament. It was in the longboat, sixteen +of us. We ran on Glister Reef. So named it was after our +pretty little craft discovered it one dark night and left her bones +upon it. The reef is on the Admiralty charts. Captain Doane +will verify me . . . ”</p> +<p>No one listened, save Dag Daughtry, serving hot cakes and admiring. +But Simon Nishikanta, becoming suddenly aware that the old man was babbling, +bellowed out ferociously:</p> +<p>“Oh, shut up! Close your jaw! You make me tired +with your everlasting ‘I remember.’”</p> +<p>The Ancient Mariner was guilelessly surprised, as if he had slipped +somewhere in his narrative.</p> +<p>“No, I assure you,” he continued. “It must +have been some error of my poor old tongue. It was not the <i>Wide +Awake</i>, but the brig <i>Glister</i>. Did I say <i>Wide Awake</i>? +It was the <i>Glister</i>, a smart little brig, almost a toy brig in +fact, copper-bottomed, lines like a dolphin, a sea-cutter and a wind-eater. +Handled like a top. On my honour, gentlemen, it was lively work +for both watches when she went about. I was super-cargo. +We sailed out of New York, ostensibly for the north-west coast, with +sealed orders—”</p> +<p>“In the name of God, peace, peace! You drive me mad with +your drivel!” So Nishikanta cried out in nervous pain that +was real and quivering. “Old man, have a heart. What +do I care to know of your <i>Glister</i> and your sealed orders!”</p> +<p>“Ah, sealed orders,” the Ancient Mariner went on beamingly. +“A magic phrase, sealed orders.” He rolled it off +his tongue with unction. “Those were the days, gentlemen, +when ships did sail with sealed orders. And as super-cargo, with +my trifle invested in the adventure and my share in the gains, I commanded +the captain. Not in him, but in me were reposed the sealed orders. +I assure you I did not know myself what they were. Not until we +were around old Cape Stiff, fifty to fifty, and in fifty in the Pacific, +did I break the seal and learn we were bound for Van Dieman’s +Land. They called it Van Dieman’s Land in those days . . +. ”</p> +<p>It was a day of discoveries. Captain Doane caught the mate +stealing the ship’s position from his desk with the duplicate +key. There was a scene, but no more, for the Finn was too huge +a man to invite personal encounter, and Captain Dome could only stigmatize +his conduct to a running reiteration of “Yes, sir,” and +“No, sir,” and “Sorry, sir.”</p> +<p>Perhaps the most important discovery, although he did not know it +at the time, was that of Dag Daughtry. It was after the course +had been changed and all sail set, and after the Ancient Mariner had +privily informed him that Taiohae, in the Marquesas, was their objective, +that Daughtry gaily proceeded to shave. But one trouble was on +his mind. He was not quite sure, in such an out-of-the-way place +as Taiohae, that good beer could be procured.</p> +<p>As he prepared to make the first stroke of the razor, most of his +face white with lather, he noticed a dark patch of skin on his forehead +just between the eyebrows and above. When he had finished shaving +he touched the dark patch, wondering how he had been sunburned in such +a spot. But he did not know he had touched it in so far as there +was any response of sensation. The dark place was numb.</p> +<p>“Curious,” he thought, wiped his face, and forgot all +about it.</p> +<p>No more than he knew what horror that dark spot represented, did +he know that Ah Moy’s slant eyes had long since noticed it and +were continuing to notice it, day by day, with secret growing terror.</p> +<p>Close-hauled on the south-east trades, the <i>Mary Turner</i> began +her long slant toward the Marquesas. For’ard, all were happy. +Being only seamen, on seamen’s wages, they hailed with delight +the news that they were bound in for a tropic isle to fill their water-barrels. +Aft, the three partners were in bad temper, and Nishikanta openly sneered +at Captain Doane and doubted his ability to find the Marquesas. +In the steerage everybody was happy—Dag Daughtry because his wages +were running on and a further supply of beer was certain; Kwaque because +he was happy whenever his master was happy; and Ah Moy because he would +soon have opportunity to desert away from the schooner and the two lepers +with whom he was domiciled.</p> +<p>Michael shared in the general happiness of the steerage, and joined +eagerly with Steward in learning by heart a fifth song. This was +“Lead, kindly Light.” In his singing, which was no +more than trained howling after all, Michael sought for something he +knew not what. In truth, it was the <i>lost pack</i>, the pack +of the primeval world before the dog ever came in to the fires of men, +and, for that matter, before men built fires and before men were men.</p> +<p>He had been born only the other day and had lived but two years in +the world, so that, of himself, he had no knowledge of the lost pack. +For many thousands of generations he had been away from it; yet, deep +down in the crypts of being, tied about and wrapped up in every muscle +and nerve of him, was the indelible record of the days in the wild when +dim ancestors had run with the pack and at the same time developed the +pack and themselves. When Michael was asleep, then it was that +pack-memories sometimes arose to the surface of his subconscious mind. +These dreams were real while they lasted, but when he was awake he remembered +them little if at all. But asleep, or singing with Steward, he +sensed and yearned for the lost pack and was impelled to seek the forgotten +way to it.</p> +<p>Waking, Michael had another and real pack. This was composed +of Steward, Kwaque, Cocky, and Scraps, and he ran with it as ancient +forbears had ran with their own kind in the hunting. The steerage +was the lair of this pack, and, out of the steerage, it ranged the whole +world, which was the <i>Mary Turner</i> ever rocking, heeling, reeling +on the surface of the unstable sea.</p> +<p>But the steerage and its company meant more to Michael than the mere +pack. It was heaven as well, where dwelt God. Man early +invented God, often of stone, or clod, or fire, and placed him in trees +and mountains and among the stars. This was because man observed +that man passed and was lost out of the tribe, or family, or whatever +name he gave to his group, which was, after all, the human pack. +And man did not want to be lost out of the pack. So, of his imagination, +he devised a new pack that would be eternal and with which he might +for ever run. Fearing the dark, into which he observed all men +passed, he built beyond the dark a fairer region, a happier hunting-ground, +a jollier and robuster feasting-hall and wassailing-place, and called +it variously “heaven.”</p> +<p>Like some of the earliest and lowest of primitive men, Michael never +dreamed of throwing the shadow of himself across his mind and worshipping +it as God. He did not worship shadows. He worshipped a real +and indubitable god, not fashioned in his own four-legged, hair-covered +image, but in the flesh-and-blood image, two-legged, hairless, upstanding, +of Steward.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<p>Had the trade wind not failed on the second day after laying the +course for the Marquesas; had Captain Doane, at the mid-day meal, not +grumbled once again at being equipped with only one chronometer; had +Simon Nishikanta not become viciously angry thereat and gone on deck +with his rifle to find some sea-denizen to kill; and had the sea-denizen +that appeared close alongside been a bonita, a dolphin, a porpoise, +an albacore, or anything else than a great, eighty-foot cow whale accompanied +by her nursing calf—had any link been missing from this chain +of events, the <i>Mary Turner</i> would have undoubtedly reached the +Marquesas, filled her water-barrels, and returned to the treasure-hunting; +and the destinies of Michael, Daughtry, Kwaque, and Cocky would have +been quite different and possibly less terrible.</p> +<p>But every link was present for the occasion. The schooner, +in a dead calm, was rolling over the huge, smooth seas, her boom sheets +and tackles crashing to the hollow thunder of her great sails, when +Simon Nishikanta put a bullet into the body of the little whale calf. +By an almost miracle of chance, the shot killed the calf. It was +equivalent to killing an elephant with a pea-rifle. Not at once +did the calf die. It merely immediately ceased its gambols and +for a while lay quivering on the surface of the ocean. The mother +was beside it the moment after it was struck, and to those on board, +looking almost directly down upon her, her dismay and alarm were very +patent. She would nudge the calf with her huge shoulder, circle +around and around it, then range up alongside and repeat her nudgings +and shoulderings.</p> +<p>All on the <i>Mary Turner</i>, fore and aft, lined the rail and stared +down apprehensively at the leviathan that was as long as the schooner.</p> +<p>“If she should do to us, sir, what that other one did to the +<i>Essex</i>,” Dag Daughtry observed to the Ancient Mariner.</p> +<p>“It would be no more than we deserve,” was the response. +“It was uncalled-for—a wanton, cruel act.”</p> +<p>Michael, aware of the excitement overside but unable to see because +of the rail, leaped on top of the cabin and at sight of the monster +barked defiantly. Every eye turned on him in startlement and fear, +and Steward hushed him with a whispered command.</p> +<p>“This is the last time,” Grimshaw muttered in a low voice, +tense with anger, to Nishikanta. “If ever again, on this +voyage, you take a shot at a whale, I’ll wring your dirty neck +for you. Get me. I mean it. I’ll choke your +eye-balls out of you.”</p> +<p>The Jew smiled in a sickly way and whined, “There ain’t +nothing going to happen. I don’t believe that <i>Essex</i> +ever was sunk by a whale.”</p> +<p>Urged on by its mother, the dying calf made spasmodic efforts to +swim that were futile and caused it to veer and wallow from side to +side.</p> +<p>In the course of circling about it, the mother accidentally brushed +her shoulder under the port quarter of the <i>Mary Turner</i>, and the +<i>Mary Turner</i> listed to starboard as her stern was lifted a yard +or more. Nor was this unintentional, gentle impact all. +The instant after her shoulder had touched, startled by the contact, +she flailed out with her tail. The blow smote the rail just for’ard +of the fore-shrouds, splintering a gap through it as if it were no more +than a cigar-box and cracking the covering board.</p> +<p>That was all, and an entire ship’s company stared down in silence +and fear at a sea-monster grief-stricken over its dying progeny.</p> +<p>Several times, in the course of an hour, during which the schooner +and the two whales drifted farther and farther apart, the calf strove +vainly to swim. Then it set up a great quivering, which culminated +in a wild wallowing and lashing about of its tail.</p> +<p>“It is the death-flurry,” said the Ancient Mariner softly.</p> +<p>“By damn, it’s dead,” was Captain Doane’s +comment five minutes later. “Who’d believe it? +A rifle bullet! I wish to heaven we could get half an hour’s +breeze of wind to get us out of this neighbourhood.”</p> +<p>“A close squeak,” said Grimshaw,</p> +<p>Captain Doane shook his head, as his anxious eyes cast aloft to the +empty canvas and quested on over the sea in the hope of wind-ruffles +on the water. But all was glassy calm, each great sea, of all +the orderly procession of great seas, heaving up, round-topped and mountainous, +like so much quicksilver.</p> +<p>“It’s all right,” Grimahaw encouraged. “There +she goes now, beating it away from us.”</p> +<p>“Of course it’s all right, always was all right,” +Nishikanta bragged, as he wiped the sweat from his face and neck and +looked with the others after the departing whale. “You’re +a fine brave lot, you are, losing your goat to a fish.”</p> +<p>“I noticed your face was less yellow than usual,” Grimshaw +sneered. “It must have gone to your heart.”</p> +<p>Captain Doane breathed a great sigh. His relief was too strong +to permit him to join in the squabbling.</p> +<p>“You’re yellow,” Grimshaw went on, “yellow +clean through.” He nodded his head toward the Ancient Mariner. +“Now there’s the real thing as a man. No yellow in +him. He never batted an eye, and I reckon he knew more about the +danger than you did. If I was to choose being wrecked on a desert +island with him or you, I’d take him a thousand times first. +If—”</p> +<p>But a cry from the sailors interrupted him.</p> +<p>“Merciful God!” Captain Doane breathed aloud.</p> +<p>The great cow whale had turned about, and, on the surface, was charging +straight back at them. Such was her speed that a bore was raised +by her nose like that which a Dreadnought or an Atlantic liner raises +on the sea.</p> +<p>“Hold fast, all!” Captain Doane roared.</p> +<p>Every man braced himself for the shock. Henrik Gjertsen, the +sailor at the wheel, spread his legs, crouched down, and stiffened his +shoulders and arms to hand-grips on opposite spokes of the wheel. +Several of the crew fled from the waist to the poop, and others of them +sprang into the main-rigging. Daughtry, one hand on the rail, +with his free arm clasped the Ancient Mariner around the waist.</p> +<p>All held. The whale struck the <i>Mary Turner</i> just aft +of the fore-shroud. A score of things, which no eye could take +in simultaneously, happened. A sailor, in the main rigging, carried +away a ratline in both hands, fell head-downward, and was clutched by +an ankle and saved head-downward by a comrade, as the schooner cracked +and shuddered, uplifted on the port side, and was flung down on her +starboard side till the ocean poured level over her rail. Michael, +on the smooth roof of the cabin, slithered down the steep slope to starboard +and disappeared, clawing and snarling, into the runway. The port +shrouds of the foremast carried away at the chain-plates, and the fore-topmast +leaned over drunkenly to starboard.</p> +<p>“My word,” quoth the Ancient Mariner. “We +certainly felt that.”</p> +<p>“Mr. Jackson,” Captain Doane commanded the mate, “will +you sound the well.”</p> +<p>The mate obeyed, although he kept an anxious eye on the whale, which +had gone off at a tangent and was smoking away to the eastward.</p> +<p>“You see, that’s what you get,” Grimshaw snarled +at Nishikanta.</p> +<p>Nishikanta nodded, as he wiped the sweat away, and muttered, “And +I’m satisfied. I got all I want. I didn’t think +a whale had it in it. I’ll never do it again.”</p> +<p>“Maybe you’ll never have the chance,” the captain +retorted. “We’re not done with this one yet. +The one that charged the <i>Essex</i> made charge after charge, and +I guess whale nature hasn’t changed any in the last few years.”</p> +<p>“Dry as a bone, sir,” Mr. Jackson reported the result +of his sounding.</p> +<p>“There she turns,” Daughtry called out.</p> +<p>Half a mile away, the whale circled about sharply and charged back.</p> +<p>“Stand from under for’ard there!” Captain Doane +shouted to one of the sailors who had just emerged from the forecastle +scuttle, sea-bag in hand, and over whom the fore-topmast was swaying +giddily.</p> +<p>“He’s packed for the get-away,” Daughtry murmured +to the Ancient Mariner. “Like a rat leaving a ship.”</p> +<p>“We’re all rats,” was the reply. “I +learned just that when I was a rat among the mangy rats of the poor-farm.”</p> +<p>By this time, all men on board had communicated to Michael their +contagion of excitement and fear. Back on top of the cabin so +that he might see, he snarled at the cow whale when the men seized fresh +grips against the impending shock and when he saw her close at hand +and oncoming.</p> +<p>The <i>Mary Turner</i> was struck aft of the mizzen shrouds. +As she was hurled down to starboard, whither Michael was ignominiously +flung, the crack of shattered timbers was plainly heard. Henrik +Gjertsen, at the wheel, clutching the wheel with all his strength, was +spun through the air as the wheel was spun by the fling of the rudder. +He fetched up against Captain Doane, whose grip had been torn loose +from the rail. Both men crumpled down on deck with the wind knocked +out of them. Nishikanta leaned cursing against the side of the +cabin, the nails of both hands torn off at the quick by the breaking +of his grip on the rail.</p> +<p>While Daughtry was passing a turn of rope around the Ancient Mariner +and the mizzen rigging and giving the turn to him to hold, Captain Doane +crawled gasping to the rail and dragged himself erect.</p> +<p>“That fetched her,” he whispered huskily to the mate, +hand pressed to his side to control his pain. “Sound the +well again, and keep on sounding.”</p> +<p>More of the sailors took advantage of the interval to rush for’ard +under the toppling fore-topmast, dive into the forecastle, and hastily +pack their sea-bags. As Ah Moy emerged from the steerage with +his own rotund sea-bag, Daughtry dispatched Kwaque to pack the belongings +of both of them.</p> +<p>“Dry as a bone, sir,” came the mate’s report.</p> +<p>“Keep on sounding, Mr. Jackson,” the captain ordered, +his voice already stronger as he recovered from the shock of his collision +with the helmsman. “Keep right on sounding. Here she +comes again, and the schooner ain’t built that’d stand such +hammering.”</p> +<p>By this time Daughtry had Michael tucked under one arm, his free +arm ready to anticipate the next crash by swinging on to the rigging.</p> +<p>In making its circle to come back, the cow lost her bearings sufficiently +to miss the stern of the <i>Mary Turner</i> by twenty feet. Nevertheless, +the bore of her displacement lifted the schooner’s stern gently +and made her dip her bow to the sea in a stately curtsey.</p> +<p>“If she’d a-hit . . . ” Captain Doane murmured +and ceased.</p> +<p>“It’d a-ben good night,” Daughtry concluded for +him. “She’s a-knocked our stern clean off of us, sir.”</p> +<p>Again wheeling, this time at no more than two hundred yards, the +whale charged back, not completing her semi-circle sufficiently, so +that she bore down upon the schooner’s bow from starboard. +Her back hit the stem and seemed just barely to scrape the martingale, +yet the <i>Mary Turner</i> sat down till the sea washed level with her +stern-rail. Nor was this all. Martingale, bob-stays and +all parted, as well as all starboard stays to the bowsprit, so that +the bowsprit swung out to port at right angles and uplifted to the drag +of the remaining topmast stays. The topmast anticked high in the +air for a space, then crashed down to deck, permitting the bowsprit +to dip into the sea, go clear with the butt of it of the forecastle +head, and drag alongside.</p> +<p>“Shut up that dog!” Nishikanta ordered Daughtry savagery. +“If you don’t . . . ”</p> +<p>Michael, in Steward’s arms, was snarling and growling intimidatingly, +not merely at the cow whale but at all the hostile and menacing universe +that had thrown panic into the two-legged gods of his floating world.</p> +<p>“Just for that,” Daughtry snarled back, “I’ll +let ’m sing. You made this mess, and if you lift a hand +to my dog you’ll miss seeing the end of the mess you started, +you dirty pawnbroker, you.”</p> +<p>“Perfectly right, perfectly right,” the Ancient Mariner +nodded approbation. “Do you think, steward, you could get +a width of canvas, or a blanket, or something soft and broad with which +to replace this rope? It cuts me too sharply in the spot where +my three ribs are missing.”</p> +<p>Daughtry thrust Michael into the old man’s arm.</p> +<p>“Hold him, sir,” the steward said. “If that +pawnbroker makes a move against Killeny Boy, spit in his face, bite +him, anything. I’ll be back in a jiffy, sir, before he can +hurt you and before the whale can hit us again. And let Killeny +Boy make all the noise he wants. One hair of him’s worth +more than a world-full of skunks of money-lenders.”</p> +<p>Daughtry dashed into the cabin, came back with a pillow and three +sheets, and, using the first as a pad and knotting the last together +in swift weaver’s knots, he left the Ancient Mariner safe and +soft and took Michael back into his own arms.</p> +<p>“She’s making water, sir,” the mate called. +“Six inches—no, seven inches, sir.”</p> +<p>There was a rush of sailors across the wreckage of the fore-topmast +to the forecastle to pack their bags.</p> +<p>“Swing out that starboard boat, Mr. Jackson,” the captain +commanded, staring after the foaming course of the cow as she surged +away for a fresh onslaught. “But don’t lower it. +Hold it overside in the falls, or that damned fish’ll smash it. +Just swing it out, ready and waiting, let the men get their bags, then +stow food and water aboard of her.”</p> +<p>Lashings were cast off the boat and the falls attached, when the +men fled to holding-vantage just ere the whale arrived. She struck +the <i>Mary Turner</i> squarely amidships on the port beam, so that, +from the poop, one saw, as well as heard, her long side bend and spring +back like a limber fabric. The starboard rail buried under the +sea as the schooner heeled to the blow, and, as she righted with a violent +lurch, the water swashed across the deck to the knees of the sailors +about the boat and spouted out of the port scuppers.</p> +<p>“Heave away!” Captain Doane ordered from the poop. +“Up with her! Swing her out! Hold your turns! +Make fast!”</p> +<p>The boat was outboard, its gunwale resting against the <i>Mary Turner’s</i> +rail.</p> +<p>“Ten inches, sir, and making fast,” was the mate’s +information, as he gauged the sounding-rod.</p> +<p>“I’m going after my tools,” Captain Doane announced, +as he started for the cabin. Half into the scuttle, he paused +to add with a sneer for Nishikanta’s benefit, “And for my +one chronometer.”</p> +<p>“A foot and a half, and making,” the mate shouted aft +to him.</p> +<p>“We’d better do some packing ourselves,” Grimshaw, +following on the captain, said to Nishikanta.</p> +<p>“Steward,” Nishikanta said, “go below and pack +my bedding. I’ll take care of the rest.”</p> +<p>“Mr. Nishikanta, you can go to hell, sir, and all the rest +as well,” was Daughtry’s quiet response, although in the +same breath he was saying, respectfully and assuringly, to the Ancient +Mariner: “You hold Killeny, sir. I’ll take care of +your dunnage. Is there anything special you want to save, sir?”</p> +<p>Jackson joined the four men below, and as the five of them, in haste +and trepidation, packed articles of worth and comfort, the <i>Mary Turner</i> +was struck again. Caught below without warning, all were flung +fiercely to port and from Simon Nishikanta’s room came wailing +curses of announcement of the hurt to his ribs against his bunk-rail. +But this was drowned by a prodigious smashing and crashing on deck.</p> +<p>“Kindling wood—there won’t be anything else left +of her,” Captain Doane commented in the ensuing calm, as he crept +gingerly up the companionway with his chronometer cuddled on an even +keel to his breast.</p> +<p>Placing it in the custody of a sailor, he returned below and was +helped up with his sea-chest by the steward. In turn, he helped +the steward up with the Ancient Mariner’s sea-chest. Next, +aided by anxious sailors, he and Daughtry dropped into the lazarette +through the cabin floor, and began breaking out and passing up a stream +of supplies—cases of salmon and beef, of marmalade and biscuit, +of butter and preserved milk, and of all sorts of the tinned, desiccated, +evaporated, and condensed stuff that of modern times goes down to the +sea in ships for the nourishment of men.</p> +<p>Daughtry and the captain emerged last from the cabin, and both stared +upward for a moment at the gaps in the slender, sky-scraping top-hamper, +where, only minutes before, the main- and mizzen-topmasts had been. +A second moment they devoted to the wreckage of the same on deck—the +mizzen-topmast, thrust through the spanker and supported vertically +by the stout canvas, thrashing back and forth with each thrash of the +sail, the main-topmast squarely across the ruined companionway to the +steerage.</p> +<p>While the mother-whale expressing her bereavement in terms of violence +and destruction, was withdrawing the necessary distance for another +charge, all hands of the <i>Mary Turner</i> gathered about the starboard +boat swung outboard ready for lowering. A respectable hill of +case goods, water-kegs, and personal dunnage was piled on the deck alongside. +A glance at this, and at the many men of fore and aft, demonstrated +that it was to be a perilously overloaded boat.</p> +<p>“We want the sailors with us, at any rate—they can row,” +said Simon Nishikanta.</p> +<p>“But do we want you?” Grimshaw queried gloomily. +“You take up too much room, for your size, and you’re a +beast anyway.”</p> +<p>“I guess I’ll be wanted,” the pawnbroker observed, +as he jerked open his shirt, tearing out the four buttons in his impetuousness +and showing a Colt’s .44 automatic, strapped in its holster against +the bare skin of his side under his left arm, the butt of the weapon +most readily accessible to any hasty dip of his right hand. “I +guess I’ll be wanted. But just the same we can dispense +with the undesirables.”</p> +<p>“If you will have your will,” the wheat-farmer conceded +sardonically, although his big hand clenched involuntarily as if throttling +a throat. “Besides, if we should run short of food you will +prove desirable—for the quantity of you, I mean, and not otherwise. +Now just who would you consider undesirable?—the black nigger? +He ain’t got a gun.”</p> +<p>But his pleasantries were cut short by the whale’s next attack—another +smash at the stern that carried away the rudder and destroyed the steering +gear.</p> +<p>“How much water?” Captain Doane queried of the mate.</p> +<p>“Three feet, sir—I just sounded,” came the answer. +“I think, sir, it would be advisable to part-load the boat; then, +right after the next time the whale hits us, lower away on the run, +chuck the rest of the dunnage in, and ourselves, and get clear.”</p> +<p>Captain Doane nodded.</p> +<p>“It will be lively work,” he said. “Stand +ready, all of you. Steward, you jump aboard first and I’ll +pass the chronometer to you.”</p> +<p>Nishikanta bellicosely shouldered his vast bulk up to the captain, +opened his shirt, and exposed his revolver.</p> +<p>“There’s too many for the boat,” he said, “and +the steward’s one of ’em that don’t go along. +Get that. Hold it in your head. The steward’s one +of ’em that don’t go along.”</p> +<p>Captain Doane coolly surveyed the big automatic, while at the fore +of his consciousness burned a vision of his flat buildings in San Francisco.</p> +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. “The boat would be overloaded, +with all this truck, anyway. Go ahead, if you want to make it +your party, but just bear in mind that I’m the navigator, and +that, if you ever want to lay eyes on your string of pawnshops, you’d +better see that gentle care is taken of me.—Steward!”</p> +<p>Daughtry stepped close.</p> +<p>“There won’t be room for you . . . and for one or two +others, I’m sorry to say.”</p> +<p>“Glory be!” said Daughtry. “I was just fearin’ +you’d be wantin’ me along, sir.—Kwaque, you take ’m +my fella dunnage belong me, put ’m in other fella boat along other +side.”</p> +<p>While Kwaque obeyed, the mate sounded the well for the last time, +reporting three feet and a half, and the lighter freightage of the starboard +boat was tossed in by the sailors.</p> +<p>A rangy, gangly, Scandinavian youth of a sailor, droop-shouldered, +six feet six and slender as a lath, with pallid eyes of palest blue +and skin and hair attuned to the same colour scheme, joined Kwaque in +his work.</p> +<p>“Here, you Big John,” the mate interfered. “This +is your boat. You work here.”</p> +<p>The lanky one smiled in embarrassment as he haltingly explained: +“I tank I lak go along cooky.”</p> +<p>“Sure, let him go, the more the easier,” Nishikanta took +charge of the situation. “Anybody else?”</p> +<p>“Sure,” Dag Daughtry sneered to his face. “I +reckon what’s left of the beer goes with my boat . . . unless +you want to argue the matter.”</p> +<p>“For two cents—” Nishikanta spluttered in affected +rage.</p> +<p>“Not for two billion cents would you risk a scrap with me, +you money-sweater, you,” was Daughtry’s retort. “You’ve +got their goats, but I’ve got your number. Not for two billion +billion cents would you excite me into callin’ it right now.—Big +John! Just carry that case of beer across, an’ that half +case, and store in my boat.—Nishikanta, just start something, +if you’ve got the nerve.”</p> +<p>Simon Nishikanta did not dare, nor did he know what to do; but he +was saved from his perplexity by the shout:</p> +<p>“Here she comes!”</p> +<p>All rushed to holding-ground, and held, while the whale broke more +timbers and the <i>Mary Turner</i> rolled sluggishly down and back again.</p> +<p>“Lower away! On the run! Lively!”</p> +<p>Captain Doane’s orders were swiftly obeyed. The starboard +boat, fended off by sailors, rose and fell in the water alongside while +the remainder of the dunnage and provisions showered into her.</p> +<p>“Might as well lend a hand, sir, seein’ you’re +bent on leaving in such a hurry,” said Daughtry, taking the chronometer +from Captain Doane’s hand and standing ready to pass it down to +him as soon as he was in the boat.</p> +<p>“Come on, Greenleaf,” Grimshaw called up to the Ancient +Mariner.</p> +<p>“No, thanking you very kindly, sir,” came the reply. +“I think there’ll be more room in the other boat.”</p> +<p>“We want the cook!” Nishikanta cried out from the stern +sheets. “Come on, you yellow monkey! Jump in!”</p> +<p>Little old shrivelled Ah Moy debated. He visibly thought, although +none knew the intrinsicness of his thinking as he stared at the gun +of the fat pawnbroker and at the leprosy of Kwaque and Daughtry, and +weighed the one against the other and tossed the light and heavy loads +of the two boats into the balance.</p> +<p>“Me go other boat,” said Ah Moy, starting to drag his +bag away across the deck.</p> +<p>“Cast off,” Captain Doane commanded.</p> +<p>Scraps, the big Newfoundland puppy, who had played and pranced about +through all the excitement, seeing so many of the <i>Mary Turner’s</i> +humans in the boat alongside, sprang over the rail, low and close to +the water, and landed sprawling on the mass of sea-bags and goods cases.</p> +<p>The boot rocked, and Nishikanta, his automatic in his hand, cried +out:</p> +<p>“Back with him! Throw him on board!”</p> +<p>The sailors obeyed, and the astounded Scraps, after a brief flight +through the air, found himself arriving on his back on the <i>Mary Turner’s</i> +deck. At any rate, he took it for no more than a rough joke, and +rolled about ecstatically, squirming vermicularly, in anticipation of +what new delights of play were to be visited upon him. He reached +out, with an enticing growl of good fellowship, for Michael, who was +now free on deck, and received in return a forbidding and crusty snarl.</p> +<p>“Guess we’ll have to add him to our collection, eh, sir?” +Daughtry observed, sparing a moment to pat reassurance on the big puppy’s +head and being rewarded with a caressing lick on his hand from the puppy’s +blissful tongue.</p> +<p>No first-class ship’s steward can exist without possessing +a more than average measure of executive ability. Dag Daughtry +was a first-class ship’s steward. Placing the Ancient Mariner +in a nook of safety, and setting Big John to unlashing the remaining +boat and hooking on the falls, he sent Kwaque into the hold to fill +kegs of water from the scant remnant of supply, and Ah Moy to clear +out the food in the galley.</p> +<p>The starboard boat, cluttered with men, provisions, and property +and being rapidly rowed away from the danger centre, which was the <i>Mary +Turner</i>, was scarcely a hundred yards away, when the whale, missing +the schooner clean, turned at full speed and close range, churning the +water, and all but collided with the boat. So near did she come +that the rowers on the side next to her pulled in their oars. +The surge she raised, heeled the loaded boat gunwale under, so that +a degree of water was shipped ere it righted. Nishikanta, automatic +still in hand, standing up in the sternsheets by the comfortable seat +he had selected for himself, was staggered by the lurch of the boat. +In his instinctive, spasmodic effort to maintain balance, he relaxed +his clutch on the pistol, which fell into the sea.</p> +<p>“<i>Ha-ah</i>!” Daughtry girded. “What price +Nishikanta? I got his number, and he’s lost you fellows’ +goats. He’s your meat now. Easy meat? I should +say! And when it comes to the eating, eat him first. Sure, +he’s a skunk, and will taste like one, but many’s the honest +man that’s eaten skunk and pulled through a tight place. +But you’d better soak ’im all night in salt water, first.”</p> +<p>Grimshaw, whose seat in the sternsheets was none of the best, grasped +the situation simultaneously with Daughtry, and, with a quick upstanding, +and hooking out-reach of hand, caught the fat pawnbroker around the +back of the neck, and with anything but gentle suasion jerked him half +into the air and flung him face downward on the bottom boards.</p> +<p>“Ha-ah!” said Daughtry across the hundred yards of ocean.</p> +<p>Next, and without hurry, Grimshaw took the more comfortable seat +for himself.</p> +<p>“Want to come along?” he called to Daughtry.</p> +<p>“No, thank you, sir,” was the latter’s reply. +“There’s too many of us, an’ we’ll make out +better in the other boat.”</p> +<p>With some bailing, and with others bending to the oars, the boat +rowed frantically away, while Daughtry took Ah Moy with him down into +the lazarette beneath the cabin floor and broke out and passed up more +provisions.</p> +<p>It was when he was thus below that the cow grazed the schooner just +for’ard of amidships on the port side, lashed out with her mighty +tail as she sounded, and ripped clean away the chain plates and rail +of the mizzen-shrouds. In the next roll of the huge, glassy sea, +the mizzen-mast fell overside.</p> +<p>“My word, some whale,” Daughtry said to Ah Moy, as they +emerged from the cabin companionway and gazed at this latest wreckage.</p> +<p>Ah Moy found need to get more food from the galley, when Daughtry, +Kwaque, and Big John swung their weight on the falls, one at a time, +and hoisted the port boat, one end at a time, over the rail and swung +her out.</p> +<p>“We’ll wait till the next smash, then lower away, throw +everything in, an’ get outa this,” the steward told the +Ancient Mariner. “Lots of time. The schooner’ll +sink no faster when she’s awash than she’s sinkin’ +now.”</p> +<p>Even as he spoke, the scuppers were nearly level with the ocean, +and her rolling in the big sea was sluggish.</p> +<p>“Hey!” he called with sudden forethought across the widening +stretch of sea to Captain Doane. “What’s the course +to the Marquesas? Right now? And how far away, sir?”</p> +<p>“Nor’-nor’-east-quarter-east!” came the faint +reply. “Will fetch Nuka-Hiva! About two hundred miles! +Haul on the south-east trade with a good full and you’ll make +it!”</p> +<p>“Thank you, sir,” was the steward’s acknowledgment, +ere he ran aft, disrupted the binnacle, and carried the steering compass +back to the boat.</p> +<p>Almost, from the whale’s delay in renewing her charging, did +they think she had given over. And while they waited and watched +her rolling on the sea an eighth of a mile away, the <i>Mary Turner</i> +steadily sank.</p> +<p>“We might almost chance it,” Daughtry was debating aloud +to Big John, when a new voice entered the discussion.</p> +<p>“Cocky!—Cocky!” came plaintive tones from below +out of the steerage companion.</p> +<p>“Devil be damned!” was the next, uttered in irritation +and anger. “Devil be damned! Devil be damned!”</p> +<p>“Of course not,” was Daughtry’s judgment, as he +dashed across the deck, crawled through the confusion of the main-topmast +and its many stays that blocked the way, and found the tiny, white morsel +of life perched on a bunk-edge, ruffling its feathers, erecting and +flattening its rosy crest, and cursing in honest human speech the waywardness +of the world and of ships and humans upon the sea.</p> +<p>The cockatoo stepped upon Daughtry’s inviting index finger, +swiftly ascended his shirt sleeve, and, on his shoulder, claws sunk +into the flimsy shirt fabric till they hurt the flesh beneath, leaned +head to ear and uttered in gratitude and relief, and in self-identification: +“Cocky. Cocky.”</p> +<p>“You son of a gun,” Daughtry crooned.</p> +<p>“Glory be!” Cooky replied, in tones so like Daughtry’s +as to startle him.</p> +<p>“You son of a gun,” Daughtry repeated, cuddling his cheek +and ear against the cockatoo’s feathered and crested head. +“And some folks thinks it’s only folks that count in this +world.”</p> +<p>Still the whale delayed, and, with the ocean washing their toes on +the level deck, Daughtry ordered the boat lowered away. Ah Moy +was eager in his haste to leap into the bow. Nor was Daughtry’s +judgment correct that the little Chinaman’s haste was due to fear +of the sinking ship. What Ah Moy sought was the place in the boat +remotest from Kwaque and the steward.</p> +<p>Shoving clear, they roughly stored the supplies and dunnage out of +the way of the thwarts and took their places, Ah Moy pulling bow-oar, +next in order Big John and Kwaque, with Daughtry (Cocky still perched +on his shoulder) at stroke. On top of the dunnage, in the sternsheets, +Michael gazed wistfully at the <i>Mary Turner</i> and continued to snarl +crustily at Scraps who idiotically wanted to start a romp. The +Ancient Mariner stood up at the steering sweep and gave the order, when +all was ready, for the first dip of the oars.</p> +<p>A growl and a bristle from Michael warned them that the whale was +not only coming but was close upon them. But it was not charging. +Instead, it circled slowly about the schooner as if examining its antagonist.</p> +<p>“I’ll bet it’s head’s sore from all that +banging, an’ it’s beginnin’ to feel it,” Daughtry +grinned, chiefly for the purpose of keeping his comrades unafraid.</p> +<p>Barely had they rowed a dozen strokes, when an exclamation from Big +John led them to follow his gaze to the schooners forecastle-head, where +the forecastle cat flashed across in pursuit of a big rat. Other +rats they saw, evidently driven out of their lairs by the rising water.</p> +<p>“We just can’t leave that cat behind,” Daughtry +soliloquized in suggestive tones.</p> +<p>“Certainly not,” the Ancient Mariner responded swinging +his weight on the steering-sweep and heading the boat back.</p> +<p>Twice the whale gently rolled them in the course of its leisurely +circling, ere they bent to their oars again and pulled away. Of +them the whale seemed to take no notice. It was from the huge +thing, the schooner, that death had been wreaked upon her calf; and +it was upon the schooner that she vented the wrath of her grief.</p> +<p>Even as they pulled away, the whale turned and headed across the +ocean. At a half-mile distance she curved about and charged back.</p> +<p>“With all that water in her, the schooner’ll have a real +kick-back in her when she’s hit,” Daughtry said. “Lordy +me, rest on your oars an’ watch.”</p> +<p>Delivered squarely amidships, it was the hardest blow the <i>Mary +Turner</i> had received. Stays and splinters of rail flew in the +air as she rolled so far over as to expose half her copper wet-glistening +in the sun. As she righted sluggishly, the mainmast swayed drunkenly +in the air but did not fall.</p> +<p>“A knock-out!” Daughtry cried, at sight of the whale +flurrying the water with aimless, gigantic splashings. “It +must a-smashed both of ’em.”</p> +<p>“Schooner he finish close up altogether,” Kwaque observed, +as the <i>Mary Turner’s</i> rail disappeared.</p> +<p>Swiftly she sank, and no more than a matter of moments was it when +the stump of her mainmast was gone. Remained only the whale, floating +and floundering, on the surface of the sea.</p> +<p>“It’s nothing to brag about,” Daughtry delivered +himself of the <i>Mary Turner’s</i> epitaph. “Nobody’d +believe us. A stout little craft like that sunk, deliberately +sunk, by an old cow-whale! No, sir. I never believed that +old moss-back in Honolulu, when he claimed he was a survivor of the +sinkin’ of the <i>Essex</i>, an’ no more will anybody believe +me.”</p> +<p>“The pretty schooner, the pretty clever craft,” mourned +the Ancient Mariner. “Never were there more dainty and lovable +topmasts on a three-masted schooner, and never was there a three-masted +schooner that worked like the witch she was to windward.”</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry, who had kept always footloose and never married, surveyed +the boat-load of his responsibilities to which he was anchored—Kwaque, +the Black Papuan monstrosity whom he had saved from the bellies of his +fellows; Ah Moy, the little old sea-cook whose age was problematical +only by decades; the Ancient Mariner, the dignified, the beloved, and +the respected; gangly Big John, the youthful Scandinavian with the inches +of a giant and the mind of a child; Killeny Boy, the wonder of dogs; +Scraps, the outrageously silly and fat-rolling puppy; Cocky, the white-feathered +mite of life, imperious as a steel-blade and wheedlingly seductive as +a charming child; and even the forecastle cat, the lithe and tawny slayer +of rats, sheltering between the legs of Ah Moy. And the Marquesas +were two hundred miles distant full-hauled on the tradewind which had +ceased but which was as sure to live again as the morning sun in the +sky.</p> +<p>The steward heaved a sigh, and whimsically shot into his mind the +memory-picture in his nursery-book of the old woman who lived in a shoe. +He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, and +was dimly aware of the area of the numbness that bordered the centre +that was sensationless between his eyebrows, as he said:</p> +<p>“Well, children, rowing won’t fetch us to the Marquesas. +We’ll need a stretch of wind for that. But it’s up +to us, right now, to put a mile or so between us an’ that peevish +old cow. Maybe she’ll revive, and maybe she won’t, +but just the same I can’t help feelin’ leary about her.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<p>Two days later, as the steamer <i>Mariposa</i> plied her customary +route between Tahiti and San Francisco, the passengers ceased playing +deck quoits, abandoned their card games in the smoker, their novels +and deck chairs, and crowded the rail to stare at the small boat that +skimmed to them across the sea before a light following breeze. +When Big John, aided by Ah Moy and Kwaque, lowered the sail and unstepped +the mast, titters and laughter arose from the passengers. It was +contrary to all their preconceptions of mid-ocean rescue of ship-wrecked +mariners from the open boat.</p> +<p>It caught their fancy that this boat was the Ark, what of its freightage +of bedding, dry goods boxes, beer-cases, a cat, two dogs, a white cockatoo, +a Chinaman, a kinky-headed black, a gangly pallid-haired giant, a grizzled +Dag Daughtry, and an Ancient Mariner who looked every inch the part. +Him a facetious, vacationing architect’s clerk dubbed Noah, and +so greeted him.</p> +<p>“I say, Noah,” he called. “Some flood, eh? +Located Ararat yet?”</p> +<p>“Catch any fish?” bawled another youngster down over +the rail.</p> +<p>“Gracious! Look at the beer! Good English beer! +Put me down for a case!”</p> +<p>Never was a more popular wrecked crew more merrily rescued at sea. +The young blades would have it that none other than old Noah himself +had come on board with the remnants of the Lost Tribes, and to elderly +female passengers spun hair-raising accounts of the sinking of an entire +tropic island by volcanic and earthquake action.</p> +<p>“I’m a steward,” Dag Daughtry told the <i>Mariposa’s</i> +captain, “and I’ll be glad and grateful to berth along with +your stewards in the glory-hole. Big John there’s a sailorman, +an’ the fo’c’s’le ’ll do him. The +Chink is a ship’s cook, and the nigger belongs to me. But +Mr. Greenleaf, sir, is a gentleman, and the best of cabin fare and staterooms’ll +be none too good for him, sir.”</p> +<p>And when the news went around that these were part of the survivors +of the three-masted schooner, <i>Mary Turner</i>, smashed into kindling +wood and sunk by a whale, the elderly females no more believed than +had they the yarn of the sunken island.</p> +<p>“Captain Hayward,” one of them demanded of the steamer’s +skipper, “could a whale sink the <i>Mariposa</i>?”</p> +<p>“She has never been so sunk,” was his reply.</p> +<p>“I knew it!” she declared emphatically. “It’s +not the way of ships to go around being sunk by whales, is it, captain?”</p> +<p>“No, madam, I assure you it is not,” was his response. +“Nevertheless, all the five men insist upon it.”</p> +<p>“Sailors are notorious for their unveracity, are they not?” +the lady voiced her flat conclusion in the form of a tentative query.</p> +<p>“Worst liars I ever saw, madam. Do you know, after forty +years at sea, I couldn’t believe myself under oath.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Nine days later the <i>Mariposa</i> threaded the Golden Gate and +docked at San Francisco. Humorous half-columns in the local papers, +written in the customary silly way by unlicked cub reporters just out +of grammar school, tickled the fancy of San Francisco for a fleeting +moment in that the steamship <i>Mariposa</i> had rescued some sea-waifs +possessed of a cock-and-bull story that not even the reporters believed. +Thus, silly reportorial unveracity usually proves extraordinary truth +a liar. It is the way of cub reporters, city newspapers, and flat-floor +populations which get their thrills from moving pictures and for which +the real world and all its spaciousness does not exist.</p> +<p>“Sunk by a whale!” demanded the average flat-floor person. +“Nonsense, that’s all. Just plain rotten nonsense. +Now, in the ‘Adventures of Eleanor,’ which is some film, +believe me, I’ll tell you what I saw happen . . . ”</p> +<p>So Daughtry and his crew went ashore into ’Frisco Town uheralded +and unsung, the second following morning’s lucubrations of the +sea reporters being varied disportations upon the attack on an Italian +crab fisherman by an enormous jellyfish. Big John promptly sank +out of sight in a sailors’ boarding-house, and, within the week, +joined the Sailors’ Union and shipped on a steam schooner to load +redwood ties at Bandon, Oregon. Ah Moy got no farther ashore than +the detention sheds of the Federal Immigration Board, whence he was +deported to China on the next Pacific Mail steamer. The <i>Mary +Turner’s</i> cat was adopted by the sailors’ forecastle +of the <i>Mariposa</i>, and on the <i>Mariposa</i> sailed away on the +back trip to Tahiti. Scraps was taken ashore by a quartermaster +and left in the bosom of his family.</p> +<p>And ashore went Dag Daughtry, with his small savings, to rent two +cheap rooms for himself and his remaining responsibilities, namely, +Charles Stough Greenleaf, Kwaque, Michael, and, not least, Cocky. +But not for long did he permit the Ancient Mariner to live with him.</p> +<p>“It’s not playing the game, sir,” he told him. +“What we need is capital. We’ve got to interest capital, +and you’ve got to do the interesting. Now this very day +you’ve got to buy a couple of suit-cases, hire a taxicab, go sailing +up to the front door of the Bronx Hotel like good pay and be damned. +She’s a real stylish hotel, but reasonable if you want to make +it so. A little room, an inside room, European plan, of course, +and then you can economise by eatin’ out.”</p> +<p>“But, steward, I have no money,” the Ancient Mariner +protested.</p> +<p>“That’s all right, sir; I’ll back you for all I +can.”</p> +<p>“But, my dear man, you know I’m an old impostor. +I can’t stick you up like the others. You . . . why . . +. why, you’re a friend, don’t you see?”</p> +<p>“Sure I do, and I thank you for sayin’ it, sir. +And that’s why I’m with you. And when you’ve +nailed another crowd of treasure-hunters and got the ship ready, you’ll +just ship me along as steward, with Kwaque, and Killeny Boy, and the +rest of our family. You’ve adopted me, now, an’ I’m +your grown-up son, an’ you’ve got to listen to me. +The Bronx is the hotel for you—fine-soundin’ name, ain’t +it? That’s atmosphere. Folk’ll listen half to +you an’ more to your hotel. I tell you, you leaning back +in a big leather chair talkin’ treasure with a two-bit cigar in +your mouth an’ a twenty-cent drink beside you, why that’s +like treasure. They just got to believe. An’ if you’ll +come along now, sir, we’ll trot out an’ buy them suit-cases.”</p> +<p>Right bravely the Ancient Mariner drove to the Bronx in a taxi, registered +his “Charles Stough Greenleaf” in an old-fashioned hand, +and took up anew the activities which for years had kept him free of +the poor-farm. No less bravely did Dag Daughtry set out to seek +work. This was most necessary, because he was a man of expensive +luxuries. His family of Kwaque, Michael, and Cocky required food +and shelter; more costly than that was maintenance of the Ancient Mariner +in the high-class hotel; and, in addition, was his six-quart thirst.</p> +<p>But it was a time of industrial depression. The unemployed +problem was bulking bigger than usual to the citizens of San Francisco. +And, as regarded steamships and sailing vessels, there were three stewards +for every Steward’s position. Nothing steady could Daughtry +procure, while his occasional odd jobs did not balance his various running +expenses. Even did he do pick-and-shovel work, for the municipality, +for three days, when he had to give way, according to the impartial +procedure, to another needy one whom three days’ work would keep +afloat a little longer.</p> +<p>Daughtry would have put Kwaque to work, except that Kwaque was impossible. +The black, who had only seen Sydney from steamers’ decks, had +never been in a city in his life. All he knew of the world was +steamers, far-outlying south-sea isles, and his own island of King William +in Melanesia. So Kwaque remained in the two rooms, cooking and +housekeeping for his master and caring for Michael and Cocky. +All of which was prison for Michael, who had been used to the run of +ships, of coral beaches and plantations.</p> +<p>But in the evenings, sometimes accompanied a few steps in the rear +by Kwaque, Michael strolled out with Steward. The multiplicity +of man-gods on the teeming sidewalks became a real bore to Michael, +so that man-gods, in general, underwent a sharp depreciation. +But Steward, the particular god of his fealty and worship, appreciated. +Amongst so many gods Michael felt bewildered, while Steward’s +Abrahamic bosom became more than ever the one sure haven where harshness +and danger never troubled.</p> +<p>“Mind your step,” is the last word and warning of twentieth-century +city life. Michael was not slow to learn it, as he conserved his +own feet among the countless thousands of leather-shod feet of men, +ever hurrying, always unregarding of the existence and right of way +of a lowly, four-legged Irish terrier.</p> +<p>The evening outings with Steward invariably led from saloon to saloon, +where, at long bars, standing on sawdust floors, or seated at tables, +men drank and talked. Much of both did men do, and also did Steward +do, ere, his daily six-quart stint accomplished, he turned homeward +for bed. Many were the acquaintances he made, and Michael with +him. Coasting seamen and bay sailors they mostly were, although +there were many ’longshoremen and waterfront workmen among them.</p> +<p>From one of these, a scow-schooner captain who plied up and down +the bay and the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, Daughtry had the +promise of being engaged as cook and sailor on the schooner <i>Howard</i>. +Eighty tons of freight, including deckload, she carried, and in all +democracy Captain Jorgensen, the cook, and the two other sailors, loaded +and unloaded her at all hours, and sailed her night and day on all times +and tides, one man steering while three slept and recuperated. +It was time, and double-time, and over-time beyond that, but the feeding +was generous and the wages ran from forty-five to sixty dollars a month.</p> +<p>“Sure, you bet,” said Captain Jorgensen. “This +cook-feller, Hanson, pretty quick I smash him up an’ fire him, +then you can come along . . . and the bow-wow, too.” Here +he dropped a hearty, wholesome hand of toil down to a caress of Michael’s +head. “That’s one fine bow-wow. A bow-wow is +good on a scow when all hands sleep alongside the dock or in an anchor +watch.”</p> +<p>“Fire Hanson now,” Dag Daughtry urged.</p> +<p>But Captain Jorgensen shook his slow head slowly. “First +I smash him up.”</p> +<p>“Then smash him now and fire him,” Daughtry persisted. +“There he is right now at the corner of the bar.”</p> +<p>“No. He must give me reason. I got plenty of reason. +But I want reason all hands can see. I want him make me smash +him, so that all hands say, ‘Hurrah, Captain, you done right.’ +Then you get the job, Daughtry.”</p> +<p>Had Captain Jorgensen not been dilatory in his contemplated smashing, +and had not Hanson delayed in giving sufficient provocation for a smashing, +Michael would have accompanied Steward upon the schooner, <i>Howard</i>, +and all Michael’s subsequent experiences would have been totally +different from what they were destined to be. But destined they +were, by chance and by combinations of chance events over which Michael +had no control and of which he had no more awareness than had Steward +himself. At that period, the subsequent stage career and nightmare +of cruelty for Michael was beyond any wildest forecast or apprehension. +And as to forecasting Dag Daughtry’s fate, along with Kwaque, +no maddest drug-dream could have approximated it.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +<p>One night Dag Daughtry sat at a table in the saloon called the Pile-drivers’ +Home. He was in a parlous predicament. Harder than ever +had it been to secure odd jobs, and he had reached the end of his savings. +Earlier in the evening he had had a telephone conference with the Ancient +Mariner, who had reported only progress with an exceptionally strong +nibble that very day from a retired quack doctor.</p> +<p>“Let me pawn my rings,” the Ancient Mariner had urged, +not for the first time, over the telephone.</p> +<p>“No, sir,” had been Daughtry’s reply. “We +need them in the business. They’re stock in trade. +They’re atmosphere. They’re what you call a figure +of speech. I’ll do some thinking to-night an’ see +you in the morning, sir. Hold on to them rings an’ don’t +be no more than casual in playin’ that doctor. Make ’m +come to you. It’s the only way. Now you’re all +right, an’ everything’s hunkydory an’ the goose hangs +high. Don’t you worry, sir. Dag Daughtry never fell +down yet.”</p> +<p>But, as he sat in the Pile-drivers’ Home, it looked as if his +fall-down was very near. In his pocket was precisely the room-rent +for the following week, the advance payment of which was already three +days overdue and clamorously demanded by the hard-faced landlady. +In the rooms, with care, was enough food with which to pinch through +for another day. The Ancient Mariner’s modest hotel bill +had not been paid for two weeks—a prodigious sum under the circumstances, +being a first-class hotel; while the Ancient Mariner had no more than +a couple of dollars in his pocket with which to make a sound like prosperity +in the ears of the retired doctor who wanted to go a-treasuring.</p> +<p>Most catastrophic of all, however, was the fact that Dag Daughtry +was three quarts short of his daily allowance and did not dare break +into the rent money which was all that stood between him and his family +and the street. This was why he sat at the beer table with Captain +Jorgensen, who was just returned with a schooner-load of hay from the +Petaluma Flats. He had already bought beer twice, and evinced +no further show of thirst. Instead, he was yawning from long hours +of work and waking and looking at his watch. And Daughtry was +three quarts short! Besides, Hanson had not yet been smashed, +so that the cook-job on the schooner still lay ahead an unknown distance +in the future.</p> +<p>In his desperation, Daughtry hit upon an idea with which to get another +schooner of steam beer. He did not like steam beer, but it was +cheaper than lager.</p> +<p>“Look here, Captain,” he said. “You don’t +know how smart that Killeny Boy is. Why, he can count just like +you and me.”</p> +<p>“Hoh!” rumbled Captain Jorgensen. “I seen +’em do it in side shows. It’s all tricks. Dogs +an’ horses can’t count.”</p> +<p>“This dog can,” Daughtry continued quietly. “You +can’t fool ’m. I bet you, right now, I can order two +beers, loud so he can hear and notice, and then whisper to the waiter +to bring one, an’, when the one comes, Killeny Boy’ll raise +a roar with the waiter.”</p> +<p>“Hoh! Hoh! How much will you bet?”</p> +<p>The steward fingered a dime in his pocket. If Killeny failed +him it meant that the rent-money would be broken in upon. But +Killeny couldn’t and wouldn’t fail him, he reasoned, as +he answered:</p> +<p>“I’ll bet you the price of two beers.”</p> +<p>The waiter was summoned, and, when he had received his secret instructions, +Michael was called over from where he lay at Kwaque’s feet in +a corner. When Steward placed a chair for him at the table and +invited him into it, he began to key up. Steward expected something +of him, wanted him to show off. And it was not because of the +showing off that he was eager, but because of his love for Steward. +Love and service were one in the simple processes of Michael’s +mind. Just as he would have leaped into fire for Steward’s +sake, so would he now serve Steward in any way Steward desired. +That was what love meant to him. It was all love meant to him—service.</p> +<p>“Waiter!” Steward called; and, when the waiter stood +close at hand: “Two beers.—Did you get that, Killeny? +<i>Two</i> beers.”</p> +<p>Michael squirmed in his chair, placed an impulsive paw on the table, +and impulsively flashed out his ribbon of tongue to Steward’s +close-bending face.</p> +<p>“He will remember,” Daughtry told the scow-schooner captain.</p> +<p>“Not if we talk,” was the reply. “Now we +will fool your bow-wow. I will say that the job is yours when +I smash Hanson. And you will say it is for me to smash Hanson +now. And I will say Hanson must give me reason first to smash +him. And then we will argue like two fools with mouths full of +much noise. Are you ready?”</p> +<p>Daughtry nodded, and thereupon ensued a loud-voiced discussion that +drew Michael’s earnest attention from one talker to the other.</p> +<p>“I got you,” Captain Jorgensen announced, as he saw the +waiter approaching with but a single schooner of beer. “The +bow-wow has forgot, if he ever remembered. He thinks you an’ +me is fighting. The place in his mind for <i>one</i> beer, and +<i>two</i>, is wiped out, like a wave on the beach wipes out the writing +in the sand.”</p> +<p>“I guess he ain’t goin’ to forget arithmetic no +matter how much noise you shouts,” Daughtry argued aloud against +his sinking spirits. “An’ I ain’t goin’ +to butt in,” he added hopefully. “You just watch ’m +for himself.”</p> +<p>The tall, schooner-glass of beer was placed before the captain, who +laid a swift, containing hand around it. And Michael, strung as +a taut string, knowing that something was expected of him, on his toes +to serve, remembered his ancient lessons on the <i>Makambo</i>, vainly +looked into the impassive face of Steward for a sign, then looked about +and saw, not <i>two</i> glasses, but <i>one</i> glass. So well +had he learned the difference between one and two that it came to him—how +the profoundest psychologist can no more state than can he state what +thought is in itself—that there was one glass only when two glasses +had been commanded. With an abrupt upspring, his throat half harsh +with anger, he placed both forepaws on the table and barked at the waiter.</p> +<p>Captain Jorgensen crashed his fist down.</p> +<p>“You win!” he roared. “I pay for the beer! +Waiter, bring one more.”</p> +<p>Michael looked to Steward for verification, and Steward’s hand +on his head gave adequate reply.</p> +<p>“We try again,” said the captain, very much awake and +interested, with the back of his hand wiping the beer-foam from his +moustache. “Maybe he knows one an’ two. How +about three? And four?”</p> +<p>“Just the same, Skipper. He counts up to five, and knows +more than five when it is more than five, though he don’t know +the figures by name after five.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Hanson!” Captain Jorgensen bellowed across the bar-room +to the cook of the <i>Howard</i>. “Hey, you square-head! +Come and have a drink!”</p> +<p>Hanson came over and pulled up a chair.</p> +<p>“I pay for the drinks,” said the captain; “but +you order, Daughtry. See, now, Hanson, this is a trick bow-wow. +He can count better than you. We are three. Daughtry is +ordering three beers. The bow-wow hears three. I hold up +two fingers like this to the waiter. He brings two. The +bow-wow raises hell with the waiter. You see.”</p> +<p>All of which came to pass, Michael blissfully unappeasable until +the order was filled properly.</p> +<p>“He can’t count,” was Hanson’s conclusion. +“He sees one man without beer. That’s all. He +knows every man should ought to have a glass. That’s why +he barks.”</p> +<p>“Better than that,” Daughtry boasted. “There +are three of us. We will order four. Then each man will +have his glass, but Killeny will talk to the waiter just the same.”</p> +<p>True enough, now thoroughly aware of the game, Michael made outcry +to the waiter till the fourth glass was brought. By this time +many men were about the table, all wanting to buy beer and test Michael.</p> +<p>“Glory be,” Dag Daughtry solloquized. “A +funny world. Thirsty one moment. The next moment they’d +fair drown you in beer.”</p> +<p>Several even wanted to buy Michael, offering ridiculous sums like +fifteen and twenty dollars.</p> +<p>“I tell you what,” Captain Jorgensen muttered to Daughtry, +whom he had drawn away into a corner. “You give me that +bow-wow, and I’ll smash Hanson right now, and you got the job +right away—come to work in the morning.”</p> +<p>Into another corner the proprietor of the Pile-drivers’ Home +drew Daughtry to whisper to him:</p> +<p>“You stick around here every night with that dog of yourn. +It makes trade. I’ll give you free beer any time and fifty +cents cash money a night.”</p> +<p>It was this proposition that started the big idea in Daughtry’s +mind. As he told Michael, back in the room, while Kwaque was unlacing +his shoes:</p> +<p>“It’s this way Killeny. If you’re worth fifty +cents a night and free beer to that saloon keeper, then you’re +worth that to me . . . and more, my son, more. ’Cause he’s +lookin’ for a profit. That’s why he sells beer instead +of buyin’ it. An’, Killeny, you won’t mind workin’ +for me, I know. We need the money. There’s Kwaque, +an’ Mr. Greenleaf, an’ Cocky, not even mentioning you an’ +me, an’ we eat an awful lot. An’ room-rent’s +hard to get, an’ jobs is harder. What d’ye say, son, +to-morrow night you an’ me hustle around an’ see how much +coin we can gather?”</p> +<p>And Michael, seated on Steward’s knees, eyes to eyes and nose +to nose, his jowls held in Steward’s hand’s wriggled and +squirmed with delight, flipping out his tongue and bobbing his tail +in the air. Whatever it was, it was good, for it was Steward who +spoke.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> +<p>The grizzled ship’s steward and the rough-coated Irish terrier +quickly became conspicuous figures in the night life of the Barbary +Coast of San Francisco. Daughtry elaborated on the counting trick +by bringing Cocky along. Thus, when a waiter did not fetch the +right number of glasses, Michael would remain quite still, until Cocky, +at a privy signal from Steward, standing on one leg, with the free claw +would clutch Michael’s neck and apparently talk into Michael’s +ear. Whereupon Michael would look about the glasses on the table +and begin his usual expostulation with the waiter.</p> +<p>But it was when Daughtry and Michael first sang “Roll me Down +to Rio” together, that the ten-strike was made. It occurred +in a sailors’ dance-hall on Pacific Street, and all dancing stopped +while the sailors clamoured for more of the singing dog. Nor did +the place lose money, for no one left, and the crowd increased to standing +room as Michael went through his repertoire of “God Save the King,” +“Sweet Bye and Bye,” “Lead, Kindly Light,” “Home, +Sweet Home,” and “Shenandoah.”</p> +<p>It meant more than free beer to Daughtry, for, when he started to +leave, the proprietor of the place thrust three silver dollars into +his hand and begged him to come around with the dog next night.</p> +<p>“For that?” Daughtry demanded, looking at the money as +if it were contemptible.</p> +<p>Hastily the proprietor added two more dollars, and Daughtry promised.</p> +<p>“Just the same, Killeny, my son,” he told Michael as +they went to bed, “I think you an’ me are worth more than +five dollars a turn. Why, the like of you has never been seen +before. A real singing dog that can carry ’most any air +with me, and that can carry half a dozen by himself. An’ +they say Caruso gets a thousand a night. Well, you ain’t +Caruso, but you’re the dog-Caruso of the entire world. Son, +I’m goin’ to be your business manager. If we can’t +make a twenty-dollar gold-piece a night—say, son, we’re +goin’ to move into better quarters. An’ the old gent +up at the Hotel de Bronx is goin’ to move into an outside room. +An’ Kwaque’s goin’ to get a real outfit of clothes. +Killeny, my boy, we’re goin’ to get so rich that if he can’t +snare a sucker we’ll put up the cash ourselves ’n’ +buy a schooner for ’m, ’n’ send him out a-treasure-huntin’ +on his own. We’ll be the suckers, eh, just you an’ +me, an’ love to.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>The Barbary Coast of San Francisco, once the old-time sailor-town +in the days when San Francisco was reckoned the toughest port of the +Seven Seas, had evolved with the city until it depended for at least +half of its earnings on the slumming parties that visited it and spent +liberally. It was quite the custom, after dinner, for many of +the better classes of society, especially when entertaining curious +Easterners, to spend an hour or several in motoring from dance-hall +to dance-hall and cheap cabaret to cheap cabaret. In short, the +“Coast” was as much a sight-seeing place as was Chinatown +and the Cliff House.</p> +<p>It was not long before Dag Daughtry was getting his twenty dollars +a night for two twenty-minute turns, and was declining more beer than +a dozen men with thirsts equal to his could have accommodated. +Never had he been so prosperous; nor can it be denied that Michael enjoyed +it. Enjoy it he did, but principally for Steward’s sake. +He was serving Steward, and so to serve was his highest heart’s +desire.</p> +<p>In truth, Michael was the bread-winner for quite a family, each member +of which fared well. Kwaque blossomed out resplendent in russet-brown +shoes, a derby hat, and a gray suit with trousers immaculately creased. +Also, he became a devotee of the moving-picture shows, spending as much +as twenty and thirty cents a day and resolutely sitting out every repetition +of programme. Little time was required of him in caring for Daughtry, +for they had come to eating in restaurants. Not only had the Ancient +Mariner moved into a more expensive outside room at the Bronx; but Daughtry +insisted on thrusting upon him more spending money, so that, on occasion, +he could invite a likely acquaintance to the theatre or a concert and +bring him home in a taxi.</p> +<p>“We won’t keep this up for ever, Killeny,” Steward +told Michael. “For just as long as it takes the old gent +to land another bunch of gold-pouched, retriever-snouted treasure-hunters, +and no longer. Then it’s hey for the ocean blue, my son, +an’ the roll of a good craft under our feet, an’ smash of +wet on the deck, an’ a spout now an’ again of the scuppers.</p> +<p>“We got to go rollin’ down to Rio as well as sing about +it to a lot of cheap skates. They can take their rotten cities. +The sea’s the life for us—you an’ me, Killeny, son, +an’ the old gent an’ Kwaque, an’ Cocky, too. +We ain’t made for city ways. It ain’t healthy. +Why, son, though you maybe won’t believe it, I’m losin’ +my spring. The rubber’s goin’ outa me. I’m +kind o’ languid, with all night in an’ nothin’ to +do but sit around. It makes me fair sick at the thought of hearin’ +the old gent say once again, ‘I think, steward, one of those prime +cocktails would be just the thing before dinner.’ We’ll +take a little ice-machine along next voyage, an’ give ’m +the best.</p> +<p>“An’ look at Kwaque, Killeny, my boy. This ain’t +his climate. He’s positively ailin’. If he sits +around them picture-shows much more he’ll develop the T.B. +For the good of his health, an’ mine an’ yours, an’ +all of us, we got to get up anchor pretty soon an’ hit out for +the home of the trade winds that kiss you through an’ through +with the salt an’ the life of the sea.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>In truth, Kwaque, who never complained, was ailing fast. A +swelling, slow and sensationless at first, under his right arm-pit, +had become a mild and unceasing pain. No longer could he sleep +a night through. Although he lay on his left side, never less +than twice, and often three and four times, the hurt of the swelling +woke him. Ah Moy, had he not long since been delivered back to +China by the immigration authorities, could have told him the meaning +of that swelling, just as he could have told Dag Daughtry the meaning +of the increasing area of numbness between his eyes where the tiny, +vertical, lion-lines were cutting more conspicuously. Also, could +he have told him what was wrong with the little finger on his left hand. +Daughtry had first diagnosed it as a sprain of a tendon. Later, +he had decided it was chronic rheumatism brought on by the damp and +foggy Sun Francisco climate. It was one of his reasons for desiring +to get away again to sea where the tropic sun would warm the rheumatism +out of him.</p> +<p>As a steward, Daughtry had been accustomed to contact with men and +women of the upper world. But for the first time in his life, +here in the underworld of San Francisco, in all equality he met such +persons from above. Nay, more, they were eager to meet him. +They sought him. They fawned upon him for an invitation to sit +at his table and buy beer for him in whatever garish cabaret Michael +was performing. They would have bought wine for him, at enormous +expense, had he not stubbornly stuck to his beer. They were, some +of them, for inviting him to their homes—“An’ bring +the wonderful dog along for a sing-song”; but Daughtry, proud +of Michael for being the cause of such invitations, explained that the +professional life was too arduous to permit of such diversions. +To Michael he explained that when they proffered a fee of fifty dollars, +the pair of them would “come a-runnin’.”</p> +<p>Among the host of acquaintances made in their cabaret-life, two were +destined, very immediately, to play important parts in the lives of +Daughtry and Michael. The first, a politician and a doctor, by +name Emory—Walter Merritt Emory—was several times at Daughtry’s +table, where Michael sat with them on a chair according to custom. +Among other things, in gratitude for such kindnesses from Daughtry, +Doctor Emory gave his office card and begged for the privilege of treating, +free of charge, either master or dog should they ever become sick. +In Daughtry’s opinion, Dr. Walter Merritt Emory was a keen, clever +man, undoubtedly able in his profession, but passionately selfish as +a hungry tiger. As he told him, in the brutal candour he could +afford under such changed conditions: “Doc, you’re a wonder. +Anybody can see it with half an eye. What you want you just go +and get. Nothing’d stop you except . . . ”</p> +<p>“Except?”</p> +<p>“Oh, except that it was nailed down, or locked up, or had a +policeman standing guard over it. I’d sure hate to have +anything you wanted.”</p> +<p>“Well, you have,” Doctor assured him, with a significant +nod at Michael on the chair between them.</p> +<p>“Br-r-r!” Daughtry shivered. “You give me +the creeps. If I thought you really meant it, San Francisco couldn’t +hold me two minutes.” He meditated into his beer-glass a +moment, then laughed with reassurance. “No man could get +that dog away from me. You see, I’d kill the man first. +I’d just up an’ tell ’m, as I’m tellin’ +you now, I’d kill ’m first. An’ he’d believe +me, as you’re believin’ me now. You know I mean it. +So’d he know I meant it. Why, that dog . . . ”</p> +<p>In sheer inability to express the profundity of his emotion, Dag +Daughtry broke off the sentence and drowned it in his beer-glass.</p> +<p>Of quite different type was the other person of destiny. Harry +Del Mar, he called himself; and Harry Del Mar was the name that appeared +on the programmes when he was doing Orpheum “time.” +Although Daughtry did not know it, because Del Mar was laying off for +a vacation, the man did trained-animal turns for a living. He, +too, bought drinks at Daughtry’s table. Young, not over +thirty, dark of complexion with large, long-lashed brown eyes that he +fondly believed were magnetic, cherubic of lip and feature, he belied +all his appearance by talking business in direct business fashion.</p> +<p>“But you ain’t got the money to buy ’m,” +Daughtry replied, when the other had increased his first offer of five +hundred dollars for Michael to a thousand.</p> +<p>“I’ve got the thousand, if that’s what you mean.”</p> +<p>“No,” Daughtry shook his head. “I mean he +ain’t for sale at any price. Besides, what do you want ’m +for?”</p> +<p>“I like him,” Del Mar answered. “Why do I +come to this joint? Why does the crowd come here? Why do +men buy wine, run horses, sport actresses, become priests or bookworms? +Because they like to. That’s the answer. We all do +what we like when we can, go after the thing we want whether we can +get it or not. Now I like your dog, I want him. I want him +a thousand dollars’ worth. See that big diamond on that +woman’s hand over there. I guess she just liked it, and +wanted it, and got it, never mind the price. The price didn’t +mean as much to her as the diamond. Now that dog of yours—”</p> +<p>“Don’t like you,” Dag Daughtry broke in. +“Which is strange. He likes most everybody without fussin’ +about it. But he bristled at you from the first. No man’d +want a dog that don’t like him.”</p> +<p>“Which isn’t the question,” Del Mar stated quietly. +“I like him. As for him liking or not liking me, that’s +my look-out, and I guess I can attend to that all right.”</p> +<p>It seemed to Daughtry that he glimpsed or sensed under the other’s +unfaltering cherubicness of expression a steelness of cruelty that was +abysmal in that it was of controlled intelligence. Not in such +terms did Daughtry think his impression. At the most, it was a +feeling, and feelings do not require words in order to be experienced +or comprehended.</p> +<p>“There’s an all-night bank,” the other went on. +“We can stroll over, I’ll cash a cheque, and in half an +hour the cash will be in your hand.”</p> +<p>Daughtry shook his head.</p> +<p>“Even as a business proposition, nothing doing,” he said. +“Look you. Here’s the dog earnin’ twenty dollars +a night. Say he works twenty-five days in the month. That’s +five hundred a month, or six thousand a year. Now say that’s +five per cent., because it’s easier to count, it represents the +interest on a capital value of one hundred an’ twenty thousand-dollars. +Then we’ll suppose expenses and salary for me is twenty thousand. +That leaves the dog worth a hundred thousand. Just to be fair, +cut it in half—a fifty-thousand dog. And you’re offerin’ +a thousand for him.”</p> +<p>“I suppose you think he’ll last for ever, like so much +land’,” Del Mar smiled quietly.</p> +<p>Daughtry saw the point instantly.</p> +<p>“Give ’m five years of work—that’s thirty +thousand. Give ’m one year of work—it’s six +thousand. An’ you’re offerin’ me one thousand +for six thousand. That ain’t no kind of business—for +me . . . an’ him. Besides, when he can’t work any +more, an’ ain’t worth a cent, he’ll be worth just +a plumb million to me, an’ if anybody offered it, I’d raise +the price.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> +<p>“I’ll see you again,” Harry Del Mar told Daughtry, +at the end of his fourth conversation on the matter of Michael’s +sale.</p> +<p>Wherein Harry Del Mar was mistaken. He never saw Daughtry again, +because Daughtry saw Doctor Emory first.</p> +<p>Kwaque’s increasing restlessness at night, due to the swelling +under his right arm-pit, had began to wake Daughtry up. After +several such experiences, he had investigated and decided that Kwaque +was sufficiently sick to require a doctor. For which reason, one +morning at eleven, taking Kwaque along, he called at Walter Merritt +Emory’s office and waited his turn in the crowded reception-room.</p> +<p>“I think he’s got cancer, Doc.,” Daughtry said, +while Kwaque was pulling off his shirt and undershirt. “He +never squealed, you know, never peeped. That’s the way of +niggers. I didn’t find our till he got to wakin’ me +up nights with his tossin’ about an’ groanin’ in his +sleep.—There! What’d you call it? Cancer or +tumour—no two ways about it, eh?”</p> +<p>But the quick eye of Walter Merritt Emory had not missed, in passing, +the twisted fingers of Kwaque’s left hand. Not only was +his eye quick, but it was a “leper eye.” A volunteer +surgeon in the first days out in the Philippines, he had made a particular +study of leprosy, and had observed so many lepers that infallibly, except +in the incipient beginnings of the disease, he could pick out a leper +at a glance. From the twisted fingers, which was the anæsthetic +form, produced by nerve-disintegration, to the corrugated lion forehead +(again anæsthetic), his eyes flashed to the swelling under the +right arm-pit and his brain diagnosed it as the tubercular form.</p> +<p>Just as swiftly flashed through his brain two thoughts: the first, +the axiom, <i>whenever and wherever you find a leper, look for the other +leper</i>; the second, the desired Irish terrier, who was owned by Daughtry, +with whom Kwaque had been long associated. And here all swiftness +of eye-flashing ceased on the part of Walter Merritt Emory. He +did not know how much, if anything, the steward knew about leprosy, +and he did not care to arouse any suspicions. Casually drawing +his watch to see the time, he turned and addressed Daughtry.</p> +<p>“I should say his blood is out of order. He’s run +down. He’s not used to the recent life he’s been living, +nor to the food. To make certain, I shall examine for cancer and +tumour, although there’s little chance of anything like that.”</p> +<p>And as he talked, with just a waver for a moment, his gaze lifted +above Daughtry’s eyes to the area of forehead just above and between +the eyes. It was sufficient. His “leper-eye” +had seen the “lion” mark of the leper.</p> +<p>“You’re run down yourself,” he continued smoothly. +“You’re not up to snuff, I’ll wager. Eh?”</p> +<p>“Can’t say that I am,” Daughtry agreed. “I +guess I got to get back to the sea an’ the tropics and warm the +rheumatics outa me.”</p> +<p>“Where?” queried Doctor Emory, almost absently, so well +did he feign it, as if apparently on the verge of returning to a closer +examination, of Kwaque’s swelling.</p> +<p>Daughtry extended his left hand, with a little wiggle of the little +finger advertising the seat of the affliction. Walter Merritt +Emory saw, with seeming careless look out from under careless-drooping +eyelids, the little finger slightly swollen, slightly twisted, with +a smooth, almost shiny, silkiness of skin-texture. Again, in the +course of turning to look at Kwaque, his eyes rested an instant on the +lion-lines of Daughtry’s brow.</p> +<p>“Rheumatism is still the great mystery,” Doctor Emory +said, returning to Daughtry as if deflected by the thought. “It’s +almost individual, there are so many varieties of it. Each man +has a kind of his own. Any numbness?”</p> +<p>Daughtry laboriously wiggled his little finger.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” he answered. “It ain’t +as lively as it used to was.”</p> +<p>“Ah,” Walter Merritt Emory murmured, with a vastitude +of confidence and assurance. “Please sit down in that chair +there. Maybe I won’t be able to cure you, but I promise +you I can direct you to the best place to live for what’s the +matter with you.—Miss Judson!”</p> +<p>And while the trained-nurse-apparelled young woman seated Dag Daughtry +in the enamelled surgeon’s chair and leaned him back under direction, +and while Doctor Emory dipped his finger-tips into the strongest antiseptic +his office possessed, behind Doctor Emory’s eyes, in the midst +of his brain, burned the image of a desired Irish terrier who did turns +in sailor-town cabarets, was rough-coated, and answered to the full +name of Killeny Boy.</p> +<p>“You’ve got rheumatism in more places than your little +finger,” he assured Daughtry. “There’s a touch +right here, I’ll wager, on your forehead. One moment, please. +Move if I hurt you, Otherwise sit still, because I don’t intend +to hurt you. I merely want to see if my diagnosis is correct.—There, +that’s it. Move when you feel anything. Rheumatism +has strange freaks.—Watch this, Miss Judson, and I’ll wager +this form of rheumatism is new to you. See. He does not +resent. He thinks I have not begun yet . . . ”</p> +<p>And as he talked, steadily, interestingly, he was doing what Dag +Daughtry never dreamed he was doing, and what made Kwaque, looking on, +almost dream he was seeing because of the unrealness and impossibleness +of it. For, with a large needle, Doctor Emory was probing the +dark spot in the midst of the vertical lion-lines. Nor did he +merely probe the area. Thrusting into it from one side, under +the skin and parallel to it, he buried the length of the needle from +sight through the insensate infiltration. This Kwaque beheld with +bulging eyes; for his master betrayed no sign that the thing was being +done.</p> +<p>“Why don’t you begin?” Dag Daughtry questioned +impatiently. “Besides, my rheumatism don’t count. +It’s the nigger-boy’s swelling.”</p> +<p>“You need a course of treatment,” Doctor Emory assured +him. “Rheumatism is a tough proposition. It should +never be let grow chronic. I’ll fix up a course of treatment +for you. Now, if you’ll get out of the chair, we’ll +look at your black servant.”</p> +<p>But first, before Kwaque was leaned back, Doctor Emory threw over +the chair a sheet that smelled of having been roasted almost to the +scorching point. As he was about to examine Kwaque, he looked +with a slight start of recollection at his watch. When he saw +the time he startled more, and turned a reproachful face upon his assistant.</p> +<p>“Miss Judson,” he said, coldly emphatic, “you have +failed me. Here it is, twenty before twelve, and you knew I was +to confer with Doctor Hadley over that case at eleven-thirty sharp. +How he must be cursing me! You know how peevish he is.”</p> +<p>Miss Judson nodded, with a perfect expression of contrition and humility, +as if she knew all about it, although, in reality, she knew only all +about her employer and had never heard till that moment of his engagement +at eleven-thirty.</p> +<p>“Doctor Hadley’s just across the hall,” Doctor +Emory explained to Daughtry. “It won’t take me five +minutes. He and I have a disagreement. He has diagnosed +the case as chronic appendicitis and wants to operate. I have +diagnosed it as pyorrhea which has infected the stomach from the mouth, +and have suggested emetine treatment of the mouth as a cure for the +stomach disorder. Of course, you don’t understand, but the +point is that I’ve persuaded Doctor Hadley to bring in Doctor +Granville, who is a dentist and a pyorrhea expert. And they’re +all waiting for me these ten minutes! I must run.</p> +<p>“I’ll return inside five minutes,” he called back +as the door to the hall was closing upon him.—“Miss Judson, +please tell those people in the reception-room to be patient.”</p> +<p>He did enter Doctor Hadley’s office, although no sufferer from +pyorrhea or appendicitis awaited him. Instead, he used the telephone +for two calls: one to the president of the board of health; the other +to the chief of police. Fortunately, he caught both at their offices, +addressing them familiarly by their first names and talking to them +most emphatically and confidentially.</p> +<p>Back in his own quarters, he was patently elated.</p> +<p>“I told him so,” he assured Miss Judson, but embracing +Daughtry in the happy confidence. “Doctor Granville backed +me up. Straight pyorrhea, of course. That knocks the operation. +And right now they’re jolting his gums and the pus-sacs with emetine. +Whew! A fellow likes to be right. I deserve a smoke. +Do you mind, Mr. Daughtry?”</p> +<p>And while the steward shook his head, Doctor Emory lighted a big +Havana and continued audibly to luxuriate in his fictitious triumph +over the other doctor. As he talked, he forgot to smoke, and, +leaning quite casually against the chair, with arrant carelessness allowed +the live coal at the end of his cigar to rest against the tip of one +of Kwaque’s twisted fingers. A privy wink to Miss Judson, +who was the only one who observed his action, warned her against anything +that might happen.</p> +<p>“You know, Mr. Daughtry,” Walter Merritt Emory went on +enthusiastically, while he held the steward’s eyes with his and +while all the time the live end of the cigar continued to rest against +Kwaque’s finger, “the older I get the more convinced I am +that there are too many ill-advised and hasty operations.”</p> +<p>Still fire and flesh pressed together, and a tiny spiral of smoke +began to arise from Kwaque’s finger-end that was different in +colour from the smoke of a cigar-end.</p> +<p>“Now take that patient of Doctor Hadley’s. I’ve +saved him, not merely the risk of an operation for appendicitis, but +the cost of it, and the hospital expenses. I shall charge him +nothing for what I did. Hadley’s charge will be merely nominal. +Doctor Granville, at the outside, will cure his pyorrhea with emetine +for no more than a paltry fifty dollars. Yes, by George, besides +the risk to his life, and the discomfort, I’ve saved that man, +all told, a cold thousand dollars to surgeon, hospital, and nurses.”</p> +<p>And while he talked on, holding Daughtry’s eyes, a smell of +roast meat began to pervade the air. Doctor Emory smelled it eagerly. +So did Miss Judson smell it, but she had been warned and gave no notice. +Nor did she look at the juxtaposition of cigar and finger, although +she knew by the evidence of her nose that it still obtained.</p> +<p>“What’s burning?” Daughtry demanded suddenly, sniffing +the air and glancing around.</p> +<p>“Pretty rotten cigar,” Doctor Emory observed, having +removed it from contact with Kwaque’s finger and now examining +it with critical disapproval. He held it close to his nose, and +his face portrayed disgust. “I won’t say cabbage leaves. +I’ll merely say it’s something I don’t know and don’t +care to know. That’s the trouble. They get out a good, +new brand of cigar, advertise it, put the best of tobacco into it, and, +when it has taken with the public, put in inferior tobacco and ride +the popularity of it. No more in mine, thank you. This day +I change my brand.”</p> +<p>So speaking, he tossed the cigar into a cuspidor. And Kwaque, +leaning back in the queerest chair in which he had ever sat, was unaware +that the end of his finger had been burned and roasted half an inch +deep, and merely wondered when the medicine doctor would cease talking +and begin looking at the swelling that hurt his side under his arm.</p> +<p>And for the first time in his life, and for the ultimate time, Dag +Daughtry fell down. It was an irretrievable fall-down. Life, +in its freedom of come and go, by heaving sea and reeling deck, through +the home of the trade-winds, back and forth between the ports, ceased +there for him in Walter Merritt Emory’s office, while the calm-browed +Miss Judson looked on and marvelled that a man’s flesh should +roast and the man wince not from the roasting of it.</p> +<p>Doctor Emory continued to talk, and tried a fresh cigar, and, despite +the fact that his reception-room was overflowing, delivered, not merely +a long, but a live and interesting, dissertation on the subject of cigars +and of the tobacco leaf and filler as grown and prepared for cigars +in the tobacco-favoured regions of the earth.</p> +<p>“Now, as regards this swelling,” he was saying, as he +began a belated and distant examination of Kwaque’s affliction, +“I should say, at a glance, that it is neither tumour nor cancer, +nor is it even a boil. I should say . . . ”</p> +<p>A knock at the private door into the hall made him straighten up +with an eagerness that he did not attempt to mask. A nod to Miss +Judson sent her to open the door, and entered two policemen, a police +sergeant, and a professionally whiskered person in a business suit with +a carnation in his button-hole.</p> +<p>“Good morning, Doctor Masters,” Emory greeted the professional +one, and, to the others: “Howdy, Sergeant;” “Hello, +Tim;” “Hello, Johnson—when did they shift you off +the Chinatown squad?”</p> +<p>And then, continuing his suspended sentence, Walter Merritt Emory +held on, looking intently at Kwaque’s swelling:</p> +<p>“I should say, as I was saying, that it is the finest, ripest, +perforating ulcer of the <i>bacillus leprae</i> order, that any San +Francisco doctor has had the honour of presenting to the board of health.”</p> +<p>“Leprosy!” exclaimed Doctor Masters.</p> +<p>And all started at his pronouncement of the word. The sergeant +and the two policemen shied away from Kwaque; Miss Judson, with a smothered +cry, clapped her two hands over her heart; and Dag Daughtry, shocked +but sceptical, demanded:</p> +<p>“What are you givin’ us, Doc.?”</p> +<p>“Stand still! don’t move!” Walter Merritt Emory +said peremptorily to Daughtry. “I want you to take notice,” +he added to the others, as he gently touched the live-end of his fresh +cigar to the area of dark skin above and between the steward’s +eyes. “Don’t move,” he commanded Daughtry. +“Wait a moment. I am not ready yet.”</p> +<p>And while Daughtry waited, perplexed, confused, wondering why Doctor +Emory did not proceed, the coal of fire burned his skin and flesh, till +the smoke of it was apparent to all, as was the smell of it. With +a sharp laugh of triumph, Doctor Emory stepped back.</p> +<p>“Well, go ahead with what you was goin’ to do,” +Daughtry grumbled, the rush of events too swift and too hidden for him +to comprehend. “An’ when you’re done with that, +I just want you to explain what you said about leprosy an’ that +nigger-boy there. He’s my boy, an’ you can’t +pull anything like that off on him . . . or me.”</p> +<p>“Gentlemen, you have seen,” Doctor Emory said. +“Two undoubted cases of it, master and man, the man more advanced, +with the combination of both forms, the master with only the anæsthetic +form—he has a touch of it, too, on his little finger. Take +them away. I strongly advise, Doctor Masters, a thorough fumigation +of the ambulance afterward.”</p> +<p>“Look here . . . ” Dag Daughtry began belligerently.</p> +<p>Doctor Emory glanced warningly to Doctor Masters, and Doctor Masters +glanced authoritatively at the sergeant who glanced commandingly at +his two policemen. But they did not spring upon Daughtry. +Instead, they backed farther away, drew their clubs, and glared intimidatingly +at him. More convincing than anything else to Daughtry was the +conduct of the policemen. They were manifestly afraid of contact +with him. As he started forward, they poked the ends of their +extended clubs towards his ribs to ward him off.</p> +<p>“Don’t you come any closer,” one warned him, flourishing +his club with the advertisement of braining him. “You stay +right where you are until you get your orders.”</p> +<p>“Put on your shirt and stand over there alongside your master,” +Doctor Emory commanded Kwaque, having suddenly elevated the chair and +spilled him out on his feet on the floor.</p> +<p>“But what under the sun . . . ” Daughtry began, but was +ignored by his quondam friend, who was saying to Doctor Masters:</p> +<p>“The pest-house has been vacant since that Japanese died. +I know the gang of cowards in your department so I’d advise you +to give the dope to these here so that they can disinfect the premises +when they go in.”</p> +<p>“For the love of Mike,” Daughtry pleaded, all of stunned +belligerence gone from him in his state of stunned conviction that the +dread disease possessed him. He touched his finger to his sensationless +forehead, then smelled it and recognized the burnt flesh he had not +felt burning. “For the love of Mike, don’t be in such +a rush. If I’ve got it, I’ve got it. But that +ain’t no reason we can’t deal with each other like white +men. Give me two hours an’ I’ll get outa the city. +An’ in twenty-four I’ll be outa the country. I’ll +take ship—”</p> +<p>“And continue to be a menace to the public health wherever +you are,” Doctor Masters broke in, already visioning a column +in the evening papers, with scare-heads, in which he would appear the +hero, the St. George of San Francisco standing with poised lance between +the people and the dragon of leprosy.</p> +<p>“Take them away,” said Waiter Merritt Emory, avoiding +looking Daughtry in the eyes.</p> +<p>“Ready! March!” commanded the sergeant.</p> +<p>The two policemen advanced on Daughtry and Kwaque with extended clubs.</p> +<p>“Keep away, an’ keep movin’,” one of the +policemen growled fiercely. “An’ do what we say, or +get your head cracked. Out you go, now. Out the door with +you. Better tell that coon to stick right alongside you.”</p> +<p>“Doc., won’t you let me talk a moment?” Daughtry +begged of Emory.</p> +<p>“The time for talking is past,” was the reply. +“This is the time for segregation.—Doctor Masters, don’t +forget that ambulance when you’re quit of the load.”</p> +<p>So the procession, led by the board-of-heath doctor and the sergeant, +and brought up in the rear by the policemen with their protectively +extended clubs, started through the doorway.</p> +<p>Whirling about on the threshold, at the imminent risk of having his +skull cracked, Dag Daughtry called back:</p> +<p>“Doc! My dog! You know ’m.”</p> +<p>“I’ll get him for you,” Doctor Emory consented +quickly. “What’s the address?”</p> +<p>“Room eight-seven, Clay street, the Bowhead Lodging House, +you know the place, entrance just around the corner from the Bowhead +Saloon. Have ’m sent out to me wherever they put me—will +you?”</p> +<p>“Certainly I will,” said Doctor Emory, “and you’ve +got a cockatoo, too?”</p> +<p>“You bet, Cocky! Send ’m both along, please, sir.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>“My!” said Miss Judson, that evening, at dinner with +a certain young interne of St. Joseph’s Hospital. “That +Doctor Emory is a wizard. No wonder he’s successful. +Think of it! Two filthy lepers in our office to-day! One +was a coon. And he knew what was the matter the moment he laid +eyes on them. He’s a caution. When I tell you what +he did to them with his cigar! And he was cute about it! +He gave me the wink first. And they never dreamed what he was +doing. He took his cigar and . . . ”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> +<p>The dog, like the horse, abases the base. Being base, Waiter +Merritt Emory was abased by his desire for the possession of Michael. +Had there been no Michael, his conduct would have been quite different. +He would have dealt with Daughtry as Daughtry had described, as between +white men. He would have warned Daughtry of his disease and enabled +him to take ship to the South Seas or to Japan, or to other countries +where lepers are not segregated. This would have worked no hardship +on those countries, since such was their law and procedure, while it +would have enabled Daughtry and Kwaque to escape the hell of the San +Francisco pest-house, to which, because of his baseness, he condemned +them for the rest of their lives.</p> +<p>Furthermore, when the expense of the maintenance of armed guards +over the pest-house, day and night, throughout the years, is considered, +Walter Merritt Emory could have saved many thousands of dollars to the +tax-payers of the city and county of San Francisco, which thousands +of dollars, had they been spent otherwise, could have been diverted +to the reduction of the notorious crowding in school-rooms, to purer +milk for the babies of the poor, or to an increase of breathing-space +in the park system for the people of the stifling ghetto. But +had Walter Merritt Emory been thus considerate, not only would Daughtry +and Kwaque have sailed out and away over the sea, but with them would +have sailed Michael.</p> +<p>Never was a reception-roomful of patients rushed through more expeditiously +than was Doctor Emory’s the moment the door had closed upon the +two policemen who brought up Daughtry’s rear. And before +he went to his late lunch, Doctor Emory was away in his machine and +down into the Barbary Coast to the door of the Bowhead Lodging House. +On the way, by virtue of his political affiliations, he had been able +to pick up a captain of detectives. The addition of the captain +proved necessary, for the landlady put up a stout argument against the +taking of the dog of her lodger. But Milliken, captain of detectives, +was too well known to her, and she yielded to the law of which he was +the symbol and of which she was credulously ignorant.</p> +<p>As Michael started out of the room on the end of a rope, a plaintive +call of reminder came from the window-sill, where perched a tiny, snow-white +cockatoo.</p> +<p>“Cocky,” he called. “Cocky.”</p> +<p>Walter Merritt Emory glanced back and for no more than a moment hesitated. +“We’ll send for the bird later,” he told the landlady, +who, still mildly expostulating as she followed them downstairs, failed +to notice that the captain of the detectives had carelessly left the +door to Daughtry’s rooms ajar.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>But Walter Merritt Emory was not the only base one abased by desire +of possession of Michael. In a deep leather chair, his feet resting +in another deep leather chair, at the Indoor Yacht Club, Harry Del Mar +yielded to the somniferous digestion of lunch, which was for him breakfast +as well, and glanced through the first of the early editions of the +afternoon papers. His eyes lighted on a big headline, with a brief +five lines under it. His feet were instantly drawn down off the +chair and under him as he stood up erect upon them. On swift second +thought, he sat down again, pressed the electric button, and, while +waiting for the club steward, reread the headline and the brief five +lines.</p> +<p>In a taxi, and away, heading for the Barbary Coast, Harry Del Mar +saw visions that were golden. They took on the semblance of yellow, +twenty-dollar gold pieces, of yellow-backed paper bills of the government +stamping of the United States, of bank books, and of rich coupons ripe +for the clipping—and all shot through the flashings of the form +of a rough-coated Irish terrier, on a galaxy of brilliantly-lighted +stages, mouth open, nose upward to the drops, singing, ever singing, +as no dog had ever been known to sing in the world before.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Cocky himself was the first to discover that the door was ajar, and +was looking at it with speculation (if by “speculation” +may be described the mental processes of a bird, in some mysterious +way absorbing into its consciousness a fresh impression of its environment +and preparing to act, or not act, according to which way the fresh impression +modifies its conduct). Humans do this very thing, and some of +them call it “free will.” Cocky, staring at the open +door, was in just the stage of determining whether or not he should +more closely inspect that crack of exit to the wider world, which inspection, +in turn, would determine whether or not he should venture out through +the crack, when his eyes beheld the eyes of the second discoverer staring +in.</p> +<p>The eyes were bestial, yellow-green, the pupils dilating and narrowing +with sharp swiftness as they sought about among the lights and glooms +of the room. Cocky knew danger at the first glimpse—danger +to the uttermost of violent death. Yet Cocky did nothing. +No panic stirred his heart. Motionless, one eye only turned upon +the crack, he focused that one eye upon the head and eyes of the gaunt +gutter-cat whose head had erupted into the crack like an apparition.</p> +<p>Alert, dilating and contracting, as swift as cautious, and infinitely +apprehensive, the pupils vertically slitted in jet into the midmost +of amazing opals of greenish yellow, the eyes roved the room. +They alighted on Cocky. Instantly the head portrayed that the +cat had stiffened, crouched, and frozen. Almost imperceptibly +the eyes settled into a watching that was like to the stony stare of +a sphinx across aching and eternal desert sands. The eyes were +as if they had so stared for centuries and millenniums.</p> +<p>No less frozen was Cocky. He drew no film across his one eye +that showed his head cocked sideways, nor did the passion of apprehension +that whelmed him manifest itself in the quiver of a single feather. +Both creatures were petrified into the mutual stare that is of the hunter +and the hunted, the preyer and the prey, the meat-eater and the meat.</p> +<p>It was a matter of long minutes, that stare, until the head in the +doorway, with a slight turn, disappeared. Could a bird sigh, Cocky +would have sighed. But he made no movement as he listened to the +slow, dragging steps of a man go by and fade away down the hall.</p> +<p>Several minutes passed, and, just as abruptly the apparition reappeared—not +alone the head this time, but the entire sinuous form as it glided into +the room and came to rest in the middle of the floor. The eyes +brooded on Cocky, and the entire body was still save for the long tail, +which lashed from one side to the other and back again in an abrupt, +angry, but monotonous manner.</p> +<p>Never removing its eyes from Cocky, the cat advanced slowly until +it paused not six feet away. Only the tail lashed back and forth, +and only the eyes gleamed like jewels in the full light of the window +they faced, the vertical pupils contracting to scarcely perceptible +black slits.</p> +<p>And Cocky, who could not know death with the clearness of concept +of a human, nevertheless was not altogether unaware that the end of +all things was terribly impending. As he watched the cat deliberately +crouch for the spring, Cocky, gallant mote of life that he was, betrayed +his one and forgivable panic.</p> +<p>“Cocky! Cocky!” he called plaintively to the blind, +insensate walls.</p> +<p>It was his call to all the world, and all powers and things and two-legged +men-creatures, and Steward in particular, and Kwaque, and Michael. +The burden of his call was: “It is I, Cocky. I am very small +and very frail, and this is a monster to destroy me, and I love the +light, bright world, and I want to live and to continue to live in the +brightness, and I am so very small, and I’m a good little fellow, +with a good little heart, and I cannot battle with this huge, furry, +hungry thing that is going to devour me, and I want help, help, help. +I am Cocky. Everybody knows me. I am Cocky.”</p> +<p>This, and much more, was contained in his two calls of: “Cocky! +Cocky!”</p> +<p>And there was no answer from the blind walls, from the hall outside, +nor from all the world, and, his moment of panic over, Cocky was his +brave little self again. He sat motionless on the window-sill, +his head cocked to the side, with one unwavering eye regarding on the +floor, so perilously near, the eternal enemy of all his kind.</p> +<p>The human quality of his voice had startled the gutter-cat, causing +her to forgo her spring as she flattened down her ears and bellied closer +to the floor.</p> +<p>And in the silence that followed, a blue-bottle fly buzzed rowdily +against an adjacent window-pane, with occasional loud bumps against +the glass tokening that he too had his tragedy, a prisoner pent by baffling +transparency from the bright world that blazed so immediately beyond.</p> +<p>Nor was the gutter-cat without her ill and hurt of life. Hunger +hurt her, and hurt her meagre breasts that should have been full for +the seven feeble and mewing little ones, replicas of her save that their +eyes were not yet open and that they were grotesquely unsteady on their +soft, young legs. She remembered them by the hurt of her breasts +and the prod of her instinct; also she remembered them by vision, so +that, by the subtle chemistry of her brain, she could see them, by way +of the broken screen across the ventilator hole, down into the cellar +in the dark rubbish-corner under the stairway, where she had stolen +her lair and birthed her litter.</p> +<p>And the vision of them, and the hurt of her hunger stirred her afresh, +so that she gathered her body and measured the distance for the leap. +But Cocky was himself again.</p> +<p>“Devil be damned! Devil be damned!” he shouted +his loudest and most belligerent, as he ruffled like a bravo at the +gutter-cat beneath him, so that he sent her crouching, with startlement, +lower to the floor, her ears wilting rigidly flat and down, her tail +lashing, her head turning about the room so that her eyes might penetrate +its obscurest corners in quest of the human whose voice had so cried +out.</p> +<p>All of which the gutter-cat did, despite the positive evidence of +her senses that this human noise had proceeded from the white bird itself +on the window-sill.</p> +<p>The bottle fly bumped once again against its invisible prison wall +in the silence that ensued. The gutter-cat prepared and sprang +with sudden decision, landing where Cocky had perched the fraction of +a second before. Cocky had darted to the side, but, even as he +darted, and as the cat landed on the sill, the cat’s paw flashed +out sidewise and Cocky leaped straight up, beating the air with his +wings so little used to flying. The gutter-cat reared on her hind-legs, +smote upward with one paw as a child might strike with its hat at a +butterfly. But there was weight in the cat’s paw, and the +claws of it were outspread like so many hooks.</p> +<p>Struck in mid-air, a trifle of a flying machine, all its delicate +gears tangled and disrupted, Cocky fell to the floor in a shower of +white feathers, which, like snowflakes, eddied slowly down after, and +after the plummet-like descent of the cat, so that some of them came +to rest on her back, startling her tense nerves with their gentle impact +and making her crouch closer while she shot a swift glance around and +overhead for any danger that might threaten.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> +<p>Harry Del Mar found only a few white feathers on the floor of Dag +Daughtry’s room in the Bowhead Lodging House, and from the landlady +learned what had happened to Michael. The first thing Harry Del +Mar did, still retaining his taxi, was to locate the residence of Doctor +Emory and make sure that Michael was confined in an outhouse in the +back yard. Next he engaged passage on the steamship <i>Umatilla</i>, +sailing for Seattle and Puget Sound ports at daylight. And next +he packed his luggage and paid his bills.</p> +<p>In the meantime, a wordy war was occurring in Walter Merritt Emory’s +office.</p> +<p>“The man’s yelling his head off,” Doctor Masters +was contending. “The police had to rap him with their clubs +in the ambulance. He was violent. He wanted his dog. +It can’t be done. It’s too raw. You can’t +steal his dog this way. He’ll make a howl in the papers.”</p> +<p>“Huh!” quoth Walter Merritt Emory. “I’d +like to see a reporter with backbone enough to go within talking distance +of a leper in the pest-house. And I’d like to see the editor +who wouldn’t send a pest-house letter (granting it’d been +smuggled past the guards) out to be burned the very second he became +aware of its source. Don’t you worry, Doc. There won’t +be any noise in the papers.”</p> +<p>“But leprosy! Public health! The dog has been exposed +to his master. The dog itself is a peripatetic source of infection.”</p> +<p>“Contagion is the better and more technical word, Doc.,” +Walter Merritt Emory soothed with the sting of superior knowledge.</p> +<p>“Contagion, then,” Doctor Masters took him up. +“The public must be considered. It must not run the risk +of being infected—”</p> +<p>“Of contracting the contagion,” the other corrected smoothly.</p> +<p>“Call it what you will. The public—”</p> +<p>“Poppycock,” said Walter Merritt Emory. “What +you don’t know about leprosy, and what the rest of the board of +health doesn’t know about leprosy, would fill more books than +have been compiled by the men who have expertly studied the disease. +The one thing they have eternally tried, and are eternally trying, is +to inoculate one animal outside man with the leprosy that is peculiar +to man. Horses, rabbits, rats, donkeys, monkeys, mice, and dogs—heavens, +they have tried it on them all, tens of thousands of times and a hundred +thousand times ten thousand times, and never a successful inoculation! +They have never succeeded in inoculating it on one man from another. +Here—let me show you.”</p> +<p>And from his shelves Waiter Merritt Emory began pulling down his +authorities.</p> +<p>“Amazing . . . most interesting . . . ” Doctor Masters +continued to emit from time to time as he followed the expert guidance +of the other through the books. “I never dreamed . . . the +amount of work they have done is astounding . . . ”</p> +<p>“But,” he said in conclusion, “there is no convincing +a layman of the matter contained on your shelves. Nor can I so +convince my public. Nor will I try to. Besides, the man +is consigned to the living death of life-long imprisonment in the pest-house. +You know the beastly hole it is. He loves the dog. He’s +mad over it. Let him have it. I tell you it’s rotten +unfair and cruel, and I won’t stand for it.”</p> +<p>“Yes, you will,” Walter Merritt Emory assured him coolly. +“And I’ll tell you why.”</p> +<p>He told him. He said things that no doctor should say to another, +but which a politician may well say, and has often said, to another +politician—things which cannot bear repeating, if, for no other +reason, because they are too humiliating and too little conducive to +pride for the average American citizen to know; things of the inside, +secret governments of imperial municipalities which the average American +citizen, voting free as a king at the polls, fondly thinks he manages; +things which are, on rare occasion, partly unburied and promptly reburied +in the tomes of reports of Lexow Committees and Federal Commissions.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>And Walter Merritt Emory won his desire of Michael against Doctor +Masters; had his wife dine with him at Jules’ that evening and +took her to see Margaret Anglin in celebration of the victory; returned +home at one in the morning, in his pyjamas went out to take a last look +at Michael, and found no Michael.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>The pest-house of San Francisco, as is naturally the case with pest-houses +in all American cities, was situated on the bleakest, remotest, forlornest, +cheapest space of land owned by the city. Poorly protected from +the Pacific Ocean, chill winds and dense fog-banks whistled and swirled +sadly across the sand-dunes. Picnicking parties never came there, +nor did small boys hunting birds’ nests or playing at being wild +Indians. The only class of frequenters was the suicides, who, +sad of life, sought the saddest landscape as a fitting scene in which +to end. And, because they so ended, they never repeated their +visits.</p> +<p>The outlook from the windows was not inspiriting. A quarter +of a mile in either direction, looking out along the shallow canyon +of the sand-hills, Dag Daughtry could see the sentry-boxes of the guards, +themselves armed and more prone to kill than to lay hands on any escaping +pest-man, much less persuavively discuss with him the advisability of +his return to the prison house.</p> +<p>On the opposing sides of the prospect from the windows of the four +walls of the pest-house were trees. Eucalyptus they were, but +not the royal monarchs that their brothers are in native habitats. +Poorly planted, by politics, illy attended, by politics, decimated and +many times repeatedly decimated by the hostile forces of their environment, +a straggling corporal’s guard of survivors, they thrust their +branches, twisted and distorted, as if writhing in agony, into the air. +Scrub of growth they were, expending the major portion of their meagre +nourishment in their roots that crawled seaward through the insufficient +sand for anchorage against the prevailing gales.</p> +<p>Not even so far as the sentry-boxes were Daughtry and Kwaque permitted +to stroll. A hundred yards inside was the dead-line. Here, +the guards came hastily to deposit food-supplies, medicines, and written +doctors’ instructions, retreating as hastily as they came. +Here, also, was a blackboard upon which Daughtry was instructed to chalk +up his needs and requests in letters of such size that they could be +read from a distance. And on this board, for many days, he wrote, +not demands for beer, although the six-quart daily custom had been broken +sharply off, but demands like:</p> +<blockquote><p>WHERE IS MY DOG?</p> +<p>HE IS AN IRISH TERRIER.</p> +<p>HE IS ROUGH-COATED.</p> +<p>HIS NAME IS KILLENY BOY.</p> +<p>I WANT MY DOG.</p> +<p>I WANT TO TALK TO DOC. EMORY.</p> +<p>TELL DOC. EMORY TO WRITE TO ME ABOUT MY DOG.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One day, Dag Daughtry wrote:</p> +<blockquote><p>IF I DON’T GET MY DOG I WILL KILL DOC. EMORY.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Whereupon the newspapers informed the public that the sad case of +the two lepers at the pest-house had become tragic, because the white +one had gone insane. Public-spirited citizens wrote to the papers, +declaiming against the maintenance of such a danger to the community, +and demanding that the United States government build a national leprosarium +on some remote island or isolated mountain peak. But this tiny +ripple of interest faded out in seventy-two hours, and the reporter-cubs +proceeded variously to interest the public in the Alaskan husky dog +that was half a bear, in the question whether or not Crispi Angelotti +was guilty of having cut the carcass of Giuseppe Bartholdi into small +portions and thrown it into the bay in a grain-sack off Fisherman’s +Wharf, and in the overt designs of Japan upon Hawaii, the Philippines, +and the Pacific Coast of North America.</p> +<p>And, outside of imprisonment, nothing happened of interest to Dag +Daughtry and Kwaque at the pest-house until one night in the late fall. +A gale was not merely brewing. It was coming on to blow. +Because, in a basket of fruit, stated to have been sent by the young +ladies of Miss Foote’s Seminary, Daughtry had read a note artfully +concealed in the heart of an apple, telling him on the forthcoming Friday +night to keep a light burning in his window. Daughtry received +a visitor at five in the morning.</p> +<p>It was Charles Stough Greenleaf, the Ancient Mariner himself. +Having wallowed for two hours through the deep sand of the eucalyptus +forest, he fell exhausted against the penthouse door. When Daughtry +opened it, the ancient one blew in upon him along with a gusty wet splatter +of the freshening gale. Daughtry caught him first and supported +him toward a chair. But, remembering his own affliction, he released +the old man so abruptly as to drop him violently into the chair.</p> +<p>“My word, sir,” said Daughtry. “You must +’a’ ben havin’ a time of it.—Here, you fella +Kwaque, this fella wringin’ wet. You fella take ’m +off shoe stop along him.”</p> +<p>But before Kwaque, immediately kneeling, could touch hand to the +shoelaces, Daughtry, remembering that Kwaque was likewise unclean, had +thrust him away.</p> +<p>“My word, I don’t know what to do,” Daughtry murmured, +staring about helplessly as he realised that it was a leper-house, that +the very chair in which the old man sat was a leper-chair, that the +very floor on which his exhausted feet rested was a leper-floor.</p> +<p>“I’m glad to see you, most exceeding glad,” the +Ancient Mariner panted, extending his hand in greeting.</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry avoided it.</p> +<p>“How goes the treasure-hunting?” he queried lightly. +“Any prospects in sight?”</p> +<p>The Ancient Mariner nodded, and with returning breath, at first whispering, +gasped out:</p> +<p>“We’re all cleared to sail on the first of the ebb at +seven this morning. She’s out in the stream now, a tidy +bit of a schooner, the <i>Bethlehem</i>, with good lines and hull and +large cabin accommodations. She used to be in the Tahiti trade, +before the steamers ran her out. Provisions are good. Everything +is most excellent. I saw to that. I cannot say I like the +captain. I’ve seen his type before. A splendid seaman, +I am certain, but a Bully Hayes grown old. A natural born pirate, +a very wicked old man indeed. Nor is the backer any better. +He is middle-aged, has a bad record, and is not in any sense of the +word a gentleman, but he has plenty of money—made it first in +California oil, then grub-staked a prospector in British Columbia, cheated +him out of his share of the big lode he discovered and doubled his own +wealth half a dozen times over. A very undesirable, unlikeable +sort of a man. But he believes in luck, and is confident that +he’ll make at least fifty millions out of our adventure and cheat +me out of my share. He’s as much a pirate as is the captain +he’s engaged.”</p> +<p>“Mr. Greenleaf, I congratulate you, sir,” Daughtry said. +“And you have touched me, sir, touched me to the heart, coming +all the way out here on such a night, and running such risks, just to +say good-bye to poor Dag Daughtry, who always meant somewhat well but +had bad luck.”</p> +<p>But while he talked so heartily, Daughtry saw, in a resplendent visioning, +all the freedom of a schooner in the great South Seas, and felt his +heart sink in realisation that remained for him only the pest-house, +the sand-dunes, and the sad eucalyptus trees.</p> +<p>The Ancient Mariner sat stiffly upright.</p> +<p>“Sir, you have hurt me. You have hurt me to the heart.”</p> +<p>“No offence, sir, no offence,” Daughtry stammered in +apology, although he wondered in what way he could have hurt the old +gentleman’s feelings.</p> +<p>“You are my friend, sir,” the other went on, gravely +censorious. “I am your friend, sir. And you give me +to understand that you think I have come out here to this hell-hole +to say good-bye. I came out here to get you, sir, and your nigger, +sir. The schooner is waiting for you. All is arranged. +You are signed on the articles before the shipping commissioner. +Both of you. Signed on yesterday by proxies I arranged for myself. +One was a Barbadoes nigger. I got him and the white man out of +a sailors’ boarding-house on Commercial Street and paid them five +dollars each to appear before the Commissioner and sign on.”</p> +<p>“But, my God, Mr. Greenleaf, you don’t seem to grasp +it that he and I are lepers.”</p> +<p>Almost with a galvanic spring, the Ancient Mariner was out of the +chair and on his feet, the anger of age and of a generous soul in his +face as he cried:</p> +<p>“My God, sir, what you don’t seem to grasp is that you +are my friend, and that I am your friend.”</p> +<p>Abruptly, still under the pressure of his wrath, he thrust out his +hand.</p> +<p>“Steward, Daughtry. Mr. Daughtry, friend, sir, or whatever +I may name you, this is no fairy-story of the open boat, the cross-bearings +unnamable, and the treasure a fathom under the sand. This is real. +I have a heart. That, sir”—here he waved his extended +hand under Daughtry’s nose—“is my hand. There +is only one thing you may do, must do, right now. You must take +that hand in your hand, and shake it, with your heart in your hand as +mine is in my hand.”</p> +<p>“But . . . but. . . ” Daughtry faltered.</p> +<p>“If you don’t, then I shall not depart from this place. +I shall remain here, die here. I know you are a leper. You +can’t tell me anything about that. There’s my hand. +Are you going to take it? My heart is there in the palm of it, +in the pulse in every finger-end of it. If you don’t take +it, I warn you I’ll sit right down here in this chair and die. +I want you to understand I am a man, sir, a gentleman. I am a +friend, a comrade. I am no poltroon of the flesh. I live +in my heart and in my head, sir—not in this feeble carcass I cursorily +inhabit. Take that hand. I want to talk with you afterward.”</p> +<p>Dag Daughtry extended his hand hesitantly, but the Ancient Mariner +seized it and pressed it so fiercely with his age-lean fingers as to +hurt.</p> +<p>“Now we can talk,” he said. “I have thought +the whole matter over. We sail on the <i>Bethlehem</i>. +When the wicked man discovers that he can never get a penny of my fabulous +treasure, we will leave him. He will be glad to be quit of us. +We, you and I and your nigger, will go ashore in the Marquesas. +Lepers roam about free there. There are no regulations. +I have seen them. We will be free. The land is a paradise. +And you and I will set up housekeeping. A thatched hut—no +more is needed. The work is trifling. The freedom of beach +and sea and mountain will be ours. For you there will be sailing, +swimming, fishing, hunting. There are mountain goats, wild chickens +and wild cattle. Bananas and plantains will ripen over our heads—avocados +and custard apples, also. The red peppers grow by the door, and +there will be fowls, and the eggs of fowls. Kwaque shall do the +cooking. And there will be beer. I have long noted your +thirst unquenchable. There will be beer, six quarts of it a day, +and more, more.</p> +<p>“Quick. We must start now. I am sorry to tell you +that I have vainly sought your dog. I have even paid detectives +who were robbers. Doctor Emory stole Killeny Boy from you, but +within a dozen hours he was stolen from Doctor Emory. I have left +no stone unturned. Killeny Boy is gone, as we shall be gone from +this detestable hole of a city.</p> +<p>“I have a machine waiting. The driver is paid well. +Also, I have promised to kill him if he defaults on me. It bears +just a bit north of east over the sandhill on the road that runs along +the other side of the funny forest . . . That is right. We will +start now. We can discuss afterward. Look! Daylight +is beginning to break. The guards must not see us . . . ”</p> +<p>Out into the storm they passed, Kwaque, with a heart wild with gladness, +bringing up the rear. At the beginning Daughtry strove to walk +aloof, but in a trice, in the first heavy gust that threatened to whisk +the frail old man away, Dag Daughtry’s hand was grasping the other’s +arm, his own weight behind and under, supporting and impelling forward +and up the hill through the heavy sand.</p> +<p>“Thank you, steward, thank you, my friend,” the Ancient +Mariner murmured in the first lull between the gusts.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> +<p>Not altogether unwillingly, in the darkness of night, despite that +he disliked the man, did Michael go with Harry Del Mar. Like a +burglar the man came, with infinite caution of silence, to the outhouse +in Doctor Emory’s back yard where Michael was a prisoner. +Del Mar knew the theatre too well to venture any hackneyed melodramatic +effect such as an electric torch. He felt his way in the darkness +to the door of the outhouse, unlatched it, and entered softly, feeling +with his hands for the wire-haired coat.</p> +<p>And Michael, a man-dog and a lion-dog in all the stuff of him, bristled +at the instant of intrusion, but made no outcry. Instead, he smelled +out the intruder and recognised him. Disliking the man, nevertheless +he permitted the tying of the rope around his neck and silently followed +him out to the sidewalk, down to the corner, and into the waiting taxi.</p> +<p>His reasoning—unless reason be denied him—was simple. +This man he had met, more than once, in the company of Steward. +Amity had existed between him and Steward, for they had sat at table, +and drunk together. Steward was lost. Michael knew not where +to find him, and was himself a prisoner in the back yard of a strange +place. What had once happened, could again happen. It had +happened that Steward, Del Mar, and Michael had sat at table together +on divers occasions. It was probable that such a combination would +happen again, was going to happen now, and, once more, in the bright-lighted +cabaret, he would sit on a chair, Del Mar on one side, and on the other +side beloved Steward with a glass of beer before him—all of which +might be called “leaping to a conclusion”; for conclusion +there was, and upon the conclusion Michael acted.</p> +<p>Now Michael could not reason to this conclusion nor think to this +conclusion, in words. “Amity,” as an instance, was +no word in his consciousness. Whether or not he thought to the +conclusion in swift-related images and pictures and swift-welded composites +of images and pictures, is a problem that still waits human solution. +The point is: <i>he did think</i>. If this be denied him, then +must he have acted wholly by instinct—which would seem more marvellous +on the face of it than if, in dim ways, he had performed a vague thought-process.</p> +<p>However, into the taxi and away through the maze of San Francisco’s +streets, Michael lay alertly on the floor near Del Mar’s feet, +making no overtures of friendliness, by the same token making no demonstration +of the repulsion of the man’s personality engendered in him. +For Harry Del Mar, who was base, and who had been further abased by +his money-making desire for the possession of Michael, had had his baseness +sensed by Michael from the beginning. That first meeting in the +Barbary Coast cabaret, Michael had bristled at him, and stiffened belligerently, +when he laid his hand on Michael’s head. Nor had Michael +thought about the man at all, much less attempted any analysis of him. +Something had been wrong with that hand—the perfunctory way in +which it had touched him under a show of heartiness that could well +deceive the onlooker. The <i>feel</i> of it had not been right. +There had been no warmth in it, no heart, no communication of genuine +good approach from the brain and the soul of the man of which it was +the telegraphic tentacle and transmitter. In short, the message +or feel had not been a good message or feel, and Michael had bristled +and stiffened without thinking, but by mere <i>knowing</i>, which is +what men call “intuition.”</p> +<p>Electric lights, a shed-covered wharf, mountains of luggage and freight, +the noisy toil of ’longshoremen and sailors, the staccato snorts +of donkey engines and the whining sheaves as running lines ran through +the blocks, a crowd of white-coated stewards carrying hand-baggage, +the quartermaster at the gangway foot, the gangway sloping steeply up +to the <i>Umatilla’s</i> promenade deck, more quartermasters and +gold-laced ship’s officers at the head of the gangway, and more +crowd and confusion blocking the narrow deck—thus Michael knew, +beyond all peradventure, that he had come back to the sea and its ships, +where he had first met Steward, where he had been always with Steward, +save for the recent nightmare period in the great city. Nor was +there absent from the flashing visions of his consciousness the images +and memories of Kwaque and Cocky. Whining eagerly, he strained +at the leash, risking his tender toes among the many inconsiderate, +restless, leather-shod feet of the humans, as he quested and scented +for Cocky and Kwaque, and, most of all, for Steward.</p> +<p>Michael accepted his disappointment in not immediately meeting them, +for from the dawn of consciousness, the limitations and restrictions +of dogs in relation to humans had been hammered into him in the form +of concepts of patience. The patience of waiting, when he wanted +to go home and when Steward continued to sit at table and talk and drink +beer, was his, as was the patience of the rope around the neck, the +fence too high to scale, the narrowed-walled room with the closed door +which he could never unlatch but which humans unlatched so easily. +So that he permitted himself to be led away by the ship’s butcher, +who on the <i>Umatilla</i> had the charge of all dog passengers. +Immured in a tiny between-decks cubby which was filled mostly with boxes +and bales, tied as well by the rope around his neck, he waited from +moment to moment for the door to open and admit, realised in the flesh, +the resplendent vision of Steward which blazed through the totality +of his consciousness.</p> +<p>Instead, although Michael did not guess it then, and, only later, +divined it as a vague manifestation of power on the part of Del Mar, +the well-tipped ship’s butcher opened the door, untied him, and +turned him over to the well-tipped stateroom steward who led him to +Del Mar’s stateroom. Up to the last, Michael was convinced +that he was being led to Steward. Instead, in the stateroom, he +found only Del Mar. “No Steward,” might be described +as Michael’s thought; but by <i>patience</i>, as his mood and +key, might be described his acceptance of further delay in meeting up +with his god, his best beloved, his Steward who was his own human god +amidst the multitude of human gods he was encountering.</p> +<p>Michael wagged his tail, flattened his ears, even his crinkled ear, +a trifle, and smiled, all in a casual way of recognition, smelled out +the room to make doubly sure that there was no scent of Steward, and +lay down on the floor. When Del Mar spoke to him, he looked up +and gazed at him.</p> +<p>“Now, my boy, times have changed,” Del Mar addressed +him in cold, brittle tones. “I’m going to make an +actor out of you, and teach you what’s what. First of all, +come here . . . COME HERE!”</p> +<p>Michael obeyed, without haste, without lagging, and patently without +eagerness.</p> +<p>“You’ll get over that, my lad, and put pep into your +motions when I talk to you,” Del Mar assured him; and the very +manner of his utterance was a threat that Michael could not fail to +recognise. “Now we’ll just see if I can pull off the +trick. You listen to me, and sing like you did for that leper +guy.”</p> +<p>Drawing a harmonica from his vest pocket, he put it to his lips and +began to play “Marching through Georgia.”</p> +<p>“Sit down!” he commanded.</p> +<p>Again Michael obeyed, although all that was Michael was in protest. +He quivered as the shrill-sweet strains from the silver reeds ran through +him. All his throat and chest was in the impulse to sing; but +he mastered it, for he did not care to sing for this man. All +he wanted of him was Steward.</p> +<p>“Oh, you’re stubborn, eh?” Del Mar sneered at him. +“The matter with you is you’re thoroughbred. Well, +my boy, it just happens I know your kind and I reckon I can make you +get busy and work for me just as much as you did for that other guy. +Now get busy.”</p> +<p>He shifted the tune on into “Georgia Camp Meeting.” +But Michael was obdurate. Not until the melting strains of “Old +Kentucky Home” poured through him did he lose his self-control +and lift his mellow-throated howl that was the call for the lost pack +of the ancient millenniums. Under the prodding hypnosis of this +music he could not but yearn and burn for the vague, forgotten life +of the pack when the world was young and the pack was the pack ere it +was lost for ever through the endless centuries of domestication.</p> +<p>“Ah, ha,” Del Mar chuckled coldly, unaware of the profound +history and vast past he evoked by his silver reeds.</p> +<p>A loud knock on the partition wall warned him that some sleepy passenger +was objecting.</p> +<p>“That will do!” he said sharply, taking the harmonica +from his lips. And Michael ceased, and hated him. “I +guess I’ve got your number all right. And you needn’t +think you’re going to sleep here scratching fleas and disturbing +my sleep.”</p> +<p>He pressed the call-button, and, when his room-steward answered, +turned Michael over to him to be taken down below and tied up in the +crowded cubby-hole.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>During the several days and nights on the <i>Umatilla</i>, Michael +learned much of what manner of man Harry Del Mar was. Almost, +might it be said, he learned Del Mar’s pedigree without knowing +anything of his history. For instance he did not know that Del +Mar’s real name was Percival Grunsky, and that at grammar school +he had been called “Brownie” by the girls and “Blackie” +by the boys. No more did he know that he had gone from half-way-through +grammar school directly into the industrial reform school; nor that, +after serving two years, he had been paroled out by Harris Collins, +who made a living, and an excellent one, by training animals for the +stage. Much less could he know the training that for six years +Del Mar, as assistant, had been taught to give the animals, and, thereby, +had received for himself.</p> +<p>What Michael did know was that Del Mar had no pedigree and was a +scrub as compared with thoroughbreds such as Steward, Captain Kellar, +and <i>Mister</i> Haggin of Meringe. And he learned it swiftly +and simply. In the day-time, fetched by a steward, Michael would +be brought on deck to Del Mar, who was always surrounded by effusive +young ladies and matrons who lavished caresses and endearments upon +Michael. This he stood, although much bored; but what irked him +almost beyond standing were the feigned caresses and endearments Del +Mar lavished on him. He knew the cold-blooded insincerity of them, +for, at night, when he was brought to Del Mar’s room, he heard +only the cold brittle tones, sensed only the threat and the menace of +the other’s personality, felt, when touched by the other’s +hand, only a stiffness and sharpness of contact that was like to so +much steel or wood in so far as all subtle tenderness of heart and spirit +was absent.</p> +<p>This man was two-faced, two-mannered. No thoroughbred was anything +but single-faced and single-mannered. A thoroughbred, hot-blooded +as it might be, was always sincere. But in this scrub was no sincerity, +only a positive insincerity. A thoroughbred had passion, because +of its hot blood; but this scrub had no passion. Its blood was +cold as its deliberateness, and it did nothing save deliberately. +These things he did not think. He merely realized them, as any +creature realizes itself in <i>liking</i> and in not <i>liking</i>.</p> +<p>To cap it all, the last night on board, Michael lost his thoroughbred +temper with this man who had no temper. It came to a fight. +And Michael had no chance. He raged royally and fought royally, +leaping to the attack, after being knocked over twice by open-handed +blows under his ear. Quick as Michael was, slashing South Sea +niggers by virtue of his quickness and cleverness, he could not touch +his teeth to the flesh of this man, who had been trained for six years +with animals by Harris Collins. So that, when he leaped, open-mouthed, +for the bite, Del Mar’s right hand shot out, gripped his under-jaw +as he was in the air, and flipped him over in a somersaulting fall to +the floor on his back. Once again he leapt open-mouthed to the +attack, and was filliped to the floor so hard that almost the last particle +of breath was knocked out of him. The next leap was nearly his +last. He was clutched by the throat. Two thumbs pressed +into his neck on either side of the windpipe directly on the carotid +arteries, shutting off the blood to his brain and giving him most exquisite +agony, at the same time rendering him unconscious far more swiftly than +the swiftest anæsthetic. Darkness thrust itself upon him; +and, quivering on the floor, glimmeringly he came back to the light +of the room and to the man who was casually touching a match to a cigarette +and cautiously keeping an observant eye on him.</p> +<p>“Come on,” Del Mar challenged. “I know your +kind. You can’t get my goat, and maybe I can’t get +yours entirely, but I can keep you under my thumb to work for me. +Come on, you!”</p> +<p>And Michael came. Being a thoroughbred, despite that he knew +he was beaten by this two-legged thing which was not warm human but +was so alien and hard that he might as well attack the wall of a room +with his teeth, or a tree-trunk, or a cliff of rock, Michael leapt bare-fanged +for the throat. And all that he leapt against was training, formula. +The experience was repeated. His throat was gripped, the thumbs +shut off the blood from his brain, and darkness smote him. Had +he been more than a normal thoroughbred dog, he would have continued +to assail his impregnable enemy until he burst his heart or fell in +a fit. But he was normal. Here was something unassailable, +adamantine. As little might he win victory from it, as from the +cement-paved sidewalk of a city. The thing was a devil, with the +hardness and coldness, the wickedness and wisdom, of a devil. +It was as bad as Steward was good. Both were two-legged. +Both were gods. But this one was an evil god.</p> +<p>He did not reason all this, nor any of it. Yet, transmuted +into human terms of thought and understanding, it adequately describes +the fulness of his state of mind toward Del Mar. Had Michael been +entangled in a fight with a warm god, he could have raged and battled +blindly, inflicting and receiving hurt in the chaos of conflict, as +such a god, being warm, would have likewise received and given hurt, +being only a flesh-and-blood, living, breathing entity after all. +But this two-legged god-devil did not rage blindly and was incapable +of passional heat. He was like so much cunning, massive steel +machinery, and he did what Michael could never dream he did—and, +for that matter, which few humans do and which all animal trainers do: +<i>he kept one thought ahead of Michael’s thought all the time</i>, +and therefore, was able to have ready one action always in anticipation +of Michael’s next action. This was the training he had received +from Harris Collins, who, withal he was a sentimental and doting husband +and father, was the arch-devil when it came to animals other than human +ones, and who reigned in an animal hell which he had created and made +lucrative.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Michael went ashore in Seattle all eagerness, straining at his leash +until he choked and coughed and was coldly cursed by Del Mar. +For Michael was mastered by his expectation that he would meet Steward, +and he looked for him around the first corner, and around all corners +with undiminished zeal. But amongst the multitudes of men there +was no Steward. Instead, down in the basement of the New Washington +Hotel, where electric lights burned always, under the care of the baggage +porter, he was tied securely by the neck in the midst of Alpine ranges +of trunks which were for ever being heaped up, sought over, taken down, +carried away, or added to.</p> +<p>Three days of this dolorous existence he passed. The porters +made friends with him and offered him prodigious quantities of cooked +meats from the leavings of the dining-room. Michael was too disappointed +and grief-stricken over Steward to overeat himself, while Del Mar, accompanied +by the manager of the hotel, raised a great row with the porters for +violating the feeding instructions.</p> +<p>“That guy’s no good,” said the head porter to assistant, +when Del Mar had departed. “He’s greasy. I never +liked greasy brunettes anyway. My wife’s a brunette, but +thank the Lord she ain’t greasy.”</p> +<p>“Sure,” agreed the assistant. “I know his +kind. Why, if you’d stick a knife into him he wouldn’t +bleed blood. It’d be straight liquid lard.”</p> +<p>Whereupon the pair of them immediately presented Michael with vaster +quantities of meat which he could not eat because the desire for Steward +was too much with him.</p> +<p>In the meantime Del Mar sent off two telegrams to New York, the first +to Harris Collins’ animal training school, where his troupe of +dogs was boarding through his vacation:</p> +<blockquote><p>“<i>Sell my dogs. You know what they can +do and what they are worth. Am done with them. Deduct the +board and hold the balance for me until I see you. I have the +limit here of a dog. Every turn I ever pulled is put in the shade +by this one. He’s a ten strike. Wait till you see +him</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The second, to his booking agent:</p> +<blockquote><p>“<i>Get busy. Book me over the best. +Talk it up. I have the turn. A winner. Nothing like +it. Don’t talk up top price but way over top price. +Prepare them for the dog when I give them the chance for the once over. +You know me. I am giving it straight. This will head the +bill anywhere all the time</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> +<p>Came the crate. Because Del Mar brought it into the baggage-room, +Michael was suspicious of it. A minute later his suspicion was +justified. Del Mar invited him to go into the crate, and he declined. +With a quick deft clutch on the collar at the back of his neck, Del +Mar jerked him off his footing and thrust him in, or partly in, rather, +because he had managed to get a hold on the edge of the crate with his +two forepaws. The animal trainer wasted no time. He brought +the clenched fist of his free hand down in two blows, rat-tat, on Michael’s +paws. And Michael, at the pain, relaxed both holds. The +next instant he was thrust inside, snarling his indignation and rage +as he vainly flung himself at the open bars, while Del Mar was locking +the stout door.</p> +<p>Next, the crate was carried out to an express wagon and loaded in +along with a number of trunks. Del Mar had disappeared the moment +he had locked the door, and the two men in the wagon, which was now +bouncing along over the cobblestones, were strangers. There was +just room in the crate for Michael to stand upright, although he could +not lift his head above the level of his shoulders. And so standing, +his head pressed against the top, a rut in the road, jolting the wagon +and its contents, caused his head to bump violently.</p> +<p>The crate was not quite so long as Michael, so that he was compelled +to stand with the end of his nose pressing against the end of the crate. +An automobile, darting out from a cross-street, caused the driver of +the wagon to pull in abruptly and apply the brake. With the crate +thus suddenly arrested, Michael’s body was precipitated forward. +There was no brake to stop him, unless the soft end of his nose be considered +the brake, for it was his nose that brought his body to rest inside +the crate.</p> +<p>He tried lying down, confined as the space was, and made out better, +although his lips were cut and bleeding by having been forced so sharply +against his teeth. But the worst was to come. One of his +forepaws slipped out through the slats or bars and rested on the bottom +of the wagon where the trunks were squeaking, screeching, and jigging. +A rut in the roadway made the nearest trunk tilt one edge in the air +and shift position, so that when it tilted back again it rested on Michael’s +paw. The unexpectedness of the crushing hurt of it caused him +to yelp and at the same time instinctively and spasmodically to pull +back with all his strength. This wrenched his shoulder and added +to the agony of the imprisoned foot.</p> +<p>And blind fear descended upon Michael, the fear that is implanted +in all animals and in man himself—<i>the fear of the trap</i>. +Utterly beside himself, though he no longer yelped, he flung himself +madly about, straining the tendons and muscles of his shoulder and leg +and further and severely injuring the crushed foot. He even attacked +the bars with his teeth in his agony to get at the monster thing outside +that had laid hold of him and would not let him go. Another rut +saved him, however, tilting the trunk just sufficiently to enable his +violent struggling to drag the foot clear.</p> +<p>At the railroad station, the crate was handled, not with deliberate +roughness, but with such carelessness that it half-slipped out of a +baggageman’s hands, capsized sidewise, and was caught when it +was past the man’s knees but before it struck the cement floor. +But, Michael, sliding helplessly down the perpendicular bottom of the +crate, fetched up with his full weight on the injured paw.</p> +<p>“Huh!” said Del Mar a little later to Michael, having +strolled down the platform to where the crate was piled on a truck with +other baggage destined for the train. “Got your foot smashed. +Well, it’ll teach you a lesson to keep your feet inside.”</p> +<p>“That claw is a goner,” one of the station baggage-men +said, straightening up from an examination of Michael through the bars.</p> +<p>Del Mar bent to a closer scrutiny.</p> +<p>“So’s the whole toe,” he said, drawing his pocket-knife +and opening a blade. “I’ll fix it in half a jiffy +if you’ll lend a hand.”</p> +<p>He unlocked the box and dipped Michael out with the customary strangle-hold +on the neck. He squirmed and struggled, dabbing at the air with +the injured as well as the uninjured forepaw and increasing his pain.</p> +<p>“You hold the leg,” Del Mar commanded. “He’s +safe with that grip. It won’t take a second.”</p> +<p>Nor did it take longer. And Michael, back in the box and raging, +was one toe short of the number which he had brought into the world. +The blood ran freely from the crude but effective surgery, and he lay +and licked the wound and was depressed with apprehension of he knew +not what terrible fate awaited him and was close at hand. Never, +in his experience of men, had he been so treated, while the confinement +of the box was maddening with its suggestion of the trap. Trapped +he was, and helpless, and the ultimate evil of life had happened to +Steward, who had evidently been swallowed up by the Nothingness which +had swallowed up Meringe, the <i>Eugénie</i>, the Solomon Islands, +the <i>Makambo</i>, Australia, and the <i>Mary Turner</i>.</p> +<p>Suddenly, from a distance, came a bedlam of noise that made Michael +prick up his ears and bristle with premonition of fresh disaster. +It was a confused yelping, howling, and barking of many dogs.</p> +<p>“Holy Smoke!—It’s them damned acting dogs,” +growled the baggageman to his mate. “There ought to be a +law against dog-acts. It ain’t decent.”</p> +<p>“It’s Peterson’s Troupe,” said the other. +“I was on when they come in last week. One of ’em +was dead in his box, and from what I could see of him it looked mighty +like he’d had the tar knocked outa him.”</p> +<p>“Got a wollopin’ from Peterson most likely in the last +town and then was shipped along with the bunch and left to die in the +baggage car.”</p> +<p>The bedlam increased as the animals were transferred from the wagon +to a platform truck, and when the truck rolled up and stopped alongside +Michael’s he made out that it was piled high with crated dogs. +In truth, there were thirty-five dogs, of every sort of breed and mostly +mongrel, and that they were far from happy was attested by their actions. +Some howled, some whimpered, others growled and raged at one another +through the slots, and many maintained a silence of misery. Several +licked and nursed bruised feet. Smaller dogs that did not fight +much were crammed two or more into single crates. Half a dozen +greyhounds were crammed into larger crates that were anything save large +enough.</p> +<p>“Them’s the high-jumpers,” said the first baggageman. +“An’ look at the way they’re packed. Peterson +ain’t going to pay any more excess baggage than he has to. +Not half room enough for them to stand up. It must be hell for +them from the time they leave one town till they arrive at the next.”</p> +<p>But what the baggageman did not know was that in the towns the hell +was not mitigated, that the dogs were still confined in their too-narrow +prisons, that, in fact, they were life-prisoners. Rarely, except +for their acts, were they taken out from their cages. From a business +standpoint, good care did not pay. Since mongrel dogs were cheap, +it was cheaper to replace them when they died than so to care for them +as to keep them from dying.</p> +<p>What the baggageman did not know, and what Peterson did know, was +that of these thirty-five dogs not one was a surviving original of the +troupe when it first started out four years before. Nor had there +been any originals discarded. The only way they left the troupe +and its cages was by dying. Nor did Michael know even as little +as the baggageman knew. He knew nothing save that here reigned +pain and woe and that it seemed he was destined to share the same fate.</p> +<p>Into the midst of them, when with more howlings and yelpings they +were loaded into the baggage car, was Michael’s cage piled. +And for a day and a part of two nights, travelling eastward, he remained +in the dog inferno. Then they were loaded off in some large city, +and Michael continued on in greater quietness and comfort, although +his injured foot still hurt and was bruised afresh whenever his crate +was moved about in the car.</p> +<p>What it was all about—why he was kept in his cramped prison +in the cramped car—he did not ask himself. He accepted it +as unhappiness and misery, and had no more explanation for it than for +the crushing of the paw. Such things happened. It was life, +and life had many evils. The <i>why</i> of things never entered +his head. He knew <i>things</i> and some small bit of the <i>how</i> +of things. What was, <i>was</i>. Water was wet, fire hot, +iron hard, meat good. He accepted such things as he accepted the +everlasting miracles of the light and of the dark, which were no miracles +to him any more than was his wire coat a miracle, or his beating heart, +or his thinking brain.</p> +<p>In Chicago, he was loaded upon a track, carted through the roaring +streets of the vast city, and put into another baggage-car which was +quickly in motion in continuation of the eastward journey. It +meant more strange men who handled baggage, as it meant in New York, +where, from railroad baggage-room to express wagon he was exchanged, +for ever a crated prisoner and dispatched to one, Harris Collins, on +Long Island.</p> +<p>First of all came Harris Collins and the animal hell over which he +ruled. But the second event must be stated first. Michael +never saw Harry Del Mar again. As the other men he had known had +stepped out of life, which was a way they had, so Harry Del Mar stepped +out of Michael’s purview of life as well as out of life itself. +And his stepping out was literal. A collision on the elevated, +a panic scramble of the uninjured out upon the trestle over the street, +a step on the third rail, and Harry Del Mar was engulfed in the Nothingness +which men know as death and which is nothingness in so far as such engulfed +ones never reappear nor walk the ways of life again.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> +<p>Harris Collins was fifty-two years of age. He was slender and +dapper, and in appearance and comportment was so sweet- and gentle-spirited +that the impression he radiated was almost of sissyness. He might +have taught a Sunday-school, presided over a girls’ seminary, +or been a president of a humane society.</p> +<p>His complexion was pink and white, his hands were as soft as the +hands of his daughters, and he weighed a hundred and twelve pounds. +Moreover, he was afraid of his wife, afraid of a policeman, afraid of +physical violence, and lived in constant dread of burglars. But +the one thing he was not afraid of was wild animals of the most ferocious +sorts, such as lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars. He knew the +game, and could conquer the most refractory lion with a broom-handle—not +outside the cage, but inside and locked in.</p> +<p>It was because he knew the game and had learned it from his father +before him, a man even smaller than himself and more fearful of all +things except animals. This father, Noel Collins, had been a successful +animal trainer in England, before emigrating to America, and in America +he had continued the success and laid the foundation of the big animal +training school at Cedarwild, which his son had developed and built +up after him. So well had Harris Collins built on his father’s +foundation that the place was considered a model of sanitation and kindness. +It entertained many visitors, who invariably went away with their souls +filled with ecstasy over the atmosphere of sweetness and light that +pervaded the place. Never, however, were they permitted to see +the actual training. On occasion, performances were given them +by the finished products which verified all their other delightful and +charming conclusions about the school. But had they seen the training +of raw novices, it would have been a different story. It might +even have been a riot. As it was, the place was a zoo, and free +at that; for, in addition to the animals he owned and trained and bought +and sold, a large portion of the business was devoted to boarding trained +animals and troupes of animals for owners who were out of engagements, +or for estates of such owners which were in process of settlement. +From mice and rats to camels and elephants, and even, on occasion, to +a rhinoceros or a pair of hippopotamuses, he could supply any animal +on demand.</p> +<p>When the Circling Brothers’ big three-ring show on a hard winter +went into the hands of the receivers, he boarded the menagerie and the +horses and in three months turned a profit of fifteen thousand dollars. +More—he mortgaged all he possessed against the day of the auction, +bought in the trained horses and ponies, the giraffe herd and the performing +elephants, and, in six months more was quit of an of them, save the +pony Repeater who turned air-springs, at another profit of fifteen thousand +dollars. As for Repeater, he sold the pony several months later +for a sheer profit of two thousand. While this bankruptcy of the +Circling Brothers had been the greatest financial achievement of Harris +Collin’s life, nevertheless he enjoyed no mean permanent income +from his plant, and, in addition, split fees with the owners of his +board animals when he sent them to the winter Hippodrome shows, and, +more often than not, failed to split any fee at all when he rented the +animals to moving-picture companies.</p> +<p>Animal men, the country over, acknowledged him to be, not only the +richest in the business, but the king of trainers and the grittiest +man who ever went into a cage. And those who from the inside had +seen him work were agreed that he had no soul. Yet his wife and +children, and those in his small social circle, thought otherwise. +They, never seeing him at work, were convinced that no softer-hearted, +more sentimental man had ever been born. His voice was low and +gentle, his gestures were delicate, his views on life, the world, religion +and politics, the mildest. A kind word melted him. A plea +won him. He gave to all local charities, and was gravely depressed +for a week when the Titanic went down. And yet—the men in +the trained-animal game acknowledged him the nerviest and most nerveless +of the profession. And yet—his greatest fear in the world +was that his large, stout wife, at table, should crown him with a plate +of hot soup. Twice, in a tantrum, she had done this during their +earlier married life. In addition to his fear that she might do +it again, he loved her sincerely and devotedly, as he loved his children, +seven of them, for whom nothing was too good or too expensive.</p> +<p>So well did he love them, that the four boys from the beginning he +forbade from seeing him <i>work</i>, and planned gentler careers for +them. John, the oldest, in Yale, had elected to become a man of +letters, and, in the meantime, ran his own automobile with the corresponding +standard of living such ownership connoted in the college town of New +Haven. Harold and Frederick were down at a millionaires’ +sons’ academy in Pennsylvania; and Clarence, the youngest, at +a prep. school in Massachusetts, was divided in his choice of career +between becoming a doctor or an aviator. The three girls, two +of them twins, were pledged to be cultured into ladies. Elsie +was on the verge of graduating from Vassar. Mary and Madeline, +the twins, in the most select and most expensive of seminaries, were +preparing for Vassar. All of which required money which Harris +Collins did not grudge, but which strained the earning capacity of his +animal-training school. It compelled him to work the harder, although +his wife and the four sons and three daughters did not dream that he +actually worked at all. Their idea was that by virtue of superior +wisdom he merely superintended, and they would have been terribly shocked +could they have seen him, club in hand, thrashing forty mongrel dogs, +in the process of training, which had become excited and out of hand.</p> +<p>A great deal of the work was done by his assistants, but it was Harris +Collins who taught them continually what to do and how to do it, and +who himself, on more important animals, did the work and showed them +how. His assistants were almost invariably youths from the reform +schools, and he picked them with skilful eye and intuition. Control +of them, under their paroles, with intelligence and coldness on their +part, were the conditions and qualities he sought, and such combination, +as a matter of course, carried with it cruelty. Hot blood, generous +impulses, sentimentality, were qualities he did not want for his business; +and the Cedarwild Animal School was business from the first tick of +the clock to the last bite of the lash. In short, Harris Collins, +in the totality of results, was guilty of causing more misery and pain +to animals than all laboratories of vivisection in Christendom.</p> +<p>And into this animal hell Michael descended—although his arrival +was horizontal, across three thousand five hundred miles, in the same +crate in which he had been placed at the New Washington Hotel in Seattle. +Never once had he been out of the crate during the entire journey, and +filthiness, as well as wretchedness, characterized his condition. +Thanks to his general good health, the wound of the amputated toe was +in the process of uneventful healing. But dirt clung to him, and +he was infested with fleas.</p> +<p>Cedarwild, to look at, was anything save a hell. Velvet lawns, +gravelled walks and drives, and flowers formally growing, led up to +the group of long low buildings, some of frame and some of concrete. +But Michael was not received by Harris Collins, who, at the moment, +sat in his private office, Harry Del Mar’s last telegram on his +desk, writing a memorandum to his secretary to query the railroad and +the express companies for the whereabouts of a dog, crated and shipped +by one, Harry Del Mar, from Seattle and consigned to Cedarwild. +It was a pallid-eyed youth of eighteen in overalls who received Michael, +receipted for him to the expressman, and carried his crate into a slope-floored +concrete room that smelled offensively and chemically clean.</p> +<p>Michael was impressed by his surroundings but not attracted by the +youth, who rolled up his sleeves and encased himself in large oilskin +apron before he opened the crate. Michael sprang out and staggered +about on legs which had not walked for days. This particular two-legged +god was uninteresting. He was as cold as the concrete floor, as +methodical as a machine; and in such fashion he went about the washing, +scrubbing, and disinfecting of Michael. For Harris Collins was +scientific and antiseptic to the last word in his handling of animals, +and Michael was scientifically made clean, without deliberate harshness, +but without any slightest hint of gentleness or consideration.</p> +<p>Naturally, he did not understand. On top of all he had already +experienced, not even knowing executioners and execution chambers, for +all he knew this bare room of cement and chemical smell might well be +the place of the ultimate life-disaster and this youth the god who was +to send him into the dark which had engulfed all he had known and loved. +What Michael did know beyond the shadow of any doubt was that it was +all coldly ominous and terribly strange. He endured the hand of +the youth-god on the scruff of his neck, after the collar had been unbuckled; +but when the hose was turned on him, he resented and resisted. +The youth, merely working by formula, tightened the safe grip on the +scruff of Michael’s neck and lifted him clear of the floor, at +the same time, with the other hand, directing the stream of water into +his mouth and increasing it to full force by the nozzle control. +Michael fought, and was well drowned for his pains, until he gasped +and strangled helplessly.</p> +<p>After that he resisted no more, and was washed out and scrubbed out +and cleansed out with the hose, a big bristly brush, and much carbolic +soap, the lather of which got into and stung his eyes and nose, causing +him to weep copiously and sneeze violently. Apprehensive of what +might at any moment happen to him, but by this time aware that the youth +was neither positive nor negative for kindness or harm, Michael continued +to endure without further battling, until, clean and comfortable, he +was put away into a pen, sweet and wholesome, where he slept and for +the time being forgot. The place was the hospital, or segregation +ward, and a week of imprisonment was spent therein, in which nothing +happened in the way of development of germ diseases, and nothing happened +to him except regular good food, pure drinking-water, and absolute isolation +from contact with all life save the youth-god who, like an automaton, +attended on him.</p> +<p>Michael had yet to meet Harris Collins, although, from a distance, +often he heard his voice, not loud, but very imperative. That +the owner of this voice was a high god, Michael knew from the first +sound of it. Only a high god, a master over ordinary gods, could +be so imperative. Will was in that voice, and accustomedness to +command. Any dog would have so decided as quickly as Michael did. +And any dog would have decided that there was no love nor lovableness +in the god behind the voice, nothing to warm one’s heart nor to +adore.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> +<p>It was at eleven in the morning that the pale youth-god put collar +and chain on Michael, led him out of the segregation ward, and turned +him over to a dark youth-god who wasted no time of greeting on him and +manifested no friendliness. A captive at the end of a chain, on +the way Michael quickly encountered other captives going in his direction. +There were three of them, and never had he seen the like. Three +slouching, ambling monsters of bears they were, and at sight of them +Michael bristled and uttered the lowest of growls; for he knew them, +out of his heredity (as a domestic cow knows her first wolf), as immemorial +enemies from the wild. But he had travelled too far, seen too +much, and was altogether too sensible, to attack them. Instead, +walking stiff-legged and circumspectly, but smelling with all his nose +the strange scent of the creatures, he followed at the end of his chain +his own captor god.</p> +<p>Continually a multitude of strange scents invaded his nostrils. +Although he could not see through walls, he got the smells he was later +to identify of lions, leopards, monkeys, baboons, and seals and sea-lions. +All of which might have stunned an ordinary dog; but the effect on him +was to make him very alert and at the same time very subdued. +It was as if he walked in a new and monstrously populous jungle and +was unacquainted with its ways and denizens.</p> +<p>As he was entering the arena, he shied off to the side more stiff-leggedly +than ever, bristled all along his neck and back, and growled deep and +low in his throat. For, emerging from the arena, came five elephants. +Small elephants they were, but to him they were the hugest of monsters, +in his mind comparable only with the cow-whale of which he had caught +fleeting glimpses when she destroyed the schooner <i>Mary Turner</i>. +But the elephants took no notice of him, each with its trunk clutching +the tail of the one in front of it as it had been taught to do in making +an exit.</p> +<p>Into the arena, he came, the bears following on his heels. +It was a sawdust circle the size of a circus ring, contained inside +a square building that was roofed over with glass. But there were +no seats about the ring, since spectators were not tolerated. +Only Harris Collins and his assistants, and buyers and sellers of animals +and men in the profession, were ever permitted to behold how animals +were tormented into the performance of tricks to make the public open +its mouth in astonishment or laughter.</p> +<p>Michael forgot about the bears, who were quickly at work on the other +side of the circle from that to which he was taken. Some men, +rolling out stout bright-painted barrels which elephants could not crush +by sitting on, attracted his attention for a moment. Next, in +a pause on the part of the man who led him, he regarded with huge interest +a piebald Shetland pony. It lay on the ground. A man sat +on it. And ever and anon it lifted its head from the sawdust and +kissed the man. This was all Michael saw, yet he sensed something +wrong about it. He knew not why, had no evidence why, but he felt +cruelty and power and unfairness. What he did not see was the +long pin in the man’s hand. Each time he thrust this in +the pony’s shoulder, the pony, stung by the pain and reflex action, +lifted its head, and the man was deftly ready to meet the pony’s +mouth with his own mouth. To an audience the impression would +be that in such fashion the pony was expressing its affection for the +master.</p> +<p>Not a dozen feet away another Shetland, a coal-black one, was behaving +as peculiarly as it was being treated. Ropes were attached to +its forelegs, each rope held by an assistant, who jerked on the same +stoutly when a third man, standing in front of the pony, tapped it on +the knees with a short, stiff whip of rattan. Whereupon the pony +went down on its knees in the sawdust in a genuflection to the man with +the whip. The pony did not like it, sometimes so successfully +resisting with spread, taut legs and mutinous head-tossings, as to overcome +the jerk of the ropes, and, at the same time wheeling, to fall heavily +on its side or to uprear as the pull on the ropes was relaxed. +But always it was lined up again to face the man who rapped its knees +with the rattan. It was being taught merely how to kneel in the +way that is ever a delight to the audiences who see only the results +of the schooling and never dream of the manner of the schooling. +For, as Michael was quickly sensing, knowledge was here learned by pain. +In short, this was the college of pain, this Cedarwild Animal School.</p> +<p>Harris Collins himself nodded the dark youth-god up to him, and turned +an inquiring and estimating gaze on Michael.</p> +<p>“The Del Mar dog, sir,” said the youth-god.</p> +<p>Collins’s eyes brightened, and he looked Michael over more +carefully.</p> +<p>“Do you know what he can do?” he queried.</p> +<p>The youth shook his head.</p> +<p>“Harry was a keen one,” Collins went on, apparently to +the youth-god but mostly for his own benefit, being given to thinking +aloud. “He picked this dog as a winner. And now what +can he do? That’s the question. Poor Harry’s +gone, and we don’t know what he can do.—Take off the chain.”</p> +<p>Released Michael regarded the master-god and waited for what might +happen. A squall of pain from one of the bears across the ring +hinted to him what he might expect.</p> +<p>“Come here,” Collins commanded in his cold, hard tones.</p> +<p>Michael came and stood before him.</p> +<p>“Lie down!”</p> +<p>Michael lay down, although he did it slowly, with advertised reluctance.</p> +<p>“Damned thoroughbred!” Collins sneered at him. +“Won’t put any pep into your motions, eh? Well, we’ll +take care of that.—Get up!—Lie down!—Get up!—Lie +down!—Get up!”</p> +<p>His commands were staccato, like revolver shots or the cracks of +whips, and Michael obeyed them in his same slow, reluctant way.</p> +<p>“Understands English, at any rate,” said Collins.</p> +<p>“Wonder if he can turn the double flip,” he added, expressing +the golden dream of all dog-trainers. “Come on, we’ll +try him for a flip. Put the chain on him. Come over here, +Jimmy. Put another lead on him.”</p> +<p>Another reform-school graduate youth obeyed, snapping a girth about +Michael’s loins, to which was attached a thin rope.</p> +<p>“Line him up,” Collins commanded. “Ready?—Go!”</p> +<p>And the most amazing, astounding indignity was wreaked upon Michael. +At the word “Go!”, simultaneously, the chain on his collar +jerked him up and back in the air, the rope on his hindquarters jerked +that portion of him under, forward, and up, and the still short stick +in Collins’s hand hit him under the lower jaw. Had he had +any previous experience with the manoeuvre, he would have saved himself +part of the pain at least by springing and whirling backward in the +air. As it was, he felt as if being torn and wrenched apart while +at the same time the blow under his jaw stung him and almost dazed him. +And, at the same time, whirled violently into the air, he fell on the +back of his head in the sawdust.</p> +<p>Out of the sawdust he soared in rage, neck-hair erect, throat a-snarl, +teeth bared to bite, and he would have sunk his teeth into the flesh +of the master-god had he not been the slave of cunning formula. +The two youths knew their work. One tightened the lead ahead, +the other to the rear, and Michael snarled and bristled his impotent +wrath. Nothing could he do, neither advance, nor retreat, nor +whirl sideways. The youth in front by the chain prevented him +from attacking the youth behind, and the youth behind, with the rope, +prevented him from attacking the youth in front, and both prevented +him from attacking Collins, whom he knew incontrovertibly to be the +master of evil and hurt.</p> +<p>Michael’s wrath was as superlative as was his helplessness. +He could only bristle and tear his vocal chords with his rage. +But it was a very ancient and boresome experience to Collins. +He was even taking advantage of the moment to glance across the arena +and size up what the bears were doing.</p> +<p>“Oh, you thoroughbred,” he sneered at Michael, returning +his attention to him. “Slack him! Let go!”</p> +<p>The instant his bonds were released, Michael soared at Collins, and +Collins, timing and distancing with the accuracy of long years, kicked +him under the jaw and whirled him back and down into the sawdust.</p> +<p>“Hold him!” Collins ordered. “Line him out!”</p> +<p>And the two youths, pulling in opposite directions with chain and +rope, stretched him into helplessness.</p> +<p>Collins glanced across the ring to the entrance, where two teams +of heavy draft-horses were entering, followed by a woman dressed to +over-dressedness in the last word of a stylish street-costume.</p> +<p>“I fancy he’s never done any flipping,” Collins +remarked, coming back to the problem of Michael for a moment. +“Take off your lead, Jimmy, and go over and help Smith.—Johnny, +hold him to one side there and mind your legs. Here comes Miss +Marie for her first lesson, and that mutt of a husband of hers can’t +handle her.”</p> +<p>Michael did not understand the scene that followed, which he witnessed, +for the youth led him over to look on at the arranging of the woman +and the four horses. Yet, from her conduct, he sensed that she, +too, was captive and ill-treated. In truth, she was herself being +trained unwillingly to do a trick. She had carried herself bravely +right to the moment of the ordeal, but the sight of the four horses, +ranged two and two opposing her, with the thing patent that she was +to hold in her hands the hooks on the double-trees and form the link +that connected the two spans which were to pull in opposite directions—at +the sight of this her courage failed her and she shrank back, drooping +and cowering, her face buried in her hands.</p> +<p>“No, no, Billikens,” she pleaded to the stout though +youthful man who was her husband. “I can’t do it. +I’m afraid. I’m afraid.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense, madam,” Collins interposed. “The +trick is absolutely safe. And it’s a good one, a money-maker. +Straighten up a moment.” With his hands he began feeling +out her shoulders and back under her jacket. “The apparatus +is all right.” He ran his hands down her arms. “Now! +Drop the hooks.” He shook each arm, and from under each +of the fluffy lace cuffs fell out an iron hook fast to a thin cable +of steel that evidently ran up her sleeves. “Not that way! +Nobody must see. Put them back. Try it again. They +must come down hidden in your palms. Like this. See.—That’s +it. That’s the idea.”</p> +<p>She controlled herself and strove to obey, though ever and anon she +cast appealing glances to Billikens, who stood remote and aloof, his +brows wrinkled with displeasure.</p> +<p>Each of the men driving the harnessed spans lifted up the double-trees +so that the girl could grasp the hooks. She tried to take hold, +but broke down again.</p> +<p>“If anything breaks, my arms will be torn out of me,” +she protested.</p> +<p>“On the contrary,” Collins reassured her. “You +will lose merely most of your jacket. The worst that can happen +will be the exposure of the trick and the laugh on you. But the +apparatus isn’t going to break. Let me explain again. +The horses do not pull against you. They pull against each other. +The audience thinks that they are pulling against you.—Now try +once more. Take hold the double-trees, and at the same moment +slip down the hooks and connect.—Now!”</p> +<p>He spoke sharply. She shook the hooks down out of her sleeves, +but drew back from grasping the double-trees. Collins did not +betray his vexation. Instead, he glanced aside to where the kissing +pony and the kneeling pony were leaving the ring. But the husband +raged at her:</p> +<p>“By God, Julia, if you throw me down this way!”</p> +<p>“Oh, I’ll try, Billikens,” she whimpered. +“Honestly, I’ll try. See! I’m not afraid +now.”</p> +<p>She extended her hands and clasped the double-trees. With a +thin writhe of a smile, Collins investigated the insides of her clenched +hands to make sure that the hooks were connected.</p> +<p>“Now brace yourself! Spread your legs. And straighten +out.” With his hands he manipulated her arms and shoulders +into position. “Remember, you’ve got to meet the first +of the strain with your arms straight out. After the strain is +on, you couldn’t bend ’em if you wanted to. But if +the strain catches them bent, the wire’ll rip the hide off of +you. Remember, straight out, extended, so that they form a straight +line with each other and with the flat of your back and shoulders. +That’s it. Ready now.”</p> +<p>“Oh, wait a minute,” she begged, forsaking the position. +“I’ll do it—oh, I will do it, but, Billikens, kiss +me first, and then I won’t care if my arms are pulled out.”</p> +<p>The dark youth who held Michael, and others looking on, grinned. +Collins dissembled whatever grin might have troubled for expression, +and murmured:</p> +<p>“All the time in the world, madam. The point is, the +first time must come off right. After that you’ll have the +confidence.—Bill, you’d better love her up before she tackles +it.”</p> +<p>And Billikens, very angry, very disgusted, very embarrassed, obeyed, +putting his arms around his wife and kissing her neither too perfunctorily +nor very long. She was a pretty young thing of a woman, perhaps +twenty years old, with an exceedingly childish, girlish face and a slender-waisted, +generously moulded body of fully a hundred and forty pounds.</p> +<p>The embrace and kiss of her husband put courage into her. She +stiffened and steeled herself, and with compressed lips, as he stepped +clear of her, muttered, “Ready.”</p> +<p>“Go!” Collins commanded.</p> +<p>The four horses, under the urge of the drivers, pressed lazily into +their collars and began pulling.</p> +<p>“Give ’em the whip!” Collins barked, his eyes on +the girl and noting that the pull of the apparatus was straight across +her.</p> +<p>The lashes fell on the horses’ rumps, and they leaped, and +surged, and plunged, with their huge steel-shod hoofs, the size of soup-plates, +tearing up the sawdust into smoke.</p> +<p>And Billikens forgot himself. The terribleness of the sight +painted the honest anxiety for the woman on his face. And her +face was a kaleidoscope. At the first, tense and fearful, it was +like that of a Christian martyr meeting the lions, or of a felon falling +through the trap. Next, and quickly, came surprise and relief +in that there was no hurt. And, finally, her face was proudly +happy with a smile of triumph. She even smiled to Billikens her +pride at making good her love to him. And Billikens relaxed and +looked love and pride back, until, on the spur of the second, Harris +Collins broke in:</p> +<p>“This ain’t a smiling act! Get that smile off your +face. The audience has got to think you’re carrying the +pull. Show that you are. Make your face stiff till it cracks. +Show determination, will-power. Show great muscular effort. +Spread your legs more. Bring up the muscles through your skirt +just as if you was really working. Let ’em pull you this +way a bit and that way a bit. Give ’em to. Spread +your legs more. Make a noise on your face as if you was being +pulled to pieces an’ that all that holds you is will-power.—That’s +the idea! That’s the stuff! It’s a winner, Bill! +It’s a winner!—Throw the leather into ’em! Make +’m jump! Make ’m get right down and pull the daylights +out of each other!”</p> +<p>The whips fell on the horses, and the horses struggled in all their +hugeness and might to pull away from the pain of the punishment. +It was a spectacle to win approval from any audience. Each horse +averaged eighteen hundredweight; thus, to the eye of the onlooker, seven +thousand two hundred pounds of straining horse-flesh seemed wrenching +and dragging apart the slim-waisted, delicately bodied, hundred-and-forty +pound woman in her fancy street costume. It was a sight to make +women in circus audiences scream with terror and turn their faces away.</p> +<p>“Slack down!” Collins commanded the drivers.</p> +<p>“The lady wins,” he announced, after the manner of a +ringmaster.—“Bill, you’ve got a mint in that turn.—Unhook, +madam, unhook!”</p> +<p>Marie obeyed, and, the hooks still dangling from her sleeves, made +a short run to Billikens, into whose arms she threw herself, her own +arms folding him about the neck as she exclaimed before she kissed him:</p> +<p>“Oh, Billikens, I knew I could do it all the time! I +was brave, wasn’t I!”</p> +<p>“A give-away,” Collins’s dry voice broke in on +her ecstasy. “Letting all the audience see the hooks. +They must go up your sleeves the moment you let go.—Try it again. +And another thing. When you finish the turn, no chestiness. +No making out how easy it was. Make out it was the very devil. +Show yourself weak, just about to collapse from the strain. Give +at the knees. Make your shoulders cave in. The ringmaster +will half step forward to catch you before you faint. That’s +your cue. Beat him to it. Stiffen up and straighten up with +an effort of will-power—will-power’s the idea, gameness, +and all that, and kiss your hands to the audience and make a weak, pitiful +sort of a smile, as though your heart’s been pulled ’most +out of you and you’ll have to go to the hospital, but for right +then that you’re game an’ smiling and kissing your hands +to the audience that’s riping the seats up and loving you.—Get +me, madam? You, Bill, get the idea! And see she does it.—Now, +ready! Be a bit wistful as you look at the horses.—That’s +it! Nobody’d guess you’d palmed the hooks and connected +them.—Straight out!—Let her go!”</p> +<p>And again the thirty-six-hundredweight of horses on either side pitted +its strength against the similar weight on the other side, and the seeming +was that Marie was the link of woman-flesh being torn asunder.</p> +<p>A third and a fourth time the turn was rehearsed, and, between turns, +Collins sent a man to his office, for the Del Mar telegram.</p> +<p>“You take her now, Bill,” he told Marie’s husband, +as, telegram in hand, he returned to the problem of Michael. “Give +her half a dozen tries more. And don’t forget, any time +any jay farmer thinks he’s got a span that can pull, bet him on +the side your best span can beat him. That means advance advertising +and some paper. It’ll be worth it. The ringmaster’ll +favour you, and your span can get the first jump. If I was young +and footloose, I’d ask nothing better than to go out with your +turn.”</p> +<p>Harris Collins, in the pauses gazing down at Michael, read Del Mar’s +Seattle telegram:</p> +<blockquote><p>“<i>Sell my dogs. You know what they can +do and what they are worth. Am done with them. Deduct the +board and hold the balance until I see you. I have the limit of +a dog. Every turn I ever pulled is put in the shade by this one. +He’s a ten strike. Wait till you see him</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Over to one side in the busy arena, Collins contemplated Michael.</p> +<p>“Del Mar was the limit himself,” he told Johnny, who +held Michael by the chain. “When he wired me to sell his +dogs it meant he had a better turn, and here’s only one dog to +show for it, a damned thoroughbred at that. He says it’s +the limit. It must be, but in heaven’s name, what is its +turn? It’s never done a flip in its life, much less a double +flip. What do you think, Johnny? Use your head. Suggest +something.”</p> +<p>“Maybe it can count,” Johnny advanced.</p> +<p>“And counting-dogs are a drug on the market. Well, anyway, +let’s try.”</p> +<p>And Michael, who knew unerringly how to count, refused to perform.</p> +<p>“If he was a regular dog, he could walk anyway,” was +Collins’ next idea. “We’ll try him.”</p> +<p>And Michael went through the humiliating ordeal of being jerked erect +on his hind legs by Johnny while Collins with the stick cracked him +under the jaw and across the knees. In his wrath, Michael tried +to bite the master-god, and was jerked away by the chain. When +he strove to retaliate on Johnny, that imperturbable youth, with extended +arm, merely lifted him into the air on his chain and strangled him.</p> +<p>“That’s off,” quoth Collins wearily. “If +he can’t stand on his hind legs he can’t barrel-jump—you’ve +heard about Ruth, Johnny. She was a winner. Jump in and +out of nail-kegs, on her hind legs, without ever touching with her front +ones. She used to do eight kegs, in one and out into the next. +Remember when she was boarded here and rehearsed. She was a gold-mine, +but Carson didn’t know how to treat her, and she croaked off with +penumonia at Cripple Creek.”</p> +<p>“Wonder if he can spin plates on his nose,” Johnny volunteered.</p> +<p>“Can’t stand up on hind legs,” Collins negatived. +“Besides, nothing like the limit in a turn like that. This +dog’s got a specially. He ain’t ordinary. He +does some unusual thing unusually well, and it’s up to us to locate +it. That comes of Harry dying so inconsiderately and leaving this +puzzle-box on my hands. I see I just got to devote myself to him. +Take him away, Johnny. Number Eighteen for him. Later on +we can put him in the single compartments.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> +<p>Number Eighteen was a big compartment or cage in the dog row, large +enough with due comfort for a dozen Irish terriers like Michael. +For Harris Collins was scientific. Dogs on vacation, boarding +at the Cedarwild Animal School, were given every opportunity to recuperate +from the hardships and wear and tear of from six months to a year and +more on the road. It was for this reason that the school was so +popular a boarding-place for performing animals when the owners were +on vacation or out of “time.” Harris Collins kept +his animals clean and comfortable and guarded from germ diseases. +In short, he renovated them against their next trips out on vaudeville +time or circus engagement.</p> +<p>To the left of Michael, in Number Seventeen, were five grotesquely +clipped French poodles. Michael could not see them, save when +he was being taken out or brought back, but he could smell them and +hear them, and, in his loneliness, he even started a feud of snarling +bickeringness with Pedro, the biggest of them who acted as clown in +their turn. They were aristocrats among performing animals, and +Michael’s feud with Pedro was not so much real as play-acted. +Had he and Pedro been brought together they would have made friends +in no time. But through the slow monotonous drag of the hours +they developed a fictitious excitement and interest in mouthing their +quarrel which each knew in his heart of hearts was no quarrel at all.</p> +<p>In Number Nineteen, on Michael’s right, was a sad and tragic +company. They were mongrels, kept spotlessly and germicidally +clean, who were unattached and untrained. They composed a sort +of reserve of raw material, to be worked into established troupes when +an extra one or a substitute was needed. This meant the hell of +the arena where the training went on. Also, in spare moments, +Collins, or his assistants, were for ever trying them out with all manner +of tricks in the quest of special aptitudes on their parts. Thus, +a mongrel semblance to a cooker spaniel of a dog was tried out for several +days as a pony-rider who would leap through paper hoops from the pony’s +back, and return upon the back again. After several falls and +painful injuries, it was rejected for the feat and tried out as a plate-balancer. +Failing in this, it was made into a see-saw dog who, for the rest of +the turn, filled into the background of a troupe of twenty dogs.</p> +<p>Number Nineteen was a place of perpetual quarrelling and pain. +Dogs, hurt in the training, licked their wounds, and moaned, or howled, +or were irritable to excess on the slightest provocation. Always, +when a new dog entered—and this was a regular happening, for others +were continually being taken away to hit the road—the cage was +vexed with quarrels and battles, until the new dog, by fighting or by +non resistance, had commanded or been taught its proper place.</p> +<p>Michael ignored the denizens of Number Nineteen. They could +sniff and snarl belligerently across at him, but he took no notice, +reserving his companionship for the play-acted and perennial quarrel +with Pedro. Also, Michael was out in the arena more often and +far longer hours than any of them.</p> +<p>“Trust Harry not to make a mistake on a dog,” was Collins’s +judgment; and constantly he strove to find in Michael what had made +Del Mar declare him a ten strike and the limit.</p> +<p>Every indignity, in the attempt to find out, was wreaked upon Michael. +They tried him at hurdle-jumping, at walking on forelegs, at pony-riding, +at forward flips, and at clowning with other dogs. They tried +him at waltzing, all his legs cord-fastened and dragged and jerked and +slacked under him. They spiked his collar in some of the attempted +tricks to keep him from lurching from side to side or from falling forward +or backward. They used the whip and the rattan stick; and twisted +his nose. They attempted to make a goal-keeper of him in a football +game between two teams of pain-driven and pain-bitten mongrels. +And they dragged him up ladders to make him dive into a tank of water.</p> +<p>Even they essayed to make him “loop the loop”—rushing +him down an inclined trough at so high speed of his legs, accelerated +by the slash of whips on his hindquarters, that, with such initial momentum, +had he put his heart and will into it, he could have successfully run +up the inside of the loop, and across the inside of the top of it, back-downward, +like a fly on the ceiling, and on and down and around and out of the +loop. But he refused the will and the heart, and every time, when +he was unable at the beginning to leap sideways out of the inclined +trough, he fell grievously from the inside of the loop, bruising and +injuring himself.</p> +<p>“It isn’t that I expect these things are what Harry had +in mind,” Collins would say, for always he was training his assistants; +“but that through them I may get a cue to his specially, whatever +in God’s name it is, that poor Harry must have known.”</p> +<p>Out of love, at the wish of his love-god, Steward, Michael would +have striven to learn these tricks and in most of them would have succeeded. +But here at Cedarwild was no love, and his own thoroughbred nature made +him stubbornly refuse to do under compulsion what he would gladly have +done out of love. As a result, since Collins was no thoroughbred +of a man, the clashes between them were for a time frequent and savage. +In this fighting Michael quickly learned he had no chance. He +was always doomed to defeat. He was beaten by stereotyped formula +before he began. Never once could he get his teeth into Collins +or Johnny. He was too common-sensed to keep up the battling in +which he would surely have broken his heart and his body and gone dumb +mad. Instead, he retired into himself, became sullen, undemonstrative, +and, though he never cowered in defeat, and though he was always ready +to snarl and bristle his hair in advertisement that inside he was himself +and unconquered, he no longer burst out in furious anger.</p> +<p>After a time, scarcely ever trying him out on a new trick, the chain +and Johnny were dispensed with, and with Collins he spent all Collins’s +hours in the arena. He learned, by bitter lessons, that he must +follow Collins around; and follow him he did, hating him perpetually +and in his own body slowly and subtly poisoning himself by the juices +of his glands that did not secrete and flow in quite their normal way +because of the pressure put upon them by his hatred.</p> +<p>The effect of this, on his body, was not perceptible. This +was because of his splendid constitution and health. Wherefore, +since the effect must be produced somewhere, it was his mind, or spirit, +or nature, or brain, or processes of consciousness, that received it. +He drew more and more within himself, became morose, and brooded much. +All of which was spiritually unhealthful. He, who had been so +merry-hearted, even merrier-hearted than his brother Jerry, began to +grow saturnine, and peevish, and ill-tempered. He no longer experienced +impulses to play, to romp around, to run about. His body became +as quiet and controlled as his brain. Human convicts, in prisons, +attain this quietude. He could stand by the hour, to heel to Collins, +uninterested, infinitely bored, while Collins tortured some mongrel +creature into the performance of a trick.</p> +<p>And much of this torturing Michael witnessed. There were the +greyhounds, the high-jumpers and wide-leapers. They were willing +to do their best, but Collins and his assistants achieved the miracle, +if miracle it may be called, of making them do better than their best. +Their best was natural. Their better than best was unnatural, +and it killed some and shortened the lives of all. Rushed to the +springboard and the leap, always, after the take-off, in mid-air, they +had to encounter an assistant who stood underneath, an extraordinarily +long buggy-whip in hand, and lashed them vigorously. This made +them leap from the springboard beyond their normal powers, hurting and +straining and injuring them in their desperate attempt to escape the +whip-lash, to beat the whip-lash in the air and be past ere it could +catch their flying flanks and sting them like a scorpion.</p> +<p>“Never will a jumping dog jump his hardest,” Collins +told his assistants, “unless he’s made to. That’s +your job. That’s the difference between the jumpers I turn +out and some of these dub amateur-jumping outfits that fail to make +good even on the bush circuits.”</p> +<p>Collins continually taught. A graduate from his school, an +assistant who received from him a letter of recommendation, carried +a high credential of a sheepskin into the trained-animal world.</p> +<p>“No dog walks naturally on its hind legs, much less on its +forelegs,” Collins would say. “Dogs ain’t built +that way. <i>They have to be made to</i>, that’s all. +That’s the secret of all animal training. They have to. +You’ve got to make them. That’s your job. Make +them. Anybody who can’t, can’t make good in this factory. +Put that in your pipe and smoke it, and get busy.”</p> +<p>Michael saw, without fully appreciating, the use of the spiked saddle +on the bucking mule. The mule was fat and good-natured the first +day of its appearance in the arena. It had been a pet mule in +a family of children until Collins’s keen eyes rested on it; and +it had known only love and kindness and much laughter for its foolish +mulishness. But Collins’s eyes had read health, vigour, +and long life, as well as laughableness of appearance and action in +the long-eared hybrid.</p> +<p>Barney Barnato he was renamed that first day in the arena, when, +also, he received the surprise of his life. He did not dream of +the spike in the saddle, nor, while the saddle was empty, did it press +against him. But the moment Samuel Bacon, a negro tumbler, got +into the saddle, the spike sank home. He knew about it and was +prepared. But Barney, taken by surprise, arched his back in the +first buck he had ever made. It was so prodigious a buck that +Collins eyes snapped with satisfaction, while Sam landed a dozen feet +away in the sawdust.</p> +<p>“Make good like that,” Collins approved, “and when +I sell the mule you’ll go along as part of the turn, or I miss +my guess. And it will be some turn. There’ll be at +least two more like you, who’ll have to be nervy and know how +to fall. Get busy. Try him again.”</p> +<p>And Barney entered into the hell of education that later won his +purchaser more time than he could deliver over the best vaudeville circuits +in Canada and the United States. Day after day Barney took his +torture. Not for long did he carry the spiked saddle. Instead, +bare-back, he received the negro on his back, and was spiked and set +bucking just the same; for the spike was now attached to Sam’s +palm by means of leather straps. In the end, Barney became so +“touchy” about his back that he almost began bucking if +a person as much as looked at it. Certainly, aware of the stab +of pain, he started bucking, whirling, and kicking whenever the first +signal was given of some one trying to mount him.</p> +<p>At the end of the fourth week, two other tumblers, white youths, +being secured, the complete, builded turn was performed for the benefit +of a slender, French-looking gentleman, with waxed moustaches. +In the end he bought Barney, without haggling, at Collins’s own +terms and engaged Sammy and the other two tumblers as well. Collins +staged the trick properly, as it would be staged in the theatre, even +had ready and set up all the necessary apparatus, and himself acted +as ringmaster while the prospective purchaser looked on.</p> +<p>Barney, fat as butter, humorous-looking, was led into the square +of cloth-covered steel cables and cloth-covered steel uprights. +The halter was removed and he was turned loose. Immediately he +became restless, the ears were laid back, and he was a picture of viciousness.</p> +<p>“Remember one thing,” Collins told the man who might +buy. “If you buy him, you’ll be ringmaster, and you +must never, never spike him. When he comes to know that, you can +always put your hands on him any time and control him. He’s +good-natured at heart, and he’s the gratefullest mule I’ve +ever seen in the business. He’s just got to love you, and +hate the other three. And one warning: if he goes real bad and +starts biting, you’ll have to pull out his teeth and feed him +soft mashes and crushed grain that’s steamed. I’ll +give you the recipe for the digestive dope you’ll have to put +in. Now—watch!”</p> +<p>Collins stopped into the ring and caressed Barney, who responded +in the best of tempers and tried affectionately to nudge and shove past +on the way out of the ropes to escape what he knew was coming.</p> +<p>“See,” Collins exposited. “He’s got +confidence in me. He trusts me. He knows I’ve never +spiked him and that I always save him in the end. I’m his +good Samaritan, and you’ll have to be the same to him if you buy +him.—Now I’ll give you your spiel. Of course, you +can improve on it to suit yourself.”</p> +<p>The master-trainer walked out of the rope square, stepped forward +to an imaginary line, and looked down and out and up as if he were gazing +at the pit of the orchestra beneath him, across at the body of the house, +and up into the galleries.</p> +<p>“Ladies and gentlemen,” he addressed the sawdust emptiness +before him as if it were a packed audience, “this is Barney Barnato, +the biggest joker of a mule ever born. He’s as affectionate +as a Newfoundland puppy—just watch—”</p> +<p>Stepping back to the ropes, Collins extended his hand across them, +saying: “Come here, Barney, and show all these people who you +love best.”</p> +<p>And Barney twinkled forward on his small hoofs, nozzled the open +hand, and came closer, nozzling up the arm, nudging Collins’s +shoulders with his nose, half-rearing as if to get across the ropes +and embrace him. What he was really doing was begging and entreating +Collins to take him away out of the squared ring from the torment he +knew awaited him.</p> +<p>“That’s what it means by never spiking him,” Collins +shot at the man with the waxed moustaches, as he stepped forward to +the imaginary line in the sawdust, above the imaginary pit of the orchestra, +and addressed the imaginary house.</p> +<p>“Ladies and gentlemen, Barney Barnato is a josher. He’s +got forty tricks up each of his four legs, and the man don’t live +that he’ll let stick on big back for sixty seconds. I’m +telling you this in fair warning, before I make my proposition. +Looks easy, doesn’t it?—one minute, the sixtieth part of +an hour, to be precise, sixty seconds, to stick on the back of an affectionate +josher mule like Barney. Well, come on you boys and broncho riders. +To anybody who sticks on for one minute I shall immediately pay the +sum of fifty dollars; for two whole, entire minutes, the sum of five +hundred dollars.”</p> +<p>This was the cue for Samuel Bacon, who advanced across the sawdust, +awkward and grinning and embarrassed, and apparently was helped up to +the stage by the extended hand of Collins.</p> +<p>“Is your life insured?” Collins demanded.</p> +<p>Sam shook his head and grinned.</p> +<p>“Then what are you tackling this for?”</p> +<p>“For the money,” said Sam. “I jes’ +naturally needs it in my business.”</p> +<p>“What is your business?”</p> +<p>“None of your business, mister.” Here Sam grinned +ingratiating apology for his impertinence and shuffled on his legs. +“I might be investin’ in lottery tickets, only I ain’t. +Do I get the money?—that’s <i>our</i> business.”</p> +<p>“Sure you do,” Collins replied. “When you +earn it. Stand over there to one side and wait a moment.—Ladies +and gentlemen, if you will forgive the delay, I must ask for more volunteers.—Any +more takers? Fifty dollars for sixty seconds. Almost a dollar +a second . . . if you win. Better! I’ll make it a +dollar a second. Sixty dollars to the boy, man, woman, or girl +who sticks on Barney’s back for one minute. Come on, ladies. +Remember this is the day of equal suffrage. Here’s where +you put it over on your husbands, brothers, sons, fathers, and grandfathers. +Age is no limit.—Grandma, do I get you?” he uttered directly +to what must have been a very elderly lady in a near front row.—“You +see,” (to the prospective buyer), “I’ve got the entire +patter for you. You could do it with two rehearsals, and you can +do them right here, free of charge, part of the purchase.”</p> +<p>The next two tumblers crossed the sawdust and were helped by Collins +up to the imaginary stage.</p> +<p>“You can change the patter according to the cities you’re +in,” he explained to the Frenchman. “It’s easy +to find out the names of the most despised and toughest neighbourhoods +or villages, and have the boys hail from them.”</p> +<p>Continuing the patter, Collins put the performance on. Sam’s +first attempt was brief. He was not half on when he was flung +to the ground. Half a dozen attempts, quickly repeated, were scarcely +better, the last one permitting him to remain on Barney’s back +nearly ten seconds, and culminating in a ludicrous fall over Barney’s +head. Sam withdrew from the ring, shaking his head dubiously and +holding his side as if in pain. The other lads followed. +Expert tumblers, they executed most amazing and side-splitting fails. +Sam recovered and came back. Toward the last, all three made a +combined attack on Barney, striving to mount him simultaneously from +different slants of approach. They were scattered and flung like +chaff, sometimes falling heaped together. Once, the two white +boys, standing apart as if recovering breath, were mowed down by Sam’s +flying body.</p> +<p>“Remember, this is a real mule,” Collins told the man +with the waxed moustaches. “If any outsiders butt in for +a hack at the money, all the better. They’ll get theirs +quick. The man don’t live who can stay on his back a minute +. . . if you keep him rehearsed with the spike. He must live in +fear of the spike. Never let him slow up on it. Never let +him forget it. If you lay off any time for a few days, rehearse +him with the spike a couple of times just before you begin again, or +else he might forget it and queer the turn by ambling around with the +first outside rube that mounts him.</p> +<p>“And just suppose some rube, all hooks of arms and legs and +hands, is managing to stick on anyway, and the minute is getting near +up. Just have Sam here, or any of your three, slide in and spike +him from the palm. That’ll be good night for Mr. Rube. +You can’t lose, and the audience’ll laugh its fool head +off.</p> +<p>“Now for the climax! Watch! This always brings +the house down. Get busy you two!—Sam! Ready!”</p> +<p>While the white boys threatened to mount Barney from either side +and kept his attention engaged, Sam, from outside, in a sudden fit of +rage and desperation, made a flying dive across the ropes and from in +front locked arms and legs about Barney’s neck, tucking his own +head close against Barney’s head. And Barney reared up on +his hind legs, as he had long since learned from the many palm-spikings +he had received on head and neck.</p> +<p>“It’s a corker,” Collins announced, as Barney, +on his hind legs, striking vainly with his fore, struggled about the +ring. “There’s no danger. He’ll never +fall over backwards. He’s a mule, and he’s too wise. +Besides, even if he does, all Sam has to do is let go and fall clear.”</p> +<p>The turn over, Barney gladly accepted the halter and was led out +of the square ring and up to the Frenchman.</p> +<p>“Long life there—look him over,” Collins continued +to sell. “It’s a full turn, including yourself, four +performers, besides the mule, and besides any suckers from the audience. +It’s all ready to put on the boards, and dirt cheap at five thousand.”</p> +<p>The Frenchman winced at the sum.</p> +<p>“Listen to arithmetic,” Collins went on. “You +can sell at twelve hundred a week at least, and you can net eight hundred +certain. Six weeks of the net pays for the turn, and you can book +a hundred weeks right off the bat and have them yelling for more. +Wish I was young and footloose. I’d take it out on the road +myself and coin a fortune.”</p> +<p>And Barney was sold, and passed out of the Cedarwild Animal School +to the slavery of the spike and to be provocative of much joy and laughter +in the pleasure-theatre of the world.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> +<p>“The thing is, Johnny, you can’t love dogs into doing +professional tricks, which is the difference between dogs and women,” +Collins told his assistant. “You know how it is with any +dog. You love it up into lying down and rolling over and playing +dead and all such dub tricks. And then one day you show him off +to your friends, and the conditions are changed, and he gets all excited +and foolish, and you can’t get him to do a thing. Children +are like that. Lose their heads in company, forget all their training, +and throw you down.”</p> +<p>“Now on the stage, they got real tricks to do, tricks they +don’t do, tricks they hate. And they mightn’t be feeling +good—got a touch of cold, or mange, or are sour-balled. +What are you going to do? Apologize to the audience? Besides, +on the stage, the programme runs like clockwork. Got to start +performing on the tick of the clock, and anywhere from one to seven +turns a day, all depending what kind of time you’ve got. +The point is, your dogs have got to get right up and perform. +No loving them, no begging them, no waiting on them. And there’s +only the one way. They’ve got to know when you start, you +mean it.”</p> +<p>“And dogs ain’t fools,” Johnny opined. “They +know when you mean anything, an’ when you don’t.”</p> +<p>“Sure thing,” Collins nodded approbation. “The +moment you slack up on them is the moment they slack up in their work. +You get soft, and see how quick they begin making mistakes in their +tricks. You’ve got to keep the fear of God over them. +If you don’t, they won’t, and you’ll find yourself +begging for spotted time on the bush circuits.”</p> +<p>Half an hour later, Michael heard, though he understood no word of +it, the master-trainer laying another law down to another assistant.</p> +<p>“Cross-breds and mongrels are what’s needed, Charles. +Not one thoroughbred in ten makes good, unless he’s got the heart +of a coward, and that’s just what distinguishes them from mongrels +and cross-breds. Like race-horses, they’re hot-blooded. +They’ve got sensitiveness, and pride. Pride’s the +worst. You listen to me. I was born into the business and +I’ve studied it all my life. I’m a success. +There’s only one reason I’m a success—I KNOW. +Get that. I KNOW.”</p> +<p>“Another thing is that cross-breds and mongrels are cheap. +You needn’t be afraid of losing them or working them out. +You can always get more, and cheap. And they ain’t the trouble +in teaching. You can throw the fear of God into them. That’s +what’s the matter with the thoroughbreds. You can’t +throw the fear of God into them.”</p> +<p>“Give a mongrel a real licking, and what’s he do? +He’ll kiss your hand, and be obedient, and crawl on his belly +to do what you want him to do. They’re slave dogs, that’s +what mongrels are. They ain’t got courage, and you don’t +want courage in a performing dog. You want fear. Now you +give a thoroughbred a licking and see what happens. Sometimes +they die. I’ve known them to die. And if they don’t +die, what do they do? Either they go stubborn, or vicious, or +both. Sometimes they just go to biting and foaming. You +can kill them, but you can’t keep them from biting and foaming. +Or they’ll go straight stubborn. They’re the worst. +They’re the passive resisters—that’s what I call them. +They won’t fight back. You can flog them to death, but it +won’t buy you anything. They’re like those Christians +that used to be burned at the stake or boiled in oil. They’ve +got their opinions, and nothing you can do will change them. They’ll +die first. . . . And they do. I’ve had them. I was +learning myself . . . and I learned to leave the thoroughbred alone. +They beat you out. They get your goat. You never get theirs. +And they’re time-wasters, and patience-wasters, and they’re +expensive.”</p> +<p>“Take this terrier here.” Collins nodded at Michael, +who stood several feet back of him, morosely regarding the various activities +of the arena. “He’s both kinds of a thoroughbred, +and therefore no good. I’ve never given him a real licking, +and I never will. It would be a waste of time. He’ll +fight if you press him too hard. And he’ll die fighting +you. He’s too sensible to fight if you don’t press +him too hard. And if you don’t press him too hard, he’ll +just stay as he is, and refuse to learn anything. I’d chuck +him right now, except Del Mar couldn’t make a mistake. Poor +Harry knew he had a specially, and a crackerjack, and it’s up +to me to find it.”</p> +<p>“Wonder if he’s a lion dog,” Charles suggested.</p> +<p>“He’s the kind that ain’t afraid of lions,” +Collins concurred. “But what sort of a specially trick could +he do with lions? Stick his head in their mouths? I never +heard of a dog doing that, and it’s an idea. But we can +try him. We’ve tried him at ’most everything else.”</p> +<p>“There’s old Hannibal,” said Charles. “He +used to take a woman’s head in his mouth with the old Sales-Sinker +shows.”</p> +<p>“But old Hannibal’s getting cranky,” Collins objected. +“I’ve been watching him and trying to get rid of him. +Any animal is liable to go off its nut any time, especially wild ones. +You see, the life ain’t natural. And when they do, it’s +good night. You lose your investment, and, if you don’t +know your business, maybe your life.”</p> +<p>And Michael might well have been tried out on Hannibal and have lost +his head inside that animal’s huge mouth, had not the good fortune +of apropos-ness intervened. For, the next moment, Collins was +listening to the hasty report of his lion-and-tiger keeper. The +man who reported was possibly forty years of age, although he looked +half as old again. He was a withered-faced man, whose face-lines, +deep and vertical, looked as if they had been clawed there by some beast +other than himself.</p> +<p>“Old Hannibal is going crazy,” was the burden of his +report.</p> +<p>“Nonsense,” said Harris Collins. “It’s +you that’s getting old. He’s got your goat, that’s +all. I’ll show it to you.—Come on along, all of you. +We’ll take fifteen minutes off of the work, and I’ll show +you a show never seen in the show-ring. It’d be worth ten +thousand a week anywhere . . . only it wouldn’t last. Old +Hannibal would turn up his toes out of sheer hurt feelings.—Come +on everybody! All hands! Fifteen minutes recess!”</p> +<p>And Michael followed at the heels of his latest and most terrible +master, the twain leading the procession of employees and visiting professional +animal men who trooped along behind. As was well known, when Harris +Collins performed he performed only for the élite, for the hoi-polloi +of the trained-animal world.</p> +<p>The lion-and-tiger man, who had clawed his own face with the beast-claws +of his nature, whimpered protest when he saw his employer’s preparation +to enter Hannibal’s cage; for the preparation consisted merely +in equipping himself with a broom-handle.</p> +<p>Hannibal was old, but he was reputed the largest lion in captivity, +and he had not lost his teeth. He was pacing up and down the length +of his cage, heavily and swaying, after the manner of captive animals, +when the unexpected audience erupted into the space before his cage. +Yet he took no notice whatever, merely continuing his pacing, swinging +his head from side to side, turning lithely at each end of his cage, +with all the air of being bent on some determined purpose.</p> +<p>“That’s the way he’s been goin’ on for two +days,” whimpered his keeper. “An’ when you go +near ’m, he just reaches for you. Look what he done to me.” +The man held up his right arm, the shirt and undershirt ripped to shreds, +and red parallel grooves, slightly clotted with blood, showing where +the claws had broken the skin. “An’ I wasn’t +inside. He did it through the bars, with one swipe, when I was +startin’ to clean his cage. Now if he’d only roar, +or something. But he never makes a sound, just keeps on goin’ +up an’ down.”</p> +<p>“Where’s the key?” Collins demanded. “Good. +Now let me in. And lock it afterward and take the key out. +Lose it, forget it, throw it away. I’ll have all the time +in the world to wait for you to find it to let me out.”</p> +<p>And Harris Collins, a sliver of a less than a light-weight man, who +lived in mortal fear that at table the mother of his children would +crown him with a plate of hot soup, went into the cage, before the critical +audience of his employees and professional visitors, armed only with +a broom-handle. Further, the door was locked behind him, and, +the moment he was in, keeping a casual but alert eye on the pacing Hannibal, +he reiterated his order to lock the door and remove the key.</p> +<p>Half a dozen times the lion paced up and down, declining to take +any notice of the intruder. And then, when his back was turned +as he went down the cage, Collins stepped directly in the way of his +return path and stood still. Coming back and finding his way blocked, +Hannibal did not roar. His muscular movements sliding each into +the next like so much silk of tawny hide, he struck at the obstacle +that confronted his way. But Collins, knowing ahead of the lion +what the lion was going to do, struck first, with the broom-handle rapping +the beast on its tender nose. Hannibal recoiled with a flash of +snarl and flashed back a second sweeping stroke of his mighty paw. +Again he was anticipated, and the rap on his nose sent him into recoil.</p> +<p>“Got to keep his head down—that way lies safety,” +the master-trainer muttered in a low, tense voice.</p> +<p>“Ah, would you? Take it, then.”</p> +<p>Hannibal, in wrath, crouching for a spring, had lifted his head. +The consequent blow on his nose forced his head down to the floor, and +the king of beasts, nose still to floor, backed away with mouth-snarls +and throat-and-chest noises.</p> +<p>“Follow up,” Collins enunciated, himself following, rapping +the nose again sharply and accelerating the lion’s backward retreat.</p> +<p>“Man is the boss because he’s got the head that thinks,” +Collins preached the lesson; “and he’s just got to make +his head boss his body, that’s all, so that he can think one thought +ahead of the animal, and act one act ahead. Watch me get his goat. +He ain’t the hard case he’s trying to make himself believe +he is. And that idea, which he’s just starting, has got +to be taken out of him. The broomstick will do it. Watch.”</p> +<p>He backed the animal down the length of the cage, continually rapping +at the nose and keeping it down to the floor.</p> +<p>“Now I’m going to pile him into the corner.”</p> +<p>And Hannibal, snarling, growling, and spitting, ducking his head +and with short paw-strokes trying to ward off the insistent broomstick, +backed obediently into the corner, crumpled up his hind-parts, and tried +to withdraw his corporeal body within itself in a pain-urged effort +to make it smaller. And always he kept his nose down and himself +harmless for a spring. In the thick of it he slowly raised his +nose and yawned. Nor, because it came up slowly, and because Collins +had anticipated the yawn by being one thought ahead of Hannibal in Hannibal’s +own brain, was the nose rapped.</p> +<p>“That’s the goat,” Collins announced, for the first +time speaking in a hearty voice in which was no vibration of strain. +“When a lion yawns in the thick of a fight, you know he ain’t +crazy. He’s sensible. He’s got to be sensible, +or he’d be springing or lashing out instead of yawning. +He knows he’s licked, and that yawn of his merely says: ‘I +quit. For the I love of Mike leave me alone. My nose is +awful sore. I’d like to get you, but I can’t. +I’ll do anything you want, and I’ll be dreadful good, but +don’t hit my poor sore nose.’</p> +<p>“But man is the boss, and he can’t afford to be so easy. +Drive the lesson home that you’re boss. Rub it in. +Don’t stop when he quits. Make him swallow the medicine +and lick the spoon. Make him kiss your foot on his neck holding +him down in the dirt. Make him kiss the stick that’s beaten +him.—Watch!”</p> +<p>And Hannibal, the largest lion in captivity, with all his teeth, +captured out of the jungle after he was full-grown, a veritable king +of beasts, before the menacing broomstick in the hand of a sliver of +a man, backed deeper and more crumpled together into the corner. +His back was bowed up, the very opposite muscular position to that for +a spring, while he drew his head more and more down and under his chest +in utter abjectness, resting his weight on his elbows and shielding +his poor nose with his massive paws, a single stroke of which could +have ripped the life of Collins quivering from his body.</p> +<p>“Now he might be tricky,” Collins announced, “but +he’s got to kiss my foot and the stick just the same. Watch!”</p> +<p>He lifted and advanced his left foot, not tentatively and hesitantly, +but quickly and firmly, bringing it to rest on the lion’s neck. +The stick was poised to strike, one act ahead of the lion’s next +possible act, as Collins’s mind was one thought ahead of the lion’s +next thought.</p> +<p>And Hannibal did the forecasted and predestined. His head flashed +up, huge jaws distended, fangs gleaming, to sink into the slender, silken-hosed +ankle above the tan low-cut shoes. But the fangs never sank. +They were scarcely started a fifth of the way of the distance, when +the waiting broomstick rapped on his nose and made him sink it in the +floor under his chest and cover it again with his paws.</p> +<p>“He ain’t crazy,” said Collins. “He +knows, from the little he knows, that I know more than him and that +I’ve got him licked to a fare-you-well. If he was crazy, +he wouldn’t know, and I wouldn’t know his mind either, and +I wouldn’t be that one jump ahead of him, and he’d get me +and mess the whole cage up with my insides.”</p> +<p>He prodded Hannibal with the end of the broom-handle, after each +prod poising it for a stroke. And the great lion lay and roared +in helplessness, and at each prod exposed his nose more and lifted it +higher, until, at the end, his red tongue ran out between his fangs +and licked the boot resting none too gently on his neck, and, after +that, licked the broomstick that had administered all the punishment.</p> +<p>“Going to be a good lion now?” Collins demanded, roughly +rubbing his foot back and forth on Hannibal’s neck.</p> +<p>Hannibal could not refrain from growling his hatred.</p> +<p>“Going to be a good lion?” Collins repeated, rubbing +his foot back and forth still more roughly.</p> +<p>And Hannibal exposed his nose and with his red tongue licked again +the tan shoe and the slender, tan-silken ankle that he could have destroyed +with one crunch.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> +<p>One friend Michael made among the many animals he encountered in +the Cedarwild School, and a strange, sad friendship it was. Sara +she was called, a small, green monkey from South America, who seemed +to have been born hysterical and indignant, and with no appreciation +of humour. Sometimes, following Collins about the arena, Michael +would meet her while she waited to be tried out on some new turn. +For, unable or unwilling to try, she was for ever being tried out on +turns, or, with little herself to do, as a filler-in for more important +performers.</p> +<p>But she always caused confusion, either chattering and squealing +with fright or bickering at the other animals. Whenever they attempted +to make her do anything, she protested indignantly; and if they tried +force, her squalls and cries excited all the animals in the arena and +set the work back.</p> +<p>“Never mind,” said Collins finally. “She’ll +go into the next monkey band we make up.”</p> +<p>This was the last and most horrible fate that could befall a monkey +on the stage, to be a helpless marionette, compelled by unseen sticks +and wires, poked and jerked by concealed men, to move and act throughout +an entire turn.</p> +<p>But it was before this doom was passed upon her that Michael made +her acquaintance. Their first meeting, she sprang suddenly at +him, a screaming, chattering little demon, threatening him with nails +and teeth. And Michael, already deep-sunk in habitual moroseness +merely looked at her calmly, not a ripple to his neck-hair nor a prick +to his ears. The next moment, her fuss and fury quite ignored, +she saw him turn his head away. This gave her pause. Had +he sprung at her, or snarled, or shown any anger or resentment such +as did the other dogs when so treated by her, she would have screamed +and screeched and raised a hubbub of expostulation, crying for help +and calling all men to witness how she was being unwarrantably attacked.</p> +<p>As it was, Michael’s unusual behaviour seemed to fascinate +her. She approached him tentatively, without further racket; and +the boy who had her in charge slacked the thin chain that held her.</p> +<p>“Hope he breaks her back for her,” was his unholy wish; +for he hated Sara intensely, desiring to be with the lions or elephants +rather than dancing attendance on a cantankerous female monkey there +was no reasoning with.</p> +<p>And because Michael took no notice of her, she made up to him. +It was not long before she had her hands on him, and, quickly after +that, an arm around his neck and her head snuggled against his. +Then began her interminable tale. Day after day, catching him +at odd times in the ring, she would cling closely to him and in a low +voice, running on and on, never pausing for breath, tell him, for all +he knew, the story of her life. At any rate, it sounded like the +story of her woes and of all the indignities which had been wreaked +upon her. It was one long complaint, and some of it might have +been about her health, for she sniffed and coughed a great deal and +her chest seemed always to hurt her from the way she had of continually +and gingerly pressing the palm of her hand to it. Sometimes, however, +she would cease her complaining, and love and mother him, uttering occasional +series of gentle mellow sounds that were like croonings.</p> +<p>Hers was the only hand of affection that was laid on him at Cedarwild, +and she was ever gentle, never pinching him, never pulling his ears. +By the same token, he was the only friend she had; and he came to look +forward to meeting her in the course of the morning work—and this, +despite that every meeting always concluded in a scene, when she fought +with her keeper against being taken away. Her cries and protests +would give way to whimperings and wailings, while the men about laughed +at the strangeness of the love-affair between her and the Irish terrier.</p> +<p>But Harris Collins tolerated, even encouraged, their friendship.</p> +<p>“The two sour-balls get along best together,” he said. +“And it does them good. Gives them something to live for, +and that way lies health. But some day, mark my words, she’ll +turn on him and give him what for, and their friendship will get a terrible +smash.”</p> +<p>And half of it he spoke with the voice of prophecy, and, though she +never turned on Michael, the day in the world was written when their +friendship would truly receive a terrible smash.</p> +<p>“Now seals are too wise,” Collins explained one day, +in a sort of extempore lecture to several of his apprentice trainers. +“You’ve just got to toss fish to them when they perform. +If you don’t, they won’t, and there’s an end of it. +But you can’t depend on feeding dainties to dogs, for instance, +though you can make a young, untrained pig perform creditably by means +of a nursing bottle hidden up your sleeve.”</p> +<p>“All you have to do is think it over. Do you think you +can make those greyhounds extend themselves with the promise of a bite +of meat? It’s the whip that makes them extend.—Look +over there at Billy Green. There ain’t another way to teach +that dog that trick. You can’t love her into doing it. +You can’t pay her to do it. There’s only one way, +and that’s <i>make</i> her.”</p> +<p>Billy Green, at the moment, was training a tiny, nondescript, frizzly-haired +dog. Always, on the stage, he made a hit by drawing from his pocket +a tiny dog that would do this particular trick. The last one had +died from a wrenched back, and he was now breaking in a new one. +He was catching the little mite by the hind-legs and tossing it up in +the air, where, making a half-flip and descending head first, it was +supposed to alight with its forefeet on his hand and there balance itself, +its hind feet and body above it in the air. Again and again he +stooped, caught her hind-legs and flung her up into the half-turn. +Almost frozen with fear, she vainly strove to effect the trick. +Time after time, and every time, she failed to make the balance. +Sometimes she fell crumpled; several times she all but struck the ground: +and once, she did strike, on her side and so hard as to knock the breath +out of her. Her master, taking advantage of the moment to wipe +the sweat from his streaming face, nudged her about with his toe till +she staggered weakly to her feet.</p> +<p>“The dog was never born that’d learn that trick for the +promise of a bit of meat,” Collins went on. “Any more +than was the dog ever born that’d walk on its forelegs without +having its hind-legs rapped up in the air with the stick a thousand +times. Yet you take that trick there. It’s always +a winner, especially with the women—so cunning, you know, so adorable +cute, to be yanked out of its beloved master’s pocket and to have +such trust and confidence in him as to allow herself to be tossed around +that way. Trust and confidence hell! He’s put the +fear of God into her, that’s what.”</p> +<p>“Just the same, to dig a dainty out of your pocket once in +a while and give an animal a nibble, always makes a hit with the audience. +That’s about all it’s good for, yet it’s a good stunt. +Audiences like to believe that the animals enjoy doing their tricks, +and that they are treated like pampered darlings, and that they just +love their masters to death. But God help all of us and our meal +tickets if the audiences could see behind the scenes. Every trained-animal +turn would be taken off the stage instanter, and we’d be all hunting +for a job.”</p> +<p>“Yes, and there’s rough stuff no end pulled off on the +stage right before the audience’s eyes. The best fooler +I ever saw was Lottie’s. She had a bunch of trained cats. +She loved them to death right before everybody, especially if a trick +wasn’t going good. What’d she do? She’d +take that cat right up in her arms and kiss it. And when she put +it down it’d perform the trick all right all right, while the +audience applauded its silly head off for the kindness and humaneness +she’d shown. Kiss it? Did she? I’ll tell +you what she did. She bit its nose.”</p> +<p>“Eleanor Pavalo learned the trick from Lottie, and used it +herself on her toy dogs. And many a dog works on the stage in +a spiked collar, and a clever man can twist a dog’s nose and nobody +in the audience any the wiser. But it’s the fear that counts. +It’s what the dog knows he’ll get afterward when the turn’s +over that keeps most of them straight.”</p> +<p>“Remember Captain Roberts and his great Danes. They weren’t +pure-breds, though. He must have had a dozen of them—toughest +bunch of brutes I ever saw. He boarded them here twice. +You couldn’t go among them without a club in your hand. +I had a Mexican lad laid up by them. He was a tough one, too. +But they got him down and nearly ate him. The doctors took over +forty stitches in him and shot him full of that Pasteur dope for hydrophobia. +And he always will limp with his right leg from what the dogs did to +him. I tell you, they were the limit. And yet, every time +the curtain went up, Captain Roberts brought the house down with the +first stunt. Those dogs just flocked all over him, loving him +to death, from the looks of it. And were they loving him? +They hated him. I’ve seen him, right here in the cage at +Cedarwild, wade into them with a club and whale the stuffing impartially +out of all of them. Sure, they loved him not. Just a bit +of the same old aniseed was what he used. He’d soak small +pieces of meat in aniseed oil and stick them in his pockets. But +that stunt would only work with a bunch of giant dogs like his. +It was their size that got it across. Had they been a lot of ordinary +dogs it would have looked silly. And, besides, they didn’t +do their regular tricks for aniseed. They did it for Captain Roberts’s +club. He was a tough bird himself.”</p> +<p>“He used to say that the art of training animals was the art +of inspiring them with fear. One of his assistants told me a nasty +one about him afterwards. They had an off month in Los Angeles, +and Captain Roberts got it into his head he was going to make a dog +balance a silver dollar on the neck of a champagne bottle. Now +just think that over and try to see yourself loving a dog into doing +it. The assistant said he wore out about as many sticks as dogs, +and that he wore out half a dozen dogs. He used to get them from +the public pound at two and a half apiece, and every time one died he +had another ready and waiting. And he succeeded with the seventh +dog. I’m telling you, it learned to balance a dollar on +the neck of a bottle. And it died from the effects of the learning +within a week after he put it on the stage. Abscesses in the lungs, +from the stick.”</p> +<p>“There was an Englishman came over when I was a youngster. +He had ponies, monkeys, and dogs. He bit the monkey’s ears, +so that, on the stage, all he had to do was to make a move as if he +was going to bite and they’d quit their fooling and be good. +He had a big chimpanzee that was a winner. It could turn four +somersaults as fast as you could count on the back of a galloping pony, +and he used to have to give it a real licking about twice a week. +And sometimes the lickings were too stiff, and the monkey’d get +sick and have to lay off. But the owner solved the problem. +He got to giving him a little licking, a mere taste of the stick, regular, +just before the turn came on. And that did it in his case, though +with some other case the monkey most likely would have got sullen and +not acted at all.”</p> +<p>It was on that day that Harris Collins sold a valuable bit of information +to a lion man who needed it. It was off time for him, and his +three lions were boarding at Cedarwild. Their turn was an exciting +and even terrifying one, when viewed from the audience; for, jumping +about and roaring, they were made to appear as if about to destroy the +slender little lady who performed with them and seemed to hold them +in subjection only by her indomitable courage and a small riding-switch +in her hand.</p> +<p>“The trouble is they’re getting too used to it,” +the man complained. “Isadora can’t prod them up any +more. They just won’t make a showing.”</p> +<p>“I know them,” Collins nodded. “They’re +pretty old now, and they’re spirit-broken besides. Take +old Sark there. He’s had so many blank cartridges fired +into his ears that he’s stone deaf. And Selim—he lost +his heart with his teeth. A Portuguese fellow who was handling +him for the Barnum and Bailey show did that for him. You’ve +heard?”</p> +<p>“I’ve often wondered,” the man shook his head. +“It must have been a smash.”</p> +<p>“It was. The Portuguese did it with an iron bar. +Selim was sulky and took a swipe at him with his paw, and he whopped +it to him full in the mouth just as he opened it to let out a roar. +He told me about it himself. Said Selim’s teeth rattled +on the floor like dominoes. But he shouldn’t have done it. +It was destroying valuable property. Anyway, they fired him for +it.”</p> +<p>“Well, all three of them ain’t worth much to me now,” +said their owner. “They won’t play up to Isadora in +that roaring and rampaging at the end. It really made the turn. +It was our finale, and we always got a great hand for it. Say, +what am I going to do about it anyway? Ditch it? Or get +some young lions?”</p> +<p>“Isadora would be safer with the old ones,” Collins said.</p> +<p>“Too safe,” Isadora’s husband objected. “Of +course, with younger lions, the work and responsibility piles up on +me. But we’ve got to make our living, and this turn’s +about busted.”</p> +<p>Harris Collins shook his head.</p> +<p>“What d’ye mean?—what’s the idea?” +the man demanded eagerly.</p> +<p>“They’ll live for years yet, seeing how captivity has +agreed with them,” Collins elucidated. “If you invest +in young lions you run the risk of having them pass out on you. +And you can go right on pulling the trick off with what you’ve +got. All you’ve got to do is to take my advice . . . ”</p> +<p>The master-trainer paused, and the lion man opened his mouth to speak.</p> +<p>“Which will cost you,” Collins went on deliberately, +“say three hundred dollars.”</p> +<p>“Just for some advice?” the other asked quickly.</p> +<p>“Which I guarantee will work. What would you have to +pay for three new lions? Here’s where you make money at +three hundred. And it’s the simplest of advice. I +can tell it to you in three words, which is at the rate of a hundred +dollars a word, and one of the words is ‘the.’”</p> +<p>“Too steep for me,” the other objected. “I’ve +got a make a living.”</p> +<p>“So have I,” Collins assured him. “That’s +why I’m here. I’m a specialist, and you’re paying +a specialist’s fee. You’ll be as mad as a hornet when +I tell you, it’s that simple; and for the life of me I can’t +understand why you don’t already know it.”</p> +<p>“And if it don’t work?” was the dubious query.</p> +<p>“If it don’t work, you don’t pay.”</p> +<p>“Well, shoot it along,” the lion man surrendered.</p> +<p>“<i>Wire the cage</i>,” said Collins.</p> +<p>At first the man could not comprehend; then the light began to break +on him.</p> +<p>“You mean . . . ?”</p> +<p>“Just that,” Collins nodded. “And nobody +need be the wiser. Dry batteries will do it beautifully. +You can install them nicely under the cage floor. All Isadora +has to do when she’s ready is to step on the button; and when +the electricity shoots through their feet, if they don’t go up +in the air and rampage and roar around to beat the band, not only can +you keep the three hundred, but I’ll give you three hundred more. +I know. I’ve seen it done, and it never misses fire. +It’s just as though they were dancing on a red-hot stove. +Up they go, and every time they come down they burn their feet again.</p> +<p>“But you’ll have to put the juice into them slowly,” +Collins warned. “I’ll show you how to do the wiring. +Just a weak battery first, so as they can work up to it, and then stronger +and stronger to the curtain. And they never get used to it. +As long as they live they’ll dance just as lively as the first +time. What do you think of it?”</p> +<p>“It’s worth three hundred all right,” the man admitted. +“I wish I could make my money that easy.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> +<p>“Guess I’ll have to wash my hands of him,” Collins +told Johnny. “I know Del Mar must have been right when he +said he was the limit, but I can’t get a clue to it.”</p> +<p>This followed upon a fight between Michael and Collins. Michael, +more morose than ever, had become even crusty-tempered, and, scarcely +with provocation at all, had attacked the man he hated, failing, as +ever, to put his teeth into him, and receiving, in turn, a couple of +smashing kicks under his jaw.</p> +<p>“He’s like a gold-mine all right all right,” Collins +meditated, “but I’m hanged if I can crack it, and he’s +getting grouchier every day. Look at him. What’d he +want to jump me for? I wasn’t rough with him. He’s +piling up a sour-ball that’ll make him fight a policeman some +day.”</p> +<p>A few minutes later, one of his patrons, a tow-headed young man who +was boarding and rehearsing three performing leopards at Cedarwild, +was asking Collins for the loan of an Airedale.</p> +<p>“I’ve only got one left now,” he explained, “and +I ain’t safe without two.”</p> +<p>“What’s happened to the other one?” the master-trainer +queried.</p> +<p>“Alphonso—that’s the big buck leopard—got +nasty this morning and settled his hash. I had to put him out +of his misery. He was gutted like a horse in the bull-ring. +But he saved me all right. If it hadn’t been for him I’d +have got a mauling. Alphonso gets these bad streaks just about +every so often. That’s the second dog he’s killed +for me.”</p> +<p>Collins shook his head.</p> +<p>“Haven’t got an Airedale,” he said, and just then +his eyes chanced to fall on Michael. “Try out the Irish +terrier,” he suggested. “They’re like the Airedale +in disposition. Pretty close cousins, at any rate.”</p> +<p>“I pin my faith on the Airedale when it comes to lion dogs,” +the leopard man demurred.</p> +<p>“So’s an Irish terrier a lion dog. Take that one +there. Look at the size and weight of him. Also, take it +from me, he’s all spunk. He’ll stand up to anything. +Try him out. I’ll lend him to you. If he makes good +I’ll sell him to you cheap. An Irish terrier for a leopard +dog will be a novelty.”</p> +<p>“If he gets fresh with them cats he’ll find his finish,” +Johnny told Collins, as Michael was led away by the leopard man.</p> +<p>“Then, maybe, the stage will lose a star,” Collins answered, +with a shrug of shoulders. “But I’ll have him off +my chest anyway. When a dog gets a perpetual sour-ball like that +he’s finished. Never can do a thing with them. I’ve +had them on my hands before.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>And Michael went to make the acquaintance of Jack, the surviving +Airedale, and to do his daily turn with the leopards. In the big +spotted cats he recognized the hereditary enemy, and, even before he +was thrust into the cage, his neck was all a-prickle as the skin nervously +tightened and the hair uprose stiff-ended. It was a nervous moment +for all concerned, the introduction of a new dog into the cage. +The tow-headed leopard man, who was billed on the boards as Raoul Castlemon +and was called Ralph by his intimates, was already in the cage. +The Airedale was with him, while outside stood several men armed with +iron bars and long steel forks. These weapons, ready for immediate +use, were thrust between the bars as a menace to the leopards who were, +very much against their wills, to be made to perform.</p> +<p>They resented Michael’s intrusion on the instant, spitting, +lashing their long tails, and crouching to spring. At the same +instant the trainer spoke with sharp imperativeness and raised his whip, +while the men on the outside lifted their irons and advanced them intimidatingly +into the cage. And the leopards, bitter-wise of the taste of the +iron, remained crouched, although they still spat and whipped their +tails angrily.</p> +<p>Michael was no coward. He did not slink behind the man for +protection. On the other hand, he was too sensible to rush to +attack such formidable creatures. What he did do, with bristling +neck-hair, was to stalk stiff-leggedly across the cage, turn about with +his face toward the danger, and stalk stiffly back, coming to a pause +alongside of Jack, who gave him a good-natured sniff of greeting.</p> +<p>“He’s the stuff,” the trainer muttered in a curiously +tense voice. “They don’t get his goat.”</p> +<p>The situation was deservedly tense, and Ralph developed it with cautious +care, making no abrupt movements, his eyes playing everywhere over dogs +and leopards and the men outside with the prods and bars. He made +the savage cats come out of their crouch and separate from one another. +At his word of command, Jack walked about among them. Michael, +on his own initiative, followed. And, like Jack, he walked very +stiffly on his guard and very circumspectly.</p> +<p>One of them, Alphonso, spat suddenly at him. He did not startle, +though his hair rippled erect and he bared his fangs in a silent snarl. +At the same moment the nearest iron bar was shoved in threateningly +close to Alphonso, who shifted his yellow eyes from Michael to the bar +and back again and did not strike out.</p> +<p>The first day was the hardest. After that the leopards accepted +Michael as they accepted Jack. No love was lost on either side, +nor were friendly overtures ever offered. Michael was quick to +realize that it was the men and dogs against the cats and that the men +and does must stand together. Each day he spent from an hour to +two hours in the cage, watching the rehearsing, with nothing for him +and Jack to do save stand vigilantly on guard. Sometimes, when +the leopards seemed better natured, Ralph even encouraged the two dogs +to lie down. But, on bad mornings, he saw to it that they were +ever ready to spring in between him and any possible attack.</p> +<p>For the rest of the time Michael shared his large pen with Jack. +They were well cared for, as were all animals at Cedarwild, receiving +frequent scrubbings and being kept clean of vermin. For a dog +only three years old, Jack was very sedate. Either he had never +learned to play or had already forgotten how. On the other hand, +he was sweet-tempered and equable, and he did not resent the early shows +of crustiness which Michael made. And Michael quickly ceased from +being crusty and took pleasure in their quiet companionship. There +were no demonstrations. They were content to lie awake by the +hour, merely pleasantly aware of each other’s proximity.</p> +<p>Occasionally, Michael could hear Sara making a distant scene or sending +out calls which he knew were for him. Once she got away from her +keeper and located Michael coming out of the leopard cage. With +a shrill squeal of joy she was upon him, clinging to him and chattering +the hysterical tale of all her woes since they had been parted. +The leopard man looked on tolerantly and let her have her few minutes. +It was her keeper who tore her away in the end, cling as she would to +Michael, screaming all the while like a harridan. When her hold +was broken, she sprang at the man in a fury, and, before he could throttle +her to subjection, sank her teeth into his thumb and wrist. All +of which was provocative of great hilarity to the onlookers, while her +squalls and cries excited the leopards to spitting and leaping against +their bars. And, as she was borne away, she set up a soft wailing +like that of a heart-broken child.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Although Michael proved a success with the leopards, Raoul Castlemon +never bought him from Collins. One morning, several days later, +the arena was vexed by uproar and commotion from the animal cages. +The excitement, starting with revolver shots, was communicated everywhere. +The various lions raised a great roaring, and the many dogs barked frantically. +All tricks in the arena stopped, the animals temporarily unstrung and +unable to continue. Several men, among them Collins, ran in the +direction of the cages. Sara’s keeper dropped her chain +in order to follow.</p> +<p>“It’s Alphonso—shillings to pence it is,” +Collins called to one of his assistants who was running beside him. +“He’ll get Ralph yet.”</p> +<p>The affair was all but over and leaping to its culmination when Collins +arrived. Castlemon was just being dragged out, and as Collins +ran he could see the two men drop him to the ground so that they might +slam the cage-door shut. Inside, in so wildly struggling a tangle +on the floor that it was difficult to discern what animals composed +it, were Alphonso, Jack, and Michael looked together. Men danced +about outside, thrusting in with iron bars and trying to separate them. +In the far end of the cage were the other two leopards, nursing their +wounds and snarling and striking at the iron rods that kept them out +of the combat.</p> +<p>Sara’s arrival and what followed was a matter of seconds. +Trailing her chain behind her, the little green monkey, the tailed female +who knew love and hysteria and was remote cousin to human women, flashed +up to the narrow cage-bars and squeezed through. Simultaneously +the tangle underwent a violent upheaval. Flung out with such force +as to be smashed against the near end of the cage, Michael fell to the +floor, tried to spring up, but crumpled and sank down, his right shoulder +streaming blood from a terrible mauling and crushing. To him Sara +leaped, throwing her arms around him and mothering him up to her flat +little hairy breast. She uttered solicitous cries, and, as Michael +strove to rise on his ruined foreleg, scolded him with sharp gentleness +and with her arms tried to hold him away from the battle. Also, +in an interval, her eyes malevolent in her rage, she chattered piercing +curses at Alphonso.</p> +<p>A crowbar, shoved into his side, distracted the big leopard. +He struck at the weapon with his paw, and, when it was poked into him +again, flung himself upon it, biting the naked iron with his teeth. +With a second fling he was against the cage bars, with a single slash +of paw ripping down the forearm of the man who had poked him. +The crowbar was dropped as the man leaped away. Alphonso flung +back on Jack, a sorry antagonist by this time, who could only pant and +quiver where he lay in the welter of what was left of him.</p> +<p>Michael had managed to get up on his three legs and was striving +to stumble forward against the restraining arms of Sara. The mad +leopard was on the verge of springing upon them when deflected by another +prod of the iron. This time he went straight at the man, fetching +up against the cage-bars with such fierceness as to shake the structure.</p> +<p>More men began thrusting with more rods, but Alphonso was not to +be balked. Sara saw him coming and screamed her shrillest and +savagest at him. Collins snatched a revolver from one of the men.</p> +<p>“Don’t kill him!” Castlemon cried, seizing Collins’s +arm.</p> +<p>The leopard man was in a bad way himself. One arm dangled helplessly +at his side, while his eyes, filling with blood from a scalp wound, +he wiped on the master-trainer’s shoulder so that he might see.</p> +<p>“He’s my property,” he protested. “And +he’s worth a hundred sick monkeys and sour-balled terriers. +Anyway, we’ll get them out all right. Give me a chance.—Somebody +mop my eyes out, please. I can’t see. I’ve used +up my blank cartridges. Has anybody any blanks?”</p> +<p>One moment Sara would interpose her body between Michael and the +leopard, which was still being delayed by the prodding irons; and the +next moment she would turn to screech at the fanged cat is if by very +advertisement of her malignancy she might intimidate him into keeping +back.</p> +<p>Michael, dragging her with him, growling and bristling, staggered +forward a couple of three-legged steps, gave at the ruined shoulder, +and collapsed. And then Sara did the great deed. With one +last scream of utmost fury, she sprang full into the face of the monstrous +cat, tearing and scratching with hands and feet, her mouth buried into +the roots of one of its stubby ears. The astounded leopard upreared, +with his forepaws striking and ripping at the little demon that would +not let go.</p> +<p>The fight and the life in the little green monkey lasted a short +ten seconds. But this was sufficient for Collins to get the door +ajar and with a quick clutch on Michael’s hind-leg jerk him out +and to the ground.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2> +<p>No rough-and-ready surgery of the Del Mar sort obtained at Cedarwild, +else Michael would not have lived. A real surgeon, skilful and +audacious, came very close to vivisecting him as he radically repaired +the ruin of a shoulder, doing things he would not have dared with a +human but which proved to be correct for Michael.</p> +<p>“He’ll always be lame,” the surgeon said, wiping +his hands and gazing down at Michael, who lay, for the most part of +him, a motionless prisoner set in plaster of Paris. “All +the healing, and there’s plenty of it, will have to be by first +intention. If his temperature shoots up we’ll have to put +him out of his misery. What’s he worth?”</p> +<p>“He has no tricks,” Collins answered. “Possibly +fifty dollars, and certainly not that now. Lame dogs are not worth +teaching tricks to.”</p> +<p>Time was to prove both men wrong. Michael was not destined +to permanent lameness, although in after-years his shoulder was always +tender, and, on occasion, when the weather was damp, he was compelled +to ease it with a slight limp. On the other hand, he was destined +to appreciate to a great price and to become the star performer Harry +Del Mar had predicted of him.</p> +<p>In the meantime he lay for many weary days in the plaster and abstained +from raising a dangerous temperature. The care taken of him was +excellent. But not out of love and affection was it given. +It was merely a part of the system at Cedarwild which made the institution +such a success. When he was taken out of the plaster, he was still +denied that instinctive pleasure which all animals take in licking their +wounds, for shrewdly arranged bandages were wrapped and buckled on him. +And when they were finally removed, there were no wounds to lick; though +deep in the shoulder was a pain that required months in which to die +out.</p> +<p>Harris Collins bothered him no more with trying to teach him tricks, +and, one day, loaned him as a filler-in to a man and woman who had lost +three of their dog-troupe by pneumonia.</p> +<p>“If he makes out you can have him for twenty dollars,” +Collins told the man, Wilton Davis.</p> +<p>“And if he croaks?” Davis queried.</p> +<p>Collins shrugged his shoulders. “I won’t sit up +nights worrying about him. He’s unteachable.”</p> +<p>And when Michael departed from Cedarwild in a crate on an express +wagon, he might well have never returned, for Wilton Davis was notorious +among trained-animal men for his cruelty to dogs. Some care he +might take of a particular dog with a particularly valuable trick, but +mere fillers-in came too cheaply. They cost from three to five +dollars apiece. Worse than that, so far as he was concerned, Michael +had cost nothing. And if he died it meant nothing to Davis except +the trouble of finding another dog.</p> +<p>The first stage of Michael’s new adventure involved no unusual +hardship, despite the fact that he was so cramped in his crate that +he could not stand up and that the jolting and handling of the crate +sent countless twinges of pain shooting through his shoulder. +The journey was only to Brooklyn, where he was duly delivered to a second-rate +theatre, Wilton Davis being so indifferent a second-rate animal man +that he could never succeed in getting time with the big circuits.</p> +<p>The hardship of the cramped crate began after Michael had been carried +into a big room above the stage and deposited with nearly a score of +similarly crated dogs. A sorry lot they were, all of them scrubs +and most of them spirit-broken and miserable. Several had bad +sores on their heads from being knocked about by Davis. No care +was taken of these sores, and they were not improved by the whitening +that was put on them for concealment whenever they performed. +Some of them howled lamentably at times, and every little while, as +if it were all that remained for them to do in their narrow cells, all +of them would break out into barking.</p> +<p>Michael was the only one who did not join in these choruses. +Long since, as one feature of his developing moroseness, he had ceased +from barking. He had become too unsociable for any such demonstrations; +nor did he pattern after the example of some of the sourer-tempered +dogs in the room, who were for ever bickering and snarling through the +slats of their cages. In fact, Michael’s sourness of temper +had become too profound even for quarrelling. All he desired was +to be let alone, and of this he had a surfeit for the first forty-eight +hours.</p> +<p>Wilton Davis had assembled his troupe ahead of time, so that the +change of programme was five days away. Having taken advantage +of this to go to see his wife’s people over in New Jersey, he +had hired one of the stage-hands to feed and water his dogs. This +the stage-hand would have done, had he not had the misfortune to get +into an altercation with a barkeeper which culminated in a fractured +skull and an ambulance ride to the receiving hospital. To make +the situation perfect for what followed, the theatre was closed for +three days in order to make certain alterations demanded by the Fire +Commissioners.</p> +<p>No one came near the room, and after several hours Michael grew aware +of hunger and thirst. The time passed, and the desire for food +was supplanted by the desire for water. By nightfall the barking +and yelping became continuous, changing through the long night hours +to whimpering and whining. Michael alone made no sound, suffering +dumbly in the bedlam of misery.</p> +<p>Morning of the second day dawned; the slow hours dragged by to the +second night; and the darkness of the second night drew down upon a +scene behind the scenes, sufficient of itself to condemn all trained-animal +acts in all theatres and show-tents of all the world. Whether +Michael dreamed or was in semi-delirium, there is no telling; but, whichever +it was, he lived most of his past life over again. Again he played +as a puppy on the broad verandas of <i>Mister</i> Haggin’s plantation +bungalow at Meringe; or, with Jerry, stalked the edges of the jungle +down by the river-bank to spy upon the crocodiles; or, learning from +<i>Mister</i> Haggin and Bob, and patterning after Biddy and Terrence, +to consider black men as lesser and despised gods who must for ever +be kept strictly in their places.</p> +<p>On the schooner <i>Eugénie</i> he sailed with Captain Kellar, +his second master, and on the beach at Tulagi lost his heart to Steward +of the magic fingers and sailed away with him and Kwaque on the steamer +<i>Makambo</i>. Steward was most in his visions, against a hazy +background of vessels, and of individuals like the Ancient Mariner, +Simon Nishikanta, Grimshaw, Captain Doane, and little old Ah Moy. +Nor least of all did Scraps appear, and Cocky, the valiant-hearted little +fluff of life gallantly bearing himself through his brief adventure +in the sun. And it would seem to Michael that on one side, clinging +to him, Cocky talked farrago in his ear, and on the other side Sara +clung to him and chattered an interminable and incommunicable tale. +And then, deep about the roots of his ears would seem to prod the magic, +caressing fingers of Steward the beloved.</p> +<p>“I just don’t I have no luck,” Wilton Davis mourned, +gazing about at his dogs, the air still vibrating with the string of +oaths he had at first ripped out.</p> +<p>“That comes of trusting a drunken stage-hand,” his wife +remarked placidly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if half +of them died on us now.”</p> +<p>“Well, this is no time for talk,” Davis snarled, proceeding +to take off his coat. “Get busy, my love, and learn the +worst. Water’s what they need. I’ll give them +a tub of it.”</p> +<p>Bucketful by bucketful, from the tap at the sink in the corner, he +filled a large galvanized-iron tub. At sound of the running water +the dogs began whimpering and yelping and moaning. Some tried +to lick his hands with their swollen tongues as he dragged them roughly +out of their cages. The weaker ones crawled and bellied toward +the tub, and were over-trod by the stronger ones. There was not +room for all, and the stronger ones drank first, with much fighting +and squabbling and slashing of fangs. Into the foremost of this +was Michael, slashing and being slashed, but managing to get hasty gulps +of the life-saving fluid. Davis danced about among them, kicking +right and left, so that all might have a chance. His wife took +a hand, laying about her with a mop. It was a pandemonium of pain, +for, their parched throats softened by the water, they were again able +to yelp and cry out loudly all their hurt and woe.</p> +<p>Several were too weak to get to the water, so it was carried to them +and doused and splashed into their mouths. It seemed that they +would never be satisfied. They lay in collapse all about the room, +but every little while one or another would crawl over to the tub and +try to drink more. In the meantime Davis had started a fire and +filled a caldron with potatoes.</p> +<p>“The place stinks like a den of skunks,” Mrs. Davis observed, +pausing from dabbing the end of her nose with a powder-puff. “Dearest, +we’ll just have to wash them.”</p> +<p>“All right, sweetheart,” her husband agreed. “And +the quicker the better. We can get through with it while the potatoes +are boiling and cooling. I’ll scrub them and you dry them. +Remember that pneumonia, and do it thoroughly.”</p> +<p>It was quick, rough bathing. Reaching out for the dogs nearest +him, he flung them in turn into the tub from which they had drunk. +When they were frightened, or when they objected in any way, he rapped +them on the head with the scrubbing brush or the bar of yellow laundry +soap with which he was lathering them. Several minutes sufficed +for a dog.</p> +<p>“Drink, damn you, drink—have some more,” he would +say, as he shoved their heads down and under the dirty, soapy water.</p> +<p>He seemed to hold them responsible for their horrible condition, +to look upon their filthiness as a personal affront.</p> +<p>Michael yielded to being flung into the tub. He recognized +that baths were necessary and compulsory, although they were administered +in much better fashion at Cedarwild, while Kwaque and Steward had made +a sort of love function of it when they bathed him. So he did +his best to endure the scrubbing, and all might have been well had not +Davis soused him under. Michael jerked his head up with a warning +growl. Davis suspended half-way the blow he was delivering with +the heavy brush, and emitted a low whistle of surprise.</p> +<p>“Hello!” he said. “And look who’s here!—Lovey, +this is the Irish terrier I got from Collins. He’s no good. +Collins said so. Just a fill-in.—Get out!” he commanded +Michael. “That’s all you get now, Mr. Fresh Dog. +But take it from me pretty soon you’ll be getting it fast enough +to make you dizzy.”</p> +<p>While the potatoes were cooling, Mrs. Davis kept the hungry dogs +warned away by sharp cries. Michael lay down sullenly to one side, +and took no part in the rush for the trough when permission was given. +Again Davis danced among them, kicking away the stronger and the more +eager.</p> +<p>“If they get to fighting after all we’ve done for them, +kick in their ribs, lovey,” he told his wife.</p> +<p>“There! You would, would you?”—this to a +large black dog, accompanied by a savage kick in the side. The +animal yelped its pain as it fled away, and, from a safe distance, looked +on piteously at the steaming food.</p> +<p>“Well, after this they can’t say I don’t never +give my dogs a bath,” Davis remarked from the sink, where he was +rinsing his arms. “What d’ye say we call it a day’s +work, my dear?” Mrs. Davis nodded agreement. “We +can rehearse them to-morrow and next day. That will be plenty +of time. I’ll run in to-night and boil them some bran. +They’ll need an extra meal after fasting two days.”</p> +<p>The potatoes finished, the dogs were put back in their cages for +another twenty-four hours of close confinement. Water was poured +into their drinking-tins, and, in the evening, still in their cages, +they were served liberally with boiled bran and dog-biscuit. This +was Michael’s first food, for he had sulkily refused to go near +the potatoes.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>The rehearsing took place on the stage, and for Michael trouble came +at the very start. The drop-curtain was supposed to go up and +reveal the twenty dogs seated on chairs in a semi-circle. Because, +while they were being thus arranged, the preceding turn was taking place +in front of the drop-curtain, it was imperative that rigid silence should +be kept. Next, when the curtain rose on full stage, the dogs were +trained to make a great barking.</p> +<p>As a filler-in, Michael had nothing to do but sit on a chair. +But he had to get upon the chair, first, and when Davis so ordered him +he accompanied the order with a clout on the side of the head. +Michael growled warningly.</p> +<p>“Oh, ho, eh?” the man sneered. “It’s +Fresh Dog looking for trouble. Well, you might as well get it +over with now so your name can be changed to Good Dog.—My dear, +just keep the rest of them in order while I teach Fresh Dog lesson number +one.”</p> +<p>Of the beating that followed, the least said the better. Michael +put up a fight that was hopeless, and was thoroughly beaten in return. +Bruised and bleeding, he sat on the chair, taking no part in the performance +and only sullenly engendering a deeper and bitterer sourness. +To keep silent before the curtain went up was no hardship for him. +But when the curtain did go up, he declined to join the rest of the +dogs in their frantic barking and yelping.</p> +<p>The dogs, sometimes alone and sometimes in couples and trios and +groups, left their chairs at command and performed the conventional +dog tricks such as walking on hind-legs, hopping, limping, waltzing, +and throwing somersaults. Wilton Davis’s temper was short +and his hand heavy throughout the rehearsal, as the shrill yelps of +pain from the lagging and stupid attested.</p> +<p>In all, during that day and the forenoon of the next, three long +rehearsals took place. Michael’s troubles ceased for the +time being. At command, he silently got on the chair and silently +sat there. “Which shows, dearest, what a bit of the stick +will do,” Davis bragged to his wife. Nor did the pair of +them dream of the scandalizing part Michael was going to play in their +first performance.</p> +<p>Behind the curtain all was ready on the full stage. The dogs +sat on their chairs in abject silence with Davis and his wife menacing +them to remain silent, while, in front of the curtain, Dick and Daisy +Bell delighted the matinée audience with their singing and dancing. +And all went well, and no one in the audience would have suspected the +full stage of dogs behind the curtain had not Dick and Daisy, accompanied +by the orchestra, begun to sing “Roll Me Down to Rio.”</p> +<p>Michael could not help it. Even as Kwaque had long before mastered +him by the jews’ harp, and Steward by love, and Harry Del Mar +by the harmonica, so now was he mastered by the strains of the orchestra +and the voices of the man and woman lifting the old familiar rhythm, +taught him by Steward, of “Roll Me Down to Rio.” Despite +himself, despite his sullenness, the forces compulsive opened his jaws +and set all his throat vibrating in accompaniment.</p> +<p>From beyond the curtain came a titter of children and women that +grew into a roar and drowned out the voices of Dick and Daisy. +Wilton Davis cursed unbelievably as he sprang down the stage to Michael. +But Michael howled on, and the audience laughed on. Michael was +still howling when the short club smote him. The shock and hurt +of it made him break off and yelp an involuntary cry of pain.</p> +<p>“Knock his block off, dearest,” Mrs. Davis counselled.</p> +<p>And then ensued battle royal. Davis struck shrewd blows that +could be heard, as were heard the snarls and growls of Michael. +The audience, under the sway of the comic, ignored Dick and Daisy Bell. +Their turn was spoiled. The Davis turn was “queered,” +as Wilton impressed it. Michael’s block was knocked off +within the meaning of the term. And the audience, on the other +side of the curtain, was edified and delighted.</p> +<p>Dick and Daisy could not continue. The audience wanted what +was behind the curtain, not in front of it. Michael was taken +off stage thoroughly throttled by one of the stage-hands, and the curtain +arose on the full set—full, save for the one empty chair. +The boys in the audience first realized the connection between the empty +chair and the previous uproar, and began clamouring for the absent dog. +The audience took up the cry, the dogs barked more excitedly, and five +minutes of hilarity delayed the turn which, when at last started, was +marked by rustiness and erraticness on the part of the dogs and by great +peevishness on the part of Wilton Davis.</p> +<p>“Never mind, honey,” his imperturbable wife assured him +in a stage whisper. “We’ll just ditch that dog and +get a regular one. And, anyway, we’ve put one over on that +Daisy Bell. I ain’t told you yet what she said about me, +only last week, to some of my friends.”</p> +<p>Several minutes later, still on the stage and handling his animals, +the husband managed a chance to mutter to his wife: “It’s +the dog. It’s him I’m after. I’m going +to lay him out.”</p> +<p>“Yes, dearest,” she agreed.</p> +<p>The curtain down, with a gleeful audience in front and with the dogs +back in the room over the stage, Wilton Davis descended to look for +Michael, who, instead of cowering in some corner, stood between the +legs of the stage-hand, quivering yet from his mishandling and threatening +to fight as hard as ever if attacked. On his way, Davis encountered +the song-and-dance couple. The woman was in a tearful rage, the +man in a dry one.</p> +<p>“You’re a peach of a dog man, you are,” he announced +belligerently. “Here’s where you get yours.”</p> +<p>“You keep away from me, or I’ll lay you out,” Wilton +Davis responded desperately, brandishing a short iron bar in his right +hand. “Besides, you just wait if you want to, and I’ll +lay you out afterward. But first of all I’m going to lay +out that dog. Come on along and see—damn him! How +was I to know? He was a new one. He never peeped in rehearsal. +How was I to know he was going to yap when we arranged the set behind +you?”</p> +<p>“You’ve raised hell,” the manager of the theatre +greeted Davis, as the latter, trailed by Dick Bell, came upon Michael +bristling from between the legs of the stage-hand.</p> +<p>“Nothing to what I’m going to raise,” Davis retorted, +shortening his grip on the iron bar and raising it. “I’m +going to kill ’m. I’m going to beat the life out of +him. You just watch.”</p> +<p>Michael snarled acknowledgment of the threat, crouched to spring, +and kept his eyes on the iron weapon.</p> +<p>“I just guess you ain’t goin’ to do anything of +the sort,” the stage-hand assured Davis.</p> +<p>“It’s my property,” the latter asserted with an +air of legal convincingness.</p> +<p>“And against it I’m goin’ to stack up my common +sense,” was the stage-hand’s reply. “You tap +him once, and see what you’ll get. Dogs is dogs, and men +is men, but I’m damned if I know what you are. You can’t +pull off rough stuff on that dog. First time he was on a stage +in his life, after being starved and thirsted for two days. Oh, +I know, Mr. Manager.”</p> +<p>“If you kill the dog it’ll cost you a dollar to the garbage +man to get rid of the carcass,” the manager took up.</p> +<p>“I’ll pay it gladly,” Davis said, again lifting +the iron bar. “I’ve got some come-back, ain’t +I?”</p> +<p>“You animal guys make me sick,” the stage-hand uttered. +“You just make me draw the line somewheres. And here it +is: you tap him once with that baby crowbar, and I’ll tap you +hard enough to lose me my job and to send you to hospital.”</p> +<p>“Now look here, Jackson . . . ” the manager began threateningly.</p> +<p>“You can’t say nothin’ to me,” was the retort. +“My mind’s made up. If that cheap guy lays a finger +on that dog I’m just sure goin’ to lose my job. I’m +gettin tired anyway of seein’ these skates beatin’ up their +animals. They’ve made me sick clean through.”</p> +<p>The manager looked to Davis and shrugged his shoulders helplessly.</p> +<p>“There’s no use pulling off a rough-house,” he +counselled. “I don’t want to lose Jackson and he’ll +put you into hospital if he ever gets started. Send the dog back +where you got him. Your wife’s told me about him. +Stick him into a box and send him back collect. Collins won’t +mind. He’ll take the singing out of him and work him into +something.”</p> +<p>Davis, with another glance at the truculent Jackson, wavered.</p> +<p>“I’ll tell you what,” the manager went on persuasively. +“Jackson will attend to the whole thing, box him up, ship him, +everything—won’t you, Jackson?”</p> +<p>The stage-hand nodded curtly, then reached down and gently caressed +Michael’s bruised head.</p> +<p>“Well,” Davis gave in, turning on his heel, “they +can make fools of themselves over dogs, them that wants to. But +when they’ve been in the business as long as I have . . . ”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> +<p>A post card from Davis to Collins explained the reasons for Michael’s +return. “He sings too much to suit my fancy,” was +Davis’s way of putting it, thereby unwittingly giving the clue +to what Collins had vainly sought, and which Collins as unwittingly +failed to grasp. As he told Johnny:</p> +<p>“From the looks of the beatings he’s got no wonder he’s +been singing. That’s the trouble with these animal people. +They don’t know how to take care of their property. They +hammer its head off and get grouched because it ain’t an angel +of obedience.—Put him away, Johnny. Wash him clean, and +put on the regular dressing wherever the skin’s broken. +I give him up myself, but I’ll find some place for him in the +next bunch of dogs.”</p> +<p>Two weeks later, by sheerest accident, Harris Collins made the discovery +for himself of what Michael was good for. In a spare moment in +the arena, he had sent for him to be tried out by a dog man who needed +several fillers-in. Beyond what he knew, such as at command to +stand up, to lie down, to come here and go there, Michael had done nothing. +He had refused to learn the most elementary things a show-dog should +know, and Collins had left him to go over to another part of the arena +where a monkey band, on a sort of mimic stage, was being arranged and +broken in.</p> +<p>Frightened and mutinous, nevertheless the monkeys were compelled +to perform by being tied to their seats and instruments and by being +pulled and jerked from off stage by wires fastened to their bodies. +The leader of the orchestra, an irascible elderly monkey, sat on a revolving +stool to which he was securely attached. When poked from off the +stage by means of long poles, he flew into ecstasies of rage. +At the same time, by a rope arrangement, his chair was whirled around +and around. To an audience the effect would be that he was angered +by the blunders of his fellow-musicians. And to an audience such +anger would be highly ludicrous. As Collins said:</p> +<p>“A monkey band is always a winner. It fetches the laugh, +and the money’s in the laugh. Humans just have to laugh +at monkeys because they’re so similar and because the human has +the advantage and feels himself superior. Suppose we’re +walking along the street, you and me, and you slip and fall down. +Of course I laugh. That’s because I’m superior to +you. I didn’t fall down. Same thing if your hat blows +off. I laugh while you chase it down the street. I’m +superior. My hat’s still on my head. Same thing with +the monkey band. All the fool things of it make us feel so superior. +We don’t see ourselves as foolish. That’s why we pay +to see the monkeys behave foolish.”</p> +<p>It was scarcely a matter of training the monkeys. Rather was +it the training of the men who operated the concealed mechanisms that +made the monkeys perform. To this Harris Collins was devoting +his effort.</p> +<p>“There isn’t any reason why you fellows can’t make +them play a real tune. It’s up to you, just according to +how you pull the wires. Come on. It’s worth going +in for. Let’s try something you all know. And remember, +the regular orchestra will always help you out. Now, what do you +all know? Something simple, and something the audience’ll +know, too?”</p> +<p>He became absorbed in trying out the idea, and even borrowed a circus +rider whose act was to play the violin while standing on the back of +a galloping horse and to throw somersaults on such precarious platform +while still playing the violin. This man he got merely to play +simple airs in slow time, so that the assistants could keep the time +and the air and pull the wires accordingly.</p> +<p>“Of course, if you make a howling mistake,” Collins told +them, “that’s when you all pull the wires like mad and poke +the leader and whirl him around. That always brings down the house. +They think he’s got a real musical ear and is mad at his orchestra +for the discord.”</p> +<p>In the midst of the work, Johnny and Michael came along.</p> +<p>“That guy says he wouldn’t take him for a gift,” +Johnny reported to his employer.</p> +<p>“All right, all right, put him back in the kennels,” +Collins ordered hurriedly.—“Now, you fellows, all ready! +‘Home, Sweet Home!’ Go to it, Fisher! Now keep +the time the rest of you! . . . That’s it. With a full orchestra +you’re making motions like the tune.—Faster, you, Simmons. +You drag behind all the time.”</p> +<p>And the accident happened. Johnny, instead of immediately obeying +the order and taking Michael back to the kennels, lingered in the hope +of seeing the orchestra leader whirled chattering around on his stool. +The violinist, within a yard of where Michael sat squatted on his haunches, +played the notes of “Home, Sweet Home” with loud slow exactitude +and emphasis.</p> +<p>And Michael could not help it. No more could he help it than +could he help responding with a snarl when threatened by a club; no +more could he help it than when he had spoiled the turn of Dick and +Daisy Bell when swept by the strains of “Roll Me Down to Rio”; +no more could he help it than could Jerry, on the deck of the <i>Ariel</i>, +help singing when Villa Kennan put her arms around him, smothered him +deliciously in her cloud of hair, and sang his memory back into time +and the fellowship of the ancient pack. As with Jerry, was it +with Michael. Music was a drug of dream. He, too, remembered +the lost pack and sought it, seeing the bare hills of snow and the stars +glimmering overhead through the frosty darkness of night, hearing the +faint answering howls from other hills as the pack assembled. +Lost the pack was, through the thousands of years Michael’s ancestors +had lived by the fires of men; yet remembered always it was when the +magic of rhythm poured through him and flooded his being with visions +and sensations of that Otherwhere which in his own life he had never +known.</p> +<p>Compounded with the waking dream of Otherwhere, was the memory of +Steward and the love of Steward, with whom he had learned to sing the +very series of notes that now were being reproduced by the circus-rider +violinist. And Michael’s jaw dropped down, his throat vibrated, +his forefeet made restless little movements as if in the body he were +running, as truly he was running in the mind, back to Steward, back +through all the ages to the lost pack, and with the shadowy lost pack +itself across the snowy wastes and through the forest aisles in the +hunt of the meat.</p> +<p>The spectral forms of the lost pack were all about him as he sang +and ran in open-eyed dream; the violinist paused in surprise; the men +poked the monkey leader of the monkey orchestra and whirled him about +wildly raging on his revolving stool; and Johnny laughed. But +Harris Collins took note. He had heard Michael accurately follow +the air. He had heard him sing—not merely howl, but <i>sing</i>.</p> +<p>Silence fell. The monkey leader ceased revolving and chattering. +The men who had poked him held poles and wires suspended in their hands. +The rest of the monkey orchestra merely shivered in apprehension of +what next atrocity should be perpetrated. The violinist stared. +Johnny still heaved from his laughter. But Harris Collins pondered, +scratched his head, and continued to ponder.</p> +<p>“You can’t tell me . . . ” he began vaguely. +“I know it. I heard it. That dog carried the tune. +Didn’t he now? I leave it to all of you. Didn’t +he? The damned dog sang. I’ll stake my life on it.—Hold +on, you fellows; rest the monkeys off. This is worth following +up.—Mr. Violinist, play that over again, now, ‘Home, Sweet +Home,’—let her go. Press her strong, and loud, and +slow.—Now watch, all of you, and listen, and tell me if I’m +crazy, or if that dog ain’t carrying the tune.—There! +What d’ye call it? Ain’t it?”</p> +<p>There was no discussion. Michael’s jaw dropped and his +forefeet began their restless lifting after several measures had been +played. And Harris Collins stepped close to him and sang with +him and in accord.</p> +<p>“Harry Del Mar was right when he said that dog was the limit +and sold his troupe. He knew. The dog’s a dog Caruso. +No howling chorus of mutts such as Kingman used to carry around with +him, but a real singer, a soloist. No wonder he wouldn’t +learn tricks. He had his specially all the time. And just +to think of it! I as good as gave him away to that dog-killing +Wilton Davis. Only he came back.—Johnny, take extra care +of him after this. Bring him up to the house this afternoon, and +I’ll give him a real try-out. My daughter plays the violin. +We’ll see what music he’ll sing with her. There’s +a mint of money in him, take it from me.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Thus was Michael discovered. The afternoon’s try-out +was partially successful. After vainly attempting strange music +on him, Collins found that he could sing, and would sing, “God +Save the King” and “Sweet Bye and Bye.” Many +hours of many days were spent in the quest. Vainly he tried to +teach Michael new airs. Michael put no heart of love in the effort +and sullenly abstained. But whenever one of the songs he had learned +from Steward was played, he responded. He could not help responding. +The magic was stronger than he. In the end, Collins discovered +five of the six songs he knew: “God Save the King,” “Sweet +Bye and Bye,” “Lead, Kindly Light,” “Home, Sweet +Home,” and “Roll Me Down to Rio.” Michael never +sang “Shenandoah,” because Collins and Collins’s daughter +did not know the old sea-chanty and therefore were unable to suggest +it to him.</p> +<p>“Five songs are enough, if he won’t never learn another +note,” Collins concluded. “They’ll make him +a bill-topper anywhere. There’s a mint in him. Hang +me if I wouldn’t take him out on the road myself if only I was +young and footloose.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> +<p>And so Michael was ultimately sold to one Jacob Henderson for two +thousand dollars. “And I’m giving him away to you +at that,” said Collins. “If you don’t refuse +five thousand for him before six months, I don’t know anything +about the show game. He’ll skin that last arithmetic dog +of yours to a finish and you won’t have to show yourself and work +every minute of the turn. And if you don’t insure him for +fifty thousand as soon as he’s made good you’ll be a fool. +Why, I wouldn’t ask anything better, if I was young and footloose, +than to take him out on the road myself.”</p> +<p>Henderson proved totally different from any master Michael had had. +The man was a neutral sort of creature. He was neither good nor +evil. He neither drank, smoked, nor swore; nor did he go to church +or belong to the Y.M.C.A. He was a vegetarian without being a +bigoted one, liked moving pictures when they were concerned with travel, +and spent most of his spare time in reading Swedenborg. He had +no temper whatever. Nobody had ever witnessed anger in him, and +all said he had the patience of Job. He was even timid of policemen, +freight agents, and conductors, though he was not afraid of them. +He was not afraid of anything, any more than was he enamoured of anything +save Swedenborg. He was as colourless of character as the neutral-coloured +clothes he wore, as the neutral-coloured hair that sprawled upon his +crown, as the neutral-coloured eyes with which he observed the world. +Nor was he a fool any more than was he a wise man or a scholar. +He gave little to life, asked little of life, and, in the show business, +was a recluse in the very heart of life.</p> +<p>Michael neither liked nor disliked him, but, rather, merely accepted +him. They travelled the United States over together, and they +never had a quarrel. Not once did Henderson raise his voice sharply +to Michael, and not once did Michael snarl a warning at him. They +simply endured together, existed together, because the currents of life +had drifted them together. Of course, there was no heart-bond +between them. Henderson was master. Michael was Henderson’s +chattel. Michael was as dead to him as he was himself dead to +all things.</p> +<p>Yet Jacob Henderson was fair and square, business-like and methodical. +Once each day, when not travelling on the interminable trains, he gave +Michael a thorough bath and thoroughly dried him afterward. He +was never harsh nor hasty in the bathing. Michael never was aware +whether he liked or disliked the bathing function. It was all +one, part of his own fate in the world as it was part of Henderson’s +fate to bathe him every so often.</p> +<p>Michael’s own work was tolerably easy, though monotonous. +Leaving out the eternal travelling, the never-ending jumps from town +to town and from city to city, he appeared on the stage once each night +for seven nights in the week and for two afternoon performances in the +week. The curtain went up, leaving him alone on the stage in the +full set that befitted a bill-topper. Henderson stood in the wings, +unseen by the audience, and looked on. The orchestra played four +of the pieces Michael had been taught by Steward, and Michael sang them, +for his modulated howling was truly singing. He never responded +to more than one encore, which was always “Home, Sweet Home.” +After that, while the audience clapped and stamped its approval and +delight of the dog Caruso, Jacob Henderson would appear on the stage, +bowing and smiling in stereotyped gladness and gratefulness, rest his +right hand on Michael’s shoulders with a play-acted assumption +of comradeliness, whereupon both Henderson and Michael would bow ere +the final curtain went down.</p> +<p>And yet Michael was a prisoner, a life-prisoner. Fed well, +bathed well, exercised well, he never knew a moment of freedom. +When travelling, days and nights he spent in the cage, which, however, +was generous enough to allow him to stand at full height and to turn +around without too uncomfortable squirming. Sometimes, in hotels +in country towns, out of the crate he shared Henderson’s room +with him. Otherwise, unless other animals were hewing on the same +circuit time, he had, outside his cage, the freedom of the animal room +attached to the particular theatre where he performed for from three +days to a week.</p> +<p>But there was never a chance, never a moment, when he might run free +of a cage about him, of the walls of a room restricting him, of a chain +shackled to the collar about his throat. In good weather, in the +afternoons, Henderson often took him for a walk. But always it +was at the end of a chain. And almost always the way led to some +park, where Henderson fastened the other end of the chain to the bench +on which he sat and browsed Swedenborg. Not one act of free agency +was left to Michael. Other dogs ran free, playing with one another, +or behaving bellicosely. If they approached him for purposes of +investigation or acquaintance, Henderson invariably ceased from his +reading long enough to drive them away.</p> +<p>A life prisoner to a lifeless gaoler, life was all grey to Michael. +His moroseness changed to a deep-seated melancholy. He ceased +to be interested in life and in the freedom of life. Not that +he regarded the play of life about him with a jaundiced eye, but, rather, +that his eyes became unseeing. Debarred from life, he ignored +life. He permitted himself to become a sheer puppet slave, eating, +taking his baths, travelling in his cage, performing regularly, and +sleeping much.</p> +<p>He had pride—the pride of the thoroughbred; the pride of the +North American Indian enslaved on the plantations of the West Indies +who died uncomplaining and unbroken. So Michael. He submitted +to the cage and the iron of the chain because they were too strong for +his muscles and teeth. He did his slave-task of performance and +rendered obedience to Jacob Henderson; but he neither loved nor feared +that master. And because of this his spirit turned in on itself. +He slept much, brooded much, and suffered unprotestingly a great loneliness. +Had Henderson made a bid for his heart, he would surely have responded; +but Henderson had a heart only for the fantastic mental gyrations of +Swedenborg, and merely made his living out of Michael.</p> +<p>Sometimes there were hardships. Michael accepted them. +Especially hard did he find railroad travel in winter-time, when, on +occasion, fresh from the last night’s performance in a town, he +remained for hours in his crate on a truck waiting for the train that +would take him to the next town of performance. There was a night +on a station platform in Minnesota, when two dogs of a troupe, on the +next truck to his, froze to death. He was himself well frosted, +and the cold bit abominably into his shoulder wounded by the leopard; +but a better constitution and better general care of him enabled him +to survive.</p> +<p>Compared with other show animals, he was well treated. And +much of the ill-treatment accorded other animals on the same turn with +him he did not comprehend or guess. One turn, with which he played +for three months, was a scandal amongst all vaudeville performers. +Even the hardiest of them heartily disliked the turn and the man, although +Duckworth, and Duckworth’s Trained Cats and Rats, were an invariable +popular success.</p> +<p>“Trained cats!” sniffed dainty little Pearl La Pearle, +the bicyclist. “Crushed cats, that’s what they are. +All the cat has been beaten out of their blood, and they’ve become +rats. You can’t tell me. I know.”</p> +<p>“Trained rats!” Manuel Fonseca, the contortionist, exploded +in the bar-room of the Hotel Annandale, after refusing to drink with +Duckworth. “Doped rats, believe me. Why don’t +they jump off when they crawl along the tight rope with a cat in front +and a cat behind? Because they ain’t got the life in ’m +to jump. They’re doped, straight doped when they’re +fresh, and starved afterward so as to making a saving on the dope. +They never are fed. You can’t tell me. I know. +Else why does he use up anywhere to forty or fifty rats a week! +I know his express shipments, when he can’t buy ’m in the +towns.”</p> +<p>“My Gawd!” protested Miss Merle Merryweather, the Accordion +Girl, who looked like sixteen on the stage, but who, in private life +among her grand-children, acknowledged forty-eight. “My +Gawd, how the public can fall for it gets my honest-to-Gawd goat. +I looked myself yesterday morning early. Out of thirty rats there +were seven dead,—starved to death. He never feeds them. +They’re dying rats, dying of starvation, when they crawl along +that rope. That’s why they crawl. If they had a bit +of bread and cheese in their tummies they’d jump and run to get +away from the cats. They’re dying, they’re dying right +there on the rope, trying to crawl as a dying man would try to crawl +away from a tiger that was eating him. And my Gawd! The +bonehead audience sits there and applauds the show as an educational +act!”</p> +<p>But the audience! “Wonderful things kindness will do +with animals,” said a member of one, a banker and a deacon. +“Even human love can be taught to them by kindness. The +cat and the rat have been enemies since the world began. Yet here, +to-night, we have seen them doing highly trained feats together, and +neither a cat committed one hostile or overt act against a rat, nor +ever a rat showed it was afraid of a cat. Human kindness! +The power of human kindness!”</p> +<p>“The lion and the lamb,” said another. “We +have it that when the millennium comes the lion and the lamb will lie +down together—and outside each other, my dear, outside each other. +And this is a forecast, a proving up, by man, ahead of the day. +Cats and rats! Think of it. And it shows conclusively the +power of kindness. I shall see to it at once that we get pets +for our own children, our palm branches. They shall learn kindness +early, to the dog, the cat, yes, even the rat, and the pretty linnet +in its cage.”</p> +<p>“But,” said his dear, beside him, “you remember +what Blake said:</p> +<blockquote><p>“‘A Robin Redbreast in a cage<br /> +Puts all heaven in a rage.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Ah—but not when it is treated truly with kindness, my +dear. I shall immediately order some rabbits, and a canary or +two, and—what sort of a dog would you prefer our dear little ones +to have to play with, my sweet?”</p> +<p>And his dear looked at him in all his imperturbable, complacent self-consciousness +of kindness, and saw herself the little rural school-teacher who, with +Ella Wheeler Wilcox and Lord Byron as her idols, and with the dream +of herself writing “Poems of Passion,” had come up to Topeka +Town to be beaten by the game into marrying the solid, substantial business +man beside her, who enjoyed delight in the spectacle of cats and rats +walking the tight-rope in amity, and who was blissfully unaware that +she was the Robin Redbreast in a cage that put all heaven in a rage.</p> +<p>“The rats are bad enough,” said Miss Merle Merryweather. +“But look how he uses up the cats. He’s had three +die on him in the last two weeks to my certain knowledge. They’re +only alley-cats, but they’ve got feelings. It’s that +boxing match that does for them.”</p> +<p>The boxing match, sure always of a great hand from the audience, +invariably concluded Duckworth’s turn. Two cats, with small +boxing-gloves, were put on a table for a friendly bout. Naturally, +the cats that performed with the rats were too cowed for this. +It was the fresh cats he used, the ones with spunk and spirit . . . +until they lost all spunk and spirit or sickened and died. To +the audience it was a side-splitting, playful encounter between four-legged +creatures who thus displayed a ridiculous resemblance to superior, two-legged +man. But it was not playful to the cats. They were always +excited into starting a real fight with each other off stage just before +they were brought on. In the blows they struck were anger and +pain and bewilderment and fear. And the gloves just would come +off, so that they were ripping and tearing at each other, biting as +well as making the fur fly, like furies, when the curtain went down. +In the eyes of the audience this apparent impromptu was always the ultimate +scream, and the laughter and applause would compel the curtain up again +to reveal Duckworth and an assistant stage-hand, as if caught by surprise, +fanning the two belligerents with towels.</p> +<p>But the cats themselves were so continually torn and scratched that +the wounds never had a chance to heal and became infected until they +were a mass of sores. On occasion they died, or, when they had +become too abjectly spiritless to attack even a rat, were set to work +on the tight-rope with the doped starved rats that were too near dead +to run away from them. And, as Miss Merle Merryweather said: the +bonehead audiences, tickled to death, applauded Duckworth’s Trained +Cats and Rats as an educational act!</p> +<p>A big chimpanzee that covered one of the circuits with Michael had +an antipathy for clothes. Like a horse that fights the putting +on of the bridle, and, after it is on, takes no further notice of it, +so the big chimpanzee fought the putting on the clothes. Once +on, it was ready to go out on the stage and through its turn. +But the rub was in putting on the clothes. It took the owner and +two stage-hands, pulling him up to a ring in the wall and throttling +him, to dress him—and this, despite the fact that the owner had +long since knocked out his incisors.</p> +<p>All this cruelty Michael sensed without knowing. And he accepted +it as the way of life, as he accepted the daylight and the dark, the +bite of the frost on bleak and windy station platforms, the mysterious +land of Otherwhere that he knew in dreams and song, the equally mysterious +Nothingness into which had vanished Meringe Plantation and ships and +oceans and men and Steward.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> +<p>For two years Michael sang his way over the United States, to fame +for himself and to fortune for Jacob Henderson. There was never +any time off. So great was his success, that Henderson refused +flattering offers to cross the Atlantic to show in Europe. But +off-time did come to Michael when Henderson fell ill of typhoid in Chicago.</p> +<p>It was a three-months’ vacation for Michael, who, well treated +but still a prisoner, spent it in a caged kennel in Mulcachy’s +Animal Home. Mulcachy, one of Harris Collins’s brightest +graduates, had emulated his master by setting up in business in Chicago, +where he ran everything with the same rigid cleanliness, sanitation, +and scientific cruelty. Michael received nothing but the excellent +food and the cleanliness; but, a solitary and brooding prisoner in his +cage, he could not help but sense the atmosphere of pain and terror +about him of the animals being broken for the delight of men.</p> +<p>Mulcachy had originated aphorisms of his own which he continually +enunciated, among which were:</p> +<p>“Take it from me, when an animal won’t give way to pain, +it can’t be broke. Pain is the only school-teacher.”</p> +<p>“Just as you got to take the buck out of a broncho, you’ve +got to take the bite out of a lion.”</p> +<p>“You can’t break animals with a feather duster. +The thicker the skull the thicker the crowbar.”</p> +<p>“They’ll always beat you in argument. First thing +is to club the argument out of them.”</p> +<p>“Heart-bonds between trainers and animals! Son, that’s +dope for the newspaper interviewer. The only heart-bond I know +is a stout stick with some iron on the end of it.”</p> +<p>“Sure you can make ’m eat outa your hand. But the +thing to watch out for is that they don’t eat your hand. +A blank cartridge in the nose just about that time is the best preventive +I know.”</p> +<p>There were days when all the air was vexed with roars and squalls +of ferocity and agony from the arena, until the last animal in the cages +was excited and ill at ease. In truth, since it was Mulcachy’s +boast that he could break the best animal living, no end of the hardest +cases fell to his hand. He had built a reputation for succeeding +where others failed, and, endowed with fearlessness, callousness, and +cunning, he never let his reputation wane. There was nothing he +dared not tackle, and, when he gave up an animal, the last word was +said. For it, remained nothing but to be a cage-animal, in solitary +confinement, pacing ever up and down, embittered with all the world +of man and roaring its bitterness to the most delicious enthrillment +of the pay-spectators.</p> +<p>During the three months spent by Michael in Mulcachy’s Animal +Home, occurred two especially hard cases. Of course, the daily +chant of ordinary pain of training went on all the time through the +working hours, such as of “good” bears and lions and tigers +that were made amenable under stress, and of elephants derricked and +gaffed into making the head-stand or into the beating of a bass drum. +But the two cases that were exceptional, put a mood of depression and +fear into all the listening animals, such as humans might experience +in an ante-room of hell, listening to the flailing and the flaying of +their fellows who had preceded them into the torture-chamber.</p> +<p>The first was of the big Indian tiger. Free-born in the jungle, +and free all his days, master, according to his nature and prowess, +of all other living creatures including his fellow-tigers, he had come +to grief in the end; and, from the trap to the cramped cage, by elephant-back +and railroad and steamship, ever in the cramped cage, he had journeyed +across seas and continents to Mulcachy’s Animal Home. Prospective +buyers had examined but not dared to purchase. But Mulcachy had +been undeterred. His own fighting blood leapt hot at sight of +the magnificent striped cat. It was a challenge of the brute in +him to excel. And, two weeks of hell, for the great tiger and +for all the other animals, were required to teach him his first lesson.</p> +<p>Ben Bolt he had been named, and he arrived indomitable and irreconcilable, +though almost paralysed from eight weeks of cramp in his narrow cage +which had restricted all movement. Mulcachy should have undertaken +the job immediately, but two weeks were lost by the fact that he had +got married and honeymooned for that length of time. And in that +time, in a large cage of concrete and iron, Ben Bolt had exercised and +recovered the use of his muscles, and added to his hatred of the two-legged +things, puny against him in themselves, who by trick and wile had so +helplessly imprisoned him.</p> +<p>So, on this morning when hell yawned for him, he was ready and eager +to meet all comers. They came, equipped with formulas, nooses, +and forked iron bars. Five of them tossed nooses in through the +bars upon the floor of his cage. He snarled and struck at the +curling ropes, and for ten minutes was a grand and impossible wild creature, +lacking in nothing save the wit and the patience possessed by the miserable +two-legged things. And then, impatient and careless of the inanimate +ropes, he paused, snarling at the men, with one hind foot resting inside +a noose. The next moment, craftily lifted up about the girth of +his leg by an iron fork, the noose tightened and the bite of it sank +home into his flesh and pride. He leaped, he roared, he was a +maniac of ferocity. Again and again, almost burning their palms, +he tore the rope smoking through their hands. But ever they took +in the slack and paid it out again, until, ere he was aware, a similar +noose tightened on his foreleg. What he had done was nothing to +what he now did. But he was stupid and impatient. The man-creatures +were wise and patient, and a third leg and a fourth leg were finally +noosed, so that, with many men tailing on to the ropes, he was dragged +ignominiously on his side to the bars, and, ignominiously, through the +bars were hauled his four legs, his chiefest weapons of offence after +his terribly fanged jaws.</p> +<p>And then a puny man-creature, Mulcachy himself, dared openly and +brazenly to enter the cage and approach him. He sprang to be at +him, or, rather, strove so to spring, but was withstrained by his four +legs through the bars which he could not draw back and get under him. +And Mulcachy knelt beside him, dared kneel beside him, and helped the +fifth noose over his head and round his neck. Then his head was +drawn to the bars as helplessly as his legs had been drawn through. +Next, Mulcachy laid hands on him, on his head, on his ears, on his very +nose within an inch of his fangs; and he could do nothing but snarl +and roar and pant for breath as the noose shut off his breathing.</p> +<p>Quivering, not with fear but with rage, Ben Bolt perforce endured +the buckling around his throat of a thick, broad collar of leather to +which was attached a very stout and a very long trailing rope. +After that, when Mulcachy had left the cage, one by one the five nooses +were artfully manipulated off his legs and his neck. Again, after +this prodigious indignity, he was free—within his cage. +He went up into the air. With returning breath he roared his rage. +He struck at the trailing rope that offended his nerves, clawed at the +trap of the collar that encased his neck, fell, rolled over, offended +his body-nerves more and more by entangling contacts with the rope, +and for half an hour exhausted himself in the futile battle with the +inanimate thing. Thus tigers are broken.</p> +<p>At the last, wearied, even with sensations of sickness from the nervous +strain put upon himself by his own anger, he lay down in the middle +of the floor, lashing his tail, hating with his eyes, and accepting +the clinging thing about his neck which he had learned he could not +get rid of.</p> +<p>To his amazement, if such a thing be possible in the mental processes +of a tiger, the rear door to his cage was thrown open and left open. +He regarded the aperture with belligerent suspicion. No one and +no threatening danger appeared in the doorway. But his suspicion +grew. Always, among these man-animals, occurred what he did not +know and could not comprehend. His preference was to remain where +he was, but from behind, through the bars of the cage, came shouts and +yells, the lash of whips, and the painful thrusts of the long iron forks. +Dragging the rope behind him, with no thought of escape, but in the +hope that he would get at his tormentors, he leaped into the rear passage +that ran behind the circle of permanent cages. The passage way +was deserted and dark, but ahead he saw light. With great leaps +and roars, he rushed in that direction, arousing a pandemonium of roars +and screams from the animals in the cages.</p> +<p>He bounded through the light, and into the light, dazzled by the +brightness of it, and crouched down, with long, lashing tail, to orient +himself to the situation. But it was only another and larger cage +that he was in, a very large cage, a big, bright performing-arena that +was all cage. Save for himself, the arena was deserted, although, +overhead, suspended from the roof-bars, were block-and-tackle and seven +strong iron chairs that drew his instant suspicion and caused him to +roar at them.</p> +<p>For half an hour he roamed the arena, which was the greatest area +of restricted freedom he had known in the ten weeks of his captivity. +Then, a hooked iron rod, thrust through the bars, caught and drew the +bight of his trailing rope into the hands of the men outside. +Immediately ten of them had hold of it, and he would have charged up +to the bars at them had not, at that moment, Mulcachy entered the arena +through a door on the opposite side. No bars stood between Ben +Bolt and this creature, and Ben Bolt charged him. Even as he charged +he was aware of suspicion in that the small, fragile man-creature before +him did not flee or crouch down, but stood awaiting him.</p> +<p>Ben Bolt never reached him. First, with an access of caution, +he craftily ceased from his charge, and, crouching, with lashing tail, +studied the man who seemed so easily his. Mulcachy was equipped +with a long-lashed whip and a sharp-pronged fork of iron.</p> +<p>In his belt, loaded with blank cartridges, was a revolver.</p> +<p>Bellying closer to the ground, Ben Bolt advanced upon him, creeping +slowly like a cat stalking a mouse. When he came to his next pause, +which was within certain leaping distance, he crouched lower, gathered +himself for the leap, then turned his head to regard the men at his +back outside the cage. The trailing rope in their hands, to his +neck, he had forgotten.</p> +<p>“Now you might as well be good, old man,” Mulcachy addressed +him in soft, caressing tones, taking a step toward him and holding in +advance the iron fork.</p> +<p>This merely incensed the huge, magnificent creature. He rumbled +a low, tense growl, flattened his ears back, and soared into the air, +his paws spread so that the claws stood out like talons, his tail behind +him as stiff and straight as a rod. Neither did the man crouch +or flee, nor did the beast attain to him. At the height of his +leap the rope tightened taut on his neck, causing him to describe a +somersault and fall heavily to the floor on his side.</p> +<p>Before he could regain his feet, Mulcachy was upon him, shouting +to his small audience: “Here’s where we pound the argument +out of him!” And pound he did, on the nose with the butt +of the whip, and jab he did, with the iron fork to the ribs. He +rained a hurricane of blows and jabs on the animal’s most sensitive +parts. Ever Ben Bolt leaped to retaliate, but was thrown by the +ten men tailed on to the rope, and, each time, even as he struck the +floor on his side, Mulcachy was upon him, pounding, smashing, jabbing. +His pain was exquisite, especially that of his tender nose. And +the creature who inflicted the pain was as fierce and terrible as he, +even more so because he was more intelligent. In but few minutes, +dazed by the pain, appalled by his inability to rend and destroy the +man who inflicted it, Ben Bolt lost his courage. He fled ignominiously +before the little, two-legged creature who was more terrible than himself +who was a full-grown Royal Bengal tiger. He leaped high in the +air in sheer panic; he ran here and there, with lowered head, to avoid +the rain of pain. He even charged the sides of the arena, springing +up and vainly trying to climb the slippery vertical bars.</p> +<p>Ever, like an avenging devil, Mulcachy pursued and smashed and jabbed, +gritting through his teeth: “You will argue, will you? I’ll +teach you what argument is! There! Take that! And +that! And that!”</p> +<p>“Now I’ve got him afraid of me, and the rest ought to +be easy,” he announced, resting off and panting hard from his +exertions, while the great tiger crouched and quivered and shrank back +from him against the base of the arena-bars. “Take a five-minute +spell, you fellows, and we’ll got our breaths.”</p> +<p>Lowering one of the iron chairs, and attaching it firmly in its place +on the floor, Mulcachy prepared for the teaching of the first trick. +Ben Bolt, jungle-born and jungle-reared, was to be compelled to sit +in the chair in ludicrous and tragic imitation of man-creatures. +But Mulcachy was not quite ready. The first lesson of fear of +him must be reiterated and driven home.</p> +<p>Stepping to a near safe distance, he lashed Ben Bolt on the nose. +He repeated it. He did it a score of times, and scores of times. +Turn his head as he would, ever Ben Bolt received the bite of the whip +on his fearfully bruised nose; for Mulcachy was as expert as a stage-driver +in his manipulation of the whip, and unerringly the lash snapped and +cracked and stung Ben Bolt’s nose wherever Ben Bolt at the moment +might have it.</p> +<p>When it became maddeningly unendurable, he sprang, only to be jerked +back by the ten strong men who held the rope to his neck. And +wrath, and ferocity, and intent to destroy, passed out utterly from +the tiger’s inflamed brain, until he knew fear, again and again, +always fear and only fear, utter and abject fear, of this human mite +who searched him with such pain.</p> +<p>Then the lesson of the first trick was taken up. Mulcachy tapped +the chair sharply with the butt of the whip to draw the animal’s +attention to it, then flicked the whip-lash sharply on his nose. +At the same moment, an attendant, through the bars behind, drove an +iron fork into his ribs to force him away from the bars and toward the +chair. He crouched forward, then shrank back against the side-bars. +Again the chair was rapped, his nose was lashed, his ribs were jabbed, +and he was forced by pain toward the chair. This went on interminably—for +a quarter of an hour, for half an hour, for an hour; for the men-animals +had the patience of gods while he was only a jungle-brute. Thus +tigers are broken. And the verb means just what it means. +A performing animal is <i>broken</i>. Something <i>breaks</i> +in an animal of the wild ere such an animal submits to do tricks before +pay-audiences.</p> +<p>Mulcachy ordered an assistant to enter the arena with him. +Since he could not compel the tiger directly to sit in the chair, he +must employ other means. The rope about Ben Bolt’s neck +was passed up through the bars and rove through the block-and-tackle. +At signal from Mulcachy, the ten men hauled away. Snarling, struggling, +choking, in a fresh madness of terror at this new outrage, Ben Bolt +was slowly hoisted by his neck up from the floor, until, quite clear +of it, whirling, squirming, battling, suspended by his neck like a man +being hanged, his wind was shut off and he began to suffocate. +He coiled and twisted, the splendid muscles of his body enabling him +almost to tie knots in it.</p> +<p>The block-and-tackle, running like a trolley on the overhead track, +made it possible for the assistant to seize his tail and drag him through +the air till he was above the chair. His helpless body guided +thus by the tail, his chest jabbed by the iron fork in Mulcachy’s +hands, the rope was suddenly lowered, and Ben Bolt, with swimming brain, +found himself seated in the chair. On the instant he leaped for +the floor, received a blow on the nose from the heavy whip-handle, and +had a blank cartridge fired straight into his nostril. His madness +of pain and fear was multiplied. He sprang away in flight, but +Mulcachy’s voice rang out, “Hoist him!” and he slowly +rose in the air again, hanging by his neck, and began to strangle.</p> +<p>Once more he was swung into position by his tail, jabbed in the chest, +and lowered suddenly on the run—but so suddenly, with a frantic +twist of his body on his part, that he fell violently across the chair +on his belly. What little wind was left him from the strangling, +seemed to have been ruined out of him by the violence of the fall. +The glare in his eyes was maniacal and swimming. He panted frightfully, +and his head rolled back and forth. Slaver dripped from his mouth, +blood ran from his nose.</p> +<p>“Hoist away!” Mulcachy shouted.</p> +<p>And again, struggling frantically as the tightening collar shut off +his wind, Ben Bolt was slowly lifted into the air. So wildly did +he struggle that, ere his hind feet were off the floor, he pranced back +and forth, so that when he was heaved clear his body swung like a huge +pendulum. Over the chair, he was dropped, and for a fraction of +a second the posture was his of a man sitting in a chair. Then +he uttered a terrible cry and sprang.</p> +<p>It was neither snarl, nor growl, nor roar, that cry, but a sheer +scream, as if something had broken inside of him. He missed Mulcachy +by inches, as another blank cartridge exploded up his other nostril +and as the men with the rope snapped him back so abruptly as almost +to break his neck.</p> +<p>This time, lowered quickly, he sank into the chair like a half-empty +sack of meal, and continued so to sink, until, crumpling at the middle, +his great tawny head falling forward, he lay on the floor unconscious. +His tongue, black and swollen, lolled out of his mouth. As buckets +of water were poured on him he groaned and moaned. And here ended +the first lesson.</p> +<p>“It’s all right,” Mulcachy said, day after day, +as the teaching went on. “Patience and hard work will pull +off the trick. I’ve got his goat. He’s afraid +of me. All that’s required is time, and time adds to value +with an animal like him.”</p> +<p>Not on that first day, nor on the second, nor on the third, did the +requisite something really break inside Ben Bolt. But at the end +of a fortnight it did break. For the day came when Mulcachy rapped +the chair with his whip-butt, when the attendant through the bars jabbed +the iron fork into Ben Bolt’s ribs, and when Ben Bolt, anything +but royal, slinking like a beaten alley-cat, in pitiable terror, crawled +over to the chair and sat down in it like a man. He now was an +“educated” tiger. The sight of him, so sitting, tragically +travestying man, has been considered, and is considered, “educative” +by multitudinous audiences.</p> +<p>The second case, that of St. Elias, was a harder one, and it was +marked down against Mulcachy as one of his rare failures, though all +admitted that it was an unavoidable failure. St. Elias was a huge +monster of an Alaskan bear, who was good-natured and even facetious +and humorous after the way of bears. But he had a will of his +own that was correspondingly as stubborn as his bulk. He could +be persuaded to do things, but he would not tolerate being compelled +to do things. And in the trained-animal world, where turns must +go off like clockwork, is little or no space for persuasion. An +animal must do its turn, and do it promptly. Audiences will not +brook the delay of waiting while a trainer tries to persuade a crusty +or roguish beast to do what the audience has paid to see it do.</p> +<p>So St. Elias received his first lesson in compulsion. It was +also his last lesson, and it never progressed so far as the training-arena, +for it took place in his own cage.</p> +<p>Noosed in the customary way, his four legs dragged through the bars, +and his head, by means of a “choke” collar, drawn against +the bars, he was first of all manicured. Each one of his great +claws was cut off flush with his flesh. The men outside did this. +Then Mulcachy, on the inside, punched his nose. Not lightly as +it sounds was this operation. The punch was a perforation. +Thrusting the instrument into the huge bear’s nostril, Mulcachy +cut a clean round chunk of living meat out of one side of it. +Mulcachy knew the bear business. At all times, to make an untrained +bear obey, one must be fast to some sensitive portion of the bear. +The ears, the nose, and the eyes are the accessible sensitive parts, +and, the eyes being out of the question, remain the nose and the ears +as the parts to which to make fast.</p> +<p>Through the perforation Mulcachy immediately clamped a metal ring. +To the ring he fastened a long “lunge”-rope, which was well +named. Any unruly lunge, at any time during all the subsequent +life of St. Elias, could thus be checked by the man who held the lunge-rope. +His destiny was patent and ordained. For ever, as long as he lived +and breathed, would he be a prisoner and slave to the rope in the ring +in his nostril.</p> +<p>The nooses were slipped, and St. Elias was at liberty, within the +confines of his cage, to get acquainted with the ring in his nose. +With his powerful forepaws, standing erect and roaring, he proceeded +to get acquainted with the ring. It certainly was not a thing +persuasible. It was living fire. And he tore at it with +his paws as he would have torn at the stings of bees when raiding a +honey-tree. He tore the thing out, ripping the ring clear through +the flesh and transforming the round perforation into a ragged chasm +of pain.</p> +<p>Mulcachy cursed. “Here’s where hell coughs,” +he said. The nooses were introduced again. Again St. Elias, +helpless on his side against and partly through the bars, had his nose +punched. This time it was the other nostril. And hell coughed. +As before, the moment he was released, he tore the ring out through +his flesh.</p> +<p>Mulcachy was disgusted. “Listen to reason, won’t +you?” he objurgated, as, this time, the reason he referred to +was the introduction of the ring clear through both nostrils, higher +up, and through the central dividing wall of cartilage. But St. +Elias was unreasonable. Unlike Ben Bolt, there was nothing inside +of him weak enough, or nervous enough, or high-strung enough, to break. +The moment he was free he ripped the ring away with half of his nose +along with it. Mulcachy punched St. Elias’s right ear. +St. Elias tore his right ear to shreds. Mulcachy punched his left +ear. He tore his left ear to shreds. And Mulcachy gave in. +He had to. As he said plaintively:</p> +<p>“We’re beaten. There ain’t nothing left to +make fast to.”</p> +<p>Later, when St. Elias was condemned to be a “cage-animal” +all his days, Mulcachy was wont to grumble:</p> +<p>“He was the most unreasonable animal! Couldn’t +do a thing with him. Couldn’t ever get anything to make +fast to.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> +<p>It was in the Orpheum Theatre, of Oakland, California; and Harley +Kennan was in the act of reaching under his seat for his hat, when his +wife said:</p> +<p>“Why, this isn’t the interval. There’s one +more turn yet.”</p> +<p>“A dog turn,” he answered, and thereby explained; for +it was his practice to leave a theatre during the period of the performance +of an animal-act.</p> +<p>Villa Kennan glanced hastily at the programme.</p> +<p>“Of course,” she said, then added: “But it’s +a singing dog. A dog Caruso. And it points out that there +is no one on the stage with the dog. Let us stay for once, and +see how he compares with Jerry.”</p> +<p>“Some poor brute tormented into howling,” Harley grumbled.</p> +<p>“But it has the stage to itself,” Villa urged. +“Besides, if it is painful, then we can go out. I’ll +go out with you. But I just would like to see how much better +Jerry sings than does he. And it says an Irish terrier, too.”</p> +<p>So Harley Kennan remained. The two burnt-cork comedians finished +their turn and their three encores, and the curtain behind them went +up on a full set of an empty stage. A rough-coated Irish terrier +entered at a sedate walk, sedately walked forward to the centre, nearly +to the footlights, and faced the leader of the orchestra. As the +programme had stated, he had the stage to himself.</p> +<p>The orchestra played the opening strains of “Sweet Bye and +Bye.” The dog yawned and sat down. But the orchestra +was thoroughly instructed to play the opening strains over and over, +until the dog responded, and then to follow on with him. By the +third time, the dog opened his mouth and began. It was not a mere +howling. For that matter, it was too mellow to be classified as +a howl at all. Nor was it merely rhythmic. The notes the +dog sang were of the air, and they were correct.</p> +<p>But Villa Kennan scarcely heard.</p> +<p>“He has Jerry beaten a mile,” Harley muttered to her.</p> +<p>“Listen,” she replied, in tense whispers. “Did +you ever see that dog before?”</p> +<p>Harley shook his head.</p> +<p>“You have seen him before,” she insisted. “Look +at that crinkled ear. Think! Think back! Remember!”</p> +<p>Still her husband shook his head.</p> +<p>“Remember the Solomons,” she pressed. “Remember +the <i>Ariel</i>. Remember when we came back from Malaita, where +we picked Jerry up, to Tulagi, that he had a brother there, a nigger-chaser +on a schooner.”</p> +<p>“And his name was Michael—go on.”</p> +<p>“And he had that self-same crinkled ear,” she hurried. +“And he was rough-coated. And he was full brother to Jerry. +And their father and mother were Terrence and Biddy of Meringe. +And Jerry is our Sing Song Silly. And this dog sings. And +he has a crinkled ear. And his name is Michael.”</p> +<p>“Impossible,” said Harley.</p> +<p>“It is when the impossible comes true that life proves worth +while,” she retorted. “And this is one of those worth-whiles +of impossibles. I know it.”</p> +<p>Still the man of him said impossible, and still the woman of her +insisted that this was an impossible come true. By this time the +dog on the stage was singing “God Save the King.”</p> +<p>“That shows I am right,” Villa contended. “No +American, in America, would teach a dog ‘God Save the King.’ +An Englishman originally owned that dog and taught it. The Solomons +are British.”</p> +<p>“That’s a far cry,” he smiled. “But +what gets me is that ear. I remember it now. I remember +the day when we were on the beach at Tulagi with Jerry, and when his +brother came ashore from the <i>Eugénie</i> in a whaleboat. +And his brother had that self-same, loppy, crinkled ear.”</p> +<p>“And more,” Villa argued. “How many singing +dogs have we ever known! Only one—Jerry. Evidently +such a type occurs rarely. The same family would more likely produce +similar types than different families. The family of Terrence +and Biddy produced Jerry. And this is Michael.”</p> +<p>“He <i>was</i> rough-coated, along with a crinkly ear,” +Harley meditated back. “I see him distinctly as he stood +up in the bow of the whaleboat and as he ran along the beach side by +side with Jerry.”</p> +<p>“If Jerry should to-morrow run side by side with him you would +be convinced?” she queried.</p> +<p>“It was their trick, and the trick of Terrence and Biddy before +them,” he agreed. “But it’s a far cry from the +Solomons to the United States.”</p> +<p>“Jerry is such a far cry,” she replied. “And +if Jerry won from the Solomons to California, then is there anything +more remarkable in Michael so winning?—Oh, listen!”</p> +<p>For the dog on the stage, now responding to its one encore, was singing +“Home, Sweet Home.” This finished, Jacob Henderson, +to tumultuous applause, came on the stage from the wings and joined +the dog in bowing. Villa and Harley sat in silence for a moment. +Then Villa said, apropos of nothing:</p> +<p>“I have been sitting here and feeling very grateful for one +particular thing.”</p> +<p>He waited.</p> +<p>“It is that we are so abominably wealthy,” she concluded.</p> +<p>“Which means that you want the dog, must have him, and are +going to got him, just because I can afford to do it for you,” +he teased.</p> +<p>“Because you can’t afford not to,” she answered. +“You must know he is Jerry’s brother. At least, you +must have a sneaking suspicion . . . ?”</p> +<p>“I have,” he nodded. “The thing that can’t +sometimes does, and there is a chance that this may be one of those +times. Of course, it isn’t Michael; but, on the other hand, +what’s to prevent it from being Michael? Let us go behind +and find out.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>“More agents of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to +Animals,” was Jacob Henderson’s thought, as the man and +woman, accompanied by the manager of the theatre, were shown into his +tiny dressing-room. Michael, on a chair and half asleep, took +no notice of them. While Harley talked with Henderson, Villa investigated +Michael; and Michael scarcely opened his eyes ere he closed them again. +Too sour on the human world, and too glum in his own soured nature, +he was anything save his old courtly self to chance humans who broke +in upon him to pat his head, and say silly things, and go their way +never to be seen by him again.</p> +<p>Villa Kennan, with a pang of disappointment at such rebuff, forwent +her overtures for the moment, and listened to what tale Jacob Henderson +could tell of his dog. Harry Del Mar, a trained-animal man, had +picked the dog up somewhere on the Pacific Coast, most probably in San +Francisco, she learned; but, having taken the dog east with him, Harry +Del Mar had died by accident in New York before telling anybody anything +about the animal. That was all, except that Henderson had paid +two thousand dollars to one Harris Collins, and had found the investment +the finest he had ever made.</p> +<p>Villa turned back to the dog.</p> +<p>“Michael,” she called, caressingly, almost in a whisper.</p> +<p>And Michael’s eyes partly opened, the base-muscles of his ears +stiffened, and his body quivered.</p> +<p>“Michael,” she repeated.</p> +<p>This time raising his head, the eyes open and the ears stiffly erect, +Michael looked at her. Not since on the beach at Tulagi had he +heard that name uttered. Across the years and the seas the word +came to him out of the past. Its effect was electrical, for on +the instant all the connotations of “Michael” flooded his +consciousness. He saw again Captain Kellar, of the <i>Eugénie</i>, +who had last called him it, and <i>Mister</i> Haggin, and Derby, and +Bob of Meringe Plantation, and Biddy and Terrence, and, not least among +these shades of the vanished past, his brother Jerry.</p> +<p>But was it the vanished past? The name which had ceased for +years, had come back. It had entered the room along with this +man and woman. All this he did not reason; but indubitably, as +if he had so reasoned, he acted upon it.</p> +<p>He jumped from the chair and ran to the woman. He smelled her +hand, and smelled her as she patted him. Then, as he recognized +her, he went wild. He sprang away, dashing around and around the +room, sniffing under the washstand and smelling out the corners. +As in a frenzy he was back to the woman, whimpering eagerly as she strove +to pet him. The next moment, stiff in a frenzy, he was away again, +scurrying about the room and still whimpering.</p> +<p>Jacob Henderson looked on with mild disapproval.</p> +<p>“He never cuts up that way,” he said. “He +is a very quiet dog. Maybe it is a fit he is going to have, though +he never has fits.”</p> +<p>No one understood, not even Villa Kennan. But Michael understood. +He was looking for that vanished world which had rushed back upon him +at sound of his old-time name. If this name could come to him +out of the Nothingness, as this woman had whom once he had seen treading +the beach at Tulagi, then could all other things of Tulagi and the Nothingness +come to him. As she was there, before him in the living flesh, +uttering his name, so might Captain Kellar, and <i>Mister</i> Haggin, +and Jerry be there, somewhere in the very room or just outside the door.</p> +<p>He ran to the door, whimpering as he scratched at it.</p> +<p>“Maybe he thinks there is something outside,” said Jacob +Henderson, opening the door for him.</p> +<p>And Michael did so think. As a matter of course, through that +open door, he was prepared to have the South-Pacific Ocean flow in, +bearing on its bosom schooners and ships, islands and reefs, and all +men and animals and things he once had known and still remembered.</p> +<p>But no past flowed in through the door. Outside was the usual +present. He came back dejectedly to the woman, who still called +him Michael as she petted him. She, at any rate, was real. +Next he carefully smelled and identified the man with the beach of Tulagi +and the deck of the <i>Ariel</i>, and again his excitement began to +mount.</p> +<p>“Oh, Harley, I know it is he!” Villa cried. “Can’t +you test him? Can’t you prove him?”</p> +<p>“But how?” Harley pondered. “He seems to +recognize his name. It excites him. And though he never +knew us very well, he seems to remember us and to be excited by us, +too. If only he could talk . . . ”</p> +<p>“Oh, talk! Talk!” Villa pleaded with Michael, catching +both sides of his head and jaws in her hands and swaying him back and +forth.</p> +<p>“Be careful, madam,” Jacob Henderson warned. “He +is a very sour dog; and he don’t let people take such liberties.”</p> +<p>“He does me,” she laughed, half-hysterically. “Because +he knows me. . . . Harley!” She broke off as the great idea +dawned on her. “I have a test. Listen! Remember, +Jerry was a nigger-chaser before we got him. And Michael was a +nigger-chaser. You talk in bêche-de-mer. Appear angry +with some black boy, and see how it will affect him.”</p> +<p>“I’ll have to remember hard to resurrect any bêche-de-mer,” +Harley said, nodding approval of the suggestion.</p> +<p>“At the same time I’ll distract him,” she rushed +on.</p> +<p>Sitting down and bending forward to Michael so that his head was +buried in her arms and breast, she began swaying him and crooning to +him as was her wont with Jerry. Nor did he resent the liberty +she took, and, like Jerry, he yielded to her crooning and softly began +to croon with her. She signalled Harley with her eyes.</p> +<p>“My word!” he began in tones of wrath. “What +name you fella boy stop ’m along this fella place? You make +’m me cross along you any amount!”</p> +<p>And at the words Michael bristled, dragged himself clear of the woman’s +detaining hands, and, with a snarl, whirled about to get a look at the +black boy who must have just then entered the room and aroused the white +god’s ire. But there was no black boy. He looked on, +still bristling, to the door. Harley transferred his own gaze +to the door, and Michael knew, beyond all doubt, that outside the door +was standing a Solomons nigger.</p> +<p>“Hey! Michael!” Harley shouted. “Chase +’m that black fella boy overside!”</p> +<p>With a roaring snarl, Michael flung himself at the door. Such +was the fury and weight of his onslaught that the latch flew loose and +the door swung open. The emptiness of the space which he had expected +to see occupied, was appalling, and he shrank down, sick and dizzy with +the baffling apparitional past that thus vexed his consciousness.</p> +<p>“And now,” said Harley to Jacob Henderson, “we +will talk business . . . ”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXV</h2> +<p>When the train arrived at Glen Ellen, in the Valley of the Moon, +it was Harley Kennan himself, at the side-door of the baggage-car, who +caught hold of Michael and swung him to the ground. For the first +time Michael had performed a railroad journey uncrated. Merely +with collar and chain had he travelled up from Oakland. In the +waiting automobile he found Villa Kennan, and, chain removed, sat beside +her and between her and Harley</p> +<p>As the machine purred along the two miles of road that wound up the +side of Sonoma Mountain, Michael scarcely looked at the forest-trees +and vistas of wandering glades. He had been in the United States +three years, during which time he had been kept a close prisoner. +Cage and crate and chain had been his portion, and narrow rooms, baggage +cars, and station platforms. The nearest he had come to the country +was when chained to benches in the various parks while Jacob Henderson +studied Swedenborg. So that trees and hills and fields had ceased +to mean anything. They were something inaccessible, as inaccessible +as the blue of the sky or the drifting cloud-fleeces. Thus did +he regard the trees and hills and fields, if the negative act of not +regarding a thing at all can be considered a state of mind.</p> +<p>“Don’t seem to be enthusiastic over the ranch, eh, Michael?” +Harley remarked.</p> +<p>He looked up at sound of his old name, and made acknowledgment by +flattening his ears a quivering trifle and by touching his nose against +Harley’s shoulder.</p> +<p>“Nor does he seem demonstrative,” was Villa’s judgment. +“At least, nothing like Jerry,”</p> +<p>“Wait till they meet,” Harley smiled in anticipation. +“Jerry will furnish enough excitement for both of them.”</p> +<p>“If they remember each other after all this time,” said +Villa. “I wonder if they will.”</p> +<p>“They did at Tulagi,” he reminded her. “And +they were full grown and hadn’t seen each other since they were +puppies. Remember how they barked and scampered all about the +beach. Michael was the hurly-burly one. At least he made +twice as much noise.”</p> +<p>“But he seems dreadfully grown-up and subdued now.”</p> +<p>“Three years ought to have subdued him,” Harley insisted.</p> +<p>But Villa shook her head.</p> +<p>As the machine drew up at the house and Kennan first stepped out, +a dog’s whimperingly joyous bark of welcome struck Michael as +not altogether unfamiliar. The joyous bark turned to a suspicious +and jealous snarl as Jerry scented the other dog’s presence from +Harley’s caressing hand. The next moment he had traced the +original source of the scent into the limousine and sprung in after +it. With snarl and forward leap Michael met the snarling rush +less than half-way, and was rolled over on the bottom of the car.</p> +<p>The Irish terrier, under all circumstances amenable to the control +of the master as are few breeds of dogs, was instantly manifest in Jerry +and Michael an Harley Kennan’s voice rang out. They separated, +and, despite the rumbling of low growling in their throats, refrained +from attacking each other as they plunged out to the ground. The +little set-to had occurred in so few seconds, or fractions of seconds, +that they had not begun to betray recognition of each other until they +were out of the machine. They were still comically stiff-legged +and bristly as they aloofly sniffed noses.</p> +<p>“They know each other!” Villa cried. “Let’s +wait and see what they will do.”</p> +<p>As for Michael, he accepted, without surprise, the indubitable fact +that Jerry had come back out of the Nothingness. Things of this +sort had begun to happen rapidly, but it was not the things themselves, +but the connotations of them, that almost stunned him. If the +man and woman, whom he had last seen at Tulagi, and, likewise, Jerry, +had come back from the Nothingness, then could come, and might come +at any moment, the beloved Steward.</p> +<p>Instead of responding to Jerry, Michael sniffed and glanced about +in quest of Steward. Jerry’s first expression of greeting +and friendliness took the form of a desire to run. He barked invitation +to his brother, scampered away half a dozen jumps, scampered back, and +dabbed playfully at Michael with one forepaw in added emphasis of invitation +ere he scampered away again.</p> +<p>For so many years had Michael not run with another dog, that at first +Jerry’s invitation had little meaning to him. Nevertheless, +such running was an habitual expression of happiness and friendliness +in dogdom, and especially strong had been his inheritance of it from +Terrence and Biddy, the noted love-runners of the Solomons.</p> +<p>The next time Jerry dabbed at him with a paw, barked, and scurried +away in an enticing semi-circle, Michael started involuntarily though +slowly after him. But Michael did not bark; and, after half a +dozen leaps, he came to a full stop and looked to Villa and Harley for +permission.</p> +<p>“All right, Michael,” Harley called heartily, deliberately +turning his shoulder in the non-interest of consent as he extended his +hand to help Villa from the machine.</p> +<p>Michael sprang away again, and was numbly aware of an ancient joy +as he shouldered Jerry who shouldered against him as they ran side by +side. But most of the joy was Jerry’s, as was the wildest +of the skurrying and the racing and the shouldering, of the body-wriggling, +and ear-pricking, and yelping cries. Also, Jerry barked; and Michael +did not bark.</p> +<p>“He used to bark,” said Villa.</p> +<p>“Much more than Jerry,” Harley supplemented.</p> +<p>“Then they have taken the bark out of him,” she concluded. +“He must have gone through terrible experiences to have lost his +bark.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>The green California spring merged into tawny summer, as Jerry, ever +running afield, made Michael acquainted with the farthest and highest +reaches of the Kennan ranch in the Valley of the Moon. The pageant +of the wild flowers vanished until all that lingered on the burnt hillsides +were orange poppies faded to palest gold, and Mariposa lilies, wind-blown +on slender stems amidst the desiccated grasses, that smouldered like +ornate spotted moths fluttering in rest for a space between flight and +flight.</p> +<p>And Michael, a follower always where the exuberant Jerry led, sought +throughout the passing year for what he could not find.</p> +<p>“Looking for something, looking for something,” Harley +would say to Villa. “It is not alive. It is not here. +Now just what is it he is always looking for?”</p> +<p>Steward it was, and Michael never found him. The Nothingness +held him and would not yield him up, although, could Michael have journeyed +a ten-days’ steamer-journey into the South Pacific to the Marquesas, +Steward he would have found, and, along with him, Kwaque and the Ancient +Mariner, all three living like lotus-eaters on the beach-paradise of +Taiohae. Also, in and about their grass-thatched bungalow under +the lofty avocado trees, Michael would have found other pet—cats, +and kittens, and pigs, donkeys and ponies, a pair of love-birds, and +a mischievous monkey or two; but never a dog and never a cockatoo. +For Dag Daughtry, with violence of language, had laid a taboo upon dogs. +After Killeny Boy, he averred, there should be no other dog. And +Kwaque, without averring anything at all, resolutely refrained from +possessing himself of the white cockatoos brought ashore by the sailors +off the trading schooners.</p> +<p>But Michael was long in giving over his search for Steward, and, +running the mountain trails or scrambling and sliding down into the +deep canyons, was ever expectant and ready for Steward to step forth +before him, or to pick up the unmistakable scent that would lead him +to him.</p> +<p>“Looking for something, looking for something,” Harley +Kennan would chant curiously, as he rode beside Villa and observed Michael’s +unending search. “Now Jerry’s after rabbits, and fox-trails; +but you’ll notice they don’t interest Michael much. +They’re not what he’s after. He behaves like one who +has lost a great treasure and doesn’t know where he lost it nor +where to look for it.”</p> +<p>Much Michael learned from Jerry of the varied life of the forest +and fields. To run with Jerry seemed the one pleasure he took, +for he never played. Play had passed out of him. He was +not precisely morose or gloomy from his years on the trained-animal +stage and in Harris Collins’s college of pain, but he was sobered, +subdued. The spring and the spontaneity had gone out of him. +Just as the leopard had claw-marked his shoulder so that damp and frosty +weather made the pain of the old wound come back, so was his mind marked +by what he had gone through. He liked Jerry, was glad to be with +him and to run with him; but it was Jerry who was ever in the lead, +who ever raised the hue and cry of hunting pursuit, who barked indignation +and eager yearning at a tree’d squirrel in refuge forty feet above +the ground. Michael looked on and listened, but took no part in +such antics of enthusiasm.</p> +<p>In the same way he looked on when Jerry fought fearful comic battles +with Norman Chief, the great Percheron stallion. It was only play, +for Jerry and Norman Chief were tried friends; and, though the huge +horse, ears laid back, mouth open to bite, pursued Jerry in mad gyrations +all about the paddock, it was with no thought of inflicting hurt, but +merely to act up to his part in the sham battle. Yet no invitation +of Jerry’s could induce Michael to join in the fun. He contented +himself with sitting down outside the rails and looking on.</p> +<p>“Why play?” might Michael have asked, who had had all +play taken out of him.</p> +<p>But when it came to serious work, he was there even ahead of Jerry. +On account of foot-and-mouth disease and of hog-cholera, strange dogs +were taboo on the Kennan ranch. It did not take Michael long to +learn this, and stray dogs got short shrift from him. With never +a warning bark nor growl, in deadly silence, he rushed them, slashed +and bit them, rolled them over and over in the dust, and drove them +from the place. It was like nigger-chasing, a service to perform +for the gods whom he loved and who willed such chasing.</p> +<p>No wild passion of love, such as he had had for Steward, did he bear +Villa and Harley, but he did develop for them a great, sober love. +He did not go out of his way to express it with overtures of wrigglings +and squirmings and whimpering yelpings. Jerry could be depended +upon for that. But he was always seriously glad to be with Villa +and Harley and to receive recognition from them next after Jerry. +Some of his deepest moments of content, before the fireplace, were to +sit beside Villa or Harley and lean his head against a knee and have +a hand, on occasion, drop down on his head or gently twist his crinkled +ear.</p> +<p>Jerry was even guilty of playing with children who happened at times +to be under the Kennan ægis. Michael endured children for +as long as they left him alone. If they waxed familiar, he would +warn them with a bristling of his neck-hair and a throaty rumbling and +get up and stalk away.</p> +<p>“I can’t understand it,” Villa would say. +“He was the fullest of play, and spirits, and all foolishness. +He was much sillier and much more excitable than Jerry and certainly +noisier. He must have some terrible story to tell, if only he +could, of all that happened between Tulagi and the time we found him +on the Orpheum stage.”</p> +<p>“And that may be the least little hint of it,” Harley +would reply, pointing to Michael’s shoulder where the leopard +had scarred it on the day Jack, the Airedale, and Sara, the little green +monkey, had died.</p> +<p>“He used to bark, I know he used to bark,” Villa would +continue. “Why doesn’t he bark now?”</p> +<p>And Harley would point to the scarred shoulder and say, “That +may account for it, and most possibly a hundred other things like it +of which we cannot see the marks.”</p> +<p>But the time was to come when they were to hear him bark again—not +once, but twice. And both times were to be but an earnest of another +and graver time when, without barking at all, he would express in action +the measure of his love and worship of them who had taken him from the +crate and the footlights and given him the freedom of the Valley of +the Moon.</p> +<p>And in the meantime, running endlessly with Jerry over the ranch, +he learned all the ways of it and all the life of it from the chickenyards +and the duck-ponds to the highest pitch of Sonoma Mountain. He +learned where the wild deer, in their season, were to be found; when +they raided the prune-orchard, the vineyards, and the apple-trees; when +they sought the deepest canyons and most secret coverts; and when they +stamped out in open glades and on bare hillsides and crashed and clattered +their antlers together in combat. Under Jerry’s leadership, +always running second and after on the narrow trails as a subdued dog +should, he learned the ways and habits of the foxes, the coons, the +weasels, and the ring-tail cats that seemed compounded of cat and coon +and weasel. He came to know the ground-nesting birds and the difference +between the customs of the valley quail, the mountain quail, and the +pheasants. The traits and lairs of the domestic cats gone wild +he also learned, as did he learn the wild loves of mountain farm-dogs +with the free-roving coyotes.</p> +<p>He knew of the presence of the mountain lion, adrift down from Mendocino +County, ere the first shorthorn calf was slain, and came home from the +encounter, torn and bleeding, to attest what he had discovered and to +be the cause of Harley Kennan riding trail next day with a rifle across +his pommel. Likewise Michael came to know what Harley Kennan never +did know and always denied as existing on his ranch—the one rocky +outcrop, in the dense heart of the mountain forest, where a score of +rattlesnakes denned through the winters and warmed themselves in the +sun.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> +<p>Winter came on in its delectable way in the Valley of the Moon. +The last Mariposa lily vanished from the burnt grasses as the California +Indian summer dreamed itself out in purple mists on the windless air. +Soft rain-showers first broke the spell. Snow fell on the summit +of Sonoma Mountain. At the ranch house the morning air was crisp +and brittle, yet mid-day made the shade welcome, and in the open, under +the winter sun, roses bloomed and oranges, grape-fruit, and lemons turned +to golden yellow ripeness. Yet, a thousand feet beneath, on the +floor of the valley, the mornings were white with frost.</p> +<p>And Michael barked twice. The first time was when Harley Kennan, +astride a hot-blooded sorrel colt, tried to make it leap a narrow stream. +Villa reined in her steed at the crest beyond, and, looking back into +the little valley, waited for the colt to receive its lesson. +Michael waited, too, but closer at hand. At first he lay down, +panting from his run, by the stream-edge. But he did not know +horses very well, and soon his anxiety for the welfare of Harley Kennan +brought him to his feet.</p> +<p>Harley was gentle and persuasive and all patience as he strove to +make the colt take the leap. The urge of voice and rein was of +the mildest; but the animal balked the take-off each time, and the hot +thoroughbredness in its veins made it sweat and lather. The velvet +of young grass was torn up by its hoofs, and its terror of the stream +was such, that, when fetched to the edge at a canter, it stiffened and +crouched to an abrupt stop, then reared on its hind-legs. Which +was too much for Michael.</p> +<p>He sprang at the horse’s head as it came down with forefeet +to earth, and as he sprang he barked. In his bark was censure +and menace, and, as the horse reared again, he leaped into the air after +it, his teeth clipping together as he just barely missed its nose.</p> +<p>Villa rode back down the slope to the opposite bank of the stream.</p> +<p>“Mercy!” she cried. “Listen to him! +He’s actually barking.”</p> +<p>“He thinks the colt is trying to do some damage to me,” +Harley said. “That’s his provocation. He hasn’t +forgotten how to bark. He’s reading the colt a lecture.”</p> +<p>“If he gets him by the nose it will be more than a lecture,” +Villa warned. “Be careful, Harley, or he will.”</p> +<p>“Now, Michael, lie down and be good,” Harley commanded. +“It’s all right, I tell you. It’s an right. +Lie down.”</p> +<p>Michael sank down obediently, but protestingly; and he had eyes only +for the horse’s antics, while all his muscles were gathered tensely +to spring in case the horse threatened injury to Harley again.</p> +<p>“I can’t give in to him now, or he never will jump anything,” +Harley said to his wife, as he whirled about to gallop back to a distance. +“Either I lift him over or I take a cropper.”</p> +<p>He came back at full speed, and the colt, despite himself, unable +to stop, lifted into the leap that would avoid the stream he feared, +so that he cleared it with a good two yards to spare on the other side.</p> +<p>The next time Michael barked was when Harley, on the same hot-blood +mount, strove to close a poorly hung gate on the steep pitch of a mountain +wood-road. Michael endured the danger to his man-god as long as +he could, then flew at the colt’s head in a frenzy of barking.</p> +<p>“Anyway, his barking helped,” Harley conceded, as he +managed to close the gate. “Michael must certainly have +told the colt that he’d give him what-for if he didn’t behave.”</p> +<p>“At any rate, he’s not tongue-tied,” Villa laughed, +“even if he isn’t very loquacious.”</p> +<p>And Michael’s loquacity never went farther. Only on these +two occasions, when his master-god seemed to be in peril, was he known +to bark. He never barked at the moon, nor at hillside echoes, +nor at any prowling thing. A particular echo, to be heard directly +from the ranch-house, was an unfailing source of exercise for Jerry’s +lungs. At such times that Jerry barked, Michael, with a bored +expression, would lie down and wait until the duet was over. Nor +did he bark when he attacked strange dogs that strayed upon the ranch.</p> +<p>“He fights like a veteran,” Harley remarked, after witnessing +one such encounter. “He’s cold-blooded. There’s +no excitement in him.”</p> +<p>“He’s old before his time,” Villa said. “There +is no heart of play left in him, and no desire for speech. Just +the same I know he loves me, and you—”</p> +<p>“Without having to be voluble about it,” her husband +completed for her.</p> +<p>“You can see it shining in those quiet eyes of his,” +she supplemented.</p> +<p>“Reminds me of one of the survivors of Lieutenant Greeley’s +Expedition I used to know,” he agreed. “He was an +enlisted soldier and one of the handful of survivors. He had been +through so much that he was just as subdued as Michael and just as taciturn. +He bored most people, who could not understand him. Of course, +the truth was the other way around. They bored him. They +knew so little of life that he knew the last word of. And one +could scarcely get any word out of him. It was not that he had +forgotten how to speak, but that he could not see any reason for speaking +when nobody could understand. He was really crusty from too-bitter +wise experience. But all you had to do was look at him in his +tremendous repose and know that he had been through the thousand hells, +including all the frozen ones. His eyes had the same quietness +of Michael’s. And they had the same wisdom. I’d +give almost anything to know how he got his shoulder scarred. +It must have been a tiger or a lion.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>The man, like the mountain lion whom Michael had encountered up the +mountain, had strayed down from the wilds of Mendocino County, following +the ruggedest mountain stretches, and, at night, crossing the farmed +valley spaces where the presence of man was a danger to him. Like +the mountain lion, the man was an enemy to man, and all men were his +enemies, seeking his life which he had forfeited in ways more terrible +than the lion which had merely killed calves for food.</p> +<p>Like the mountain lion, the man was a killer. But, unlike the +lion, his vague description and the narrative of his deeds was in all +the newspapers, and mankind was a vast deal more interested in him than +in the lion. The lion had slain calves in upland pastures. +But the man, for purposes of robbery, had slain an entire family—the +postmaster, his wife, and their three children, in the upstairs over +the post office in the mountain village of Chisholm.</p> +<p>For two weeks the man had eluded and exceeded pursuit. His +last crossing had been from the mountains of the Russian River, across +wide-farmed Santa Rosa Valley, to Sonoma Mountain. For two days +he had laired and rested, sleeping much, in the wildest and most inaccessible +precincts of the Kennan Ranch. With him he had carried coffee +stolen from the last house he had raided. One of Harley Kennan’s +angora goats had furnished him with meat. Four times he had slept +the clock around from exhaustion, rousing on occasion, like any animal, +to eat voraciously of the goat-meat, to drink large quantities of the +coffee hot or cold, and to sink down into heavy but nightmare-ridden +sleep.</p> +<p>And in the meantime civilization, with its efficient organization +and intricate inventions, including electricity, had closed in on him. +Electricity had surrounded him. The spoken word had located him +in the wild canyons of Sonoma Mountain and fringed the mountain with +posses of peace-officers and detachments of armed farmers. More +terrible to them than any mountain lion was a man-killing man astray +in their landscape. The telephone on the Kennan Ranch, and the +telephones on all other ranches abutting on Sonoma Mountain, had rung +often and transmitted purposeful conversations and arrangements.</p> +<p>So it happened, when the posses had begun to penetrate the mountain, +and when the man was compelled to make a daylight dash down into the +Valley of the Moon to cross over to the mountain fastnesses that lay +between it and Napa Valley, that Harley Kennan rode out on the hot-blooded +colt he was training. He was not in pursuit of the man who had +slain the postmaster of Chisholm and his family. The mountain +was alive with man-hunters, as he well knew, for a score had bedded +and eaten at the ranch house the night before. So the meeting +of Harley Kennan with the man was unplanned and eventful.</p> +<p>It was not the first meeting with men the man had had that day. +During the preceding night he had noted the campfires of several posses. +At dawn, attempting to break forth down the south-western slopes of +the mountain toward Petaluma, he had encountered not less than five +separate detachments of dairy-ranchers all armed with Winchesters and +shotguns. Breaking back to cover, the chase hot on his heels, +he had run full tilt into a party of village youths from Glen Ellen +and Caliente. Their squirrel and deer rifles had missed him, but +his back had been peppered with birdshot in a score of places, the leaden +pellets penetrating maddeningly in a score of places just under the +skin.</p> +<p>In the rush of his retreat down the canyon slope, he had plunged +into a bunch of shorthorn steers, who, far more startled than he, had +rolled him on the forest floor, trampled over him in their panic, and +smashed his rifle under their hoofs. Weaponless, desperate, stinging +and aching from his superficial wounds and bruises, he had circled the +forest slopes along deer-paths, crossed two canyons, and begun to descend +the horse-trail he found in the third canyon.</p> +<p>It was on this trail, going down, that he met the reporter coming +up. The reporter was—well, just a reporter, from the city, +knowing only city ways, who had never before engaged in a man-hunt. +The livery horse he had rented down in the valley was a broken-kneed, +jaded, and spiritless creature, that stood calmly while its rider was +dragged from its back by the wild-looking and violently impetuous man +who sprang out around a sharp turn of the trail. The reporter +struck at his assailant once with his riding-whip. Then he received +a beating, such as he had often written up about sailor-rows and saloon-frequenters +in his cub-reporter days, but which for the first time it was his lot +to experience.</p> +<p>To the man’s disgust he found the reporter unarmed save for +a pencil and a wad of copy paper. Out of his disappointment in +not securing a weapon, he beat the reporter up some more, left him wailing +among the ferns, and, astride the reporter’s horse, urging it +on with the reporter’s whip, continued down the trail.</p> +<p>Jerry, ever keenest on the hunting, had ranged farther afield than +Michael as the pair of them accompanied Harley Kennan on his early morning +ride. Even so, Michael, at the heels of his master’s horse, +did not see nor understand the beginning of the catastrophe. For +that matter, neither did Harley. Where a steep, eight-foot bank +came down to the edge of the road along which he was riding, Harley +and the hot-blood colt were startled by an eruption through the screen +of manzanita bushes above. Looking up, he saw a reluctant horse +and a forceful rider plunging in mid-air down upon him. In that +flashing glimpse, even as he reined and spurred to make his own horse +leap sidewise out from under, Harley Kennan observed the scratched skin +and torn clothing, the wild-burning eyes, and the haggardness under +the scraggly growth of beard, of the man-hunted man.</p> +<p>The livery horse was justifiably reluctant to make that leap out +and down the bank. Too painfully aware of the penalty its broken +knees and rheumatic joints must pay, it dug its hoofs into the steep +slope of moss and only sprang out and clear in the air in order to avoid +a fall. Even so, its shoulder impacted against the shoulder of +the whirling colt below it, overthrowing the latter. Harley Kennan’s +leg, caught under against the earth, snapped, and the colt, twisted +and twisting as it struck the ground, snapped its backbone.</p> +<p>To his utter disgust, the man, pursued by an armed countryside, found +Harley Kennan, his latest victim, like the reporter, to be weaponless. +Dismounted, he snarled in his rage and disappointment and deliberately +kicked the helpless man in the side. He had drawn back his foot +for the second kick, when Michael took a hand—or a leg, rather, +sinking his teeth into the calf of the back-drawn leg about to administer +the kick.</p> +<p>With a curse the man jerked his leg clear, Michael’s teeth +ribboning flesh and trousers.</p> +<p>“Good boy, Michael!” Harley applauded from where he lay +helplessly pinioned under his horse. “Hey! Michael!” +he continued, lapsing back into bêche-de-mer, “chase ’m +that white fella marster to hell outa here along bush!”</p> +<p>“I’ll kick your head off for that,” the man gritted +at Harley through his teeth.</p> +<p>Savage as were his acts and utterance, the man was nearly ready to +cry. The long pursuit, his hand against all mankind and all mankind +against him, had begun to break his stamina. He was surrounded +by enemies. Even youths had risen up and peppered his back with +birdshot, and beef cattle had trod him underfoot and smashed his rifle. +Everything conspired against him. And now it was a dog that had +slashed down his leg. He was on the death-road. Never before +had this impressed him with such clear certainty. Everything was +against him. His desire to cry was hysterical, and hysteria, in +a desperate man, is prone to express itself in terrible savage ways. +Without rhyme or reason he was prepared to carry out his threat to kick +Harley Kennan to death. Not that Kennan had done anything to him. +On the contrary, it was he who had attacked Kennan, hurling him down +on the road and breaking his leg under his horse. But Harley Kennan +was a man, and all mankind was his enemy; and, in killing Kennan, in +some vague way it appeared to him that he was avenging himself, at least +in part, on mankind in general. Going down himself in death, he +would drag what he could with him into the red ruin.</p> +<p>But ere he could kick the man on the ground, Michael was back upon +him. His other calf and trousers’ leg were ribboned as he +tore clear. Then, catching Michael in mid-leap with a kick that +reached him under the chest, he sent him flying through the air off +the road and down the slope. As mischance would have it, Michael +did not reach the ground. Crashing through a scrub manzanita bush, +his body was caught and pinched in an acute fork a yard above the ground.</p> +<p>“Now,” the man announced grimly to Harley, “I’m +going to do what I said. I’m just going to kick your head +clean off.”</p> +<p>“And I haven’t done a thing to you,” Harley parleyed. +“I don’t so much mind being murdered, but I’d like +to know what I’m being murdered for.”</p> +<p>“Chasing me for my life,” the man snarled, as he advanced. +“I know your kind. You’ve all got it in for me, and +I ain’t got a chance except to give you yours. I’ll +take a whole lot of it out on you.”</p> +<p>Kennan was thoroughly aware of the gravity of his peril. Helpless +himself, a man-killing lunatic was about to kill him and to kill him +most horribly. Michael, a prisoner in the bush, hanging head-downward +in the manzanita from his loins squeezed in the fork, and struggling +vainly, could not come to his defence.</p> +<p>The man’s first kick, aimed at Harley’s face, he blocked +with his forearm; and, before the man could make a second kick, Jerry +erupted on the scene. Nor did he need encouragement or direction +from his love-master. He flashed at the man, sinking his teeth +harmlessly into the slack of the man’s trousers at the waist-band +above the hip, but by his weight dragging him half down to the ground.</p> +<p>And upon Jerry the man turned with an increase of madness. +In truth all the world was against him. The very landscape rained +dogs upon him. But from above, from the slopes of Sonoma Mountain, +the cries and calls of the trailing poses caught his ear, and deflected +his intention. They were the pursuing death, and it was from them +he must escape. With another kick at Jerry, hurling him clear, +he leaped astride the reporter’s horse which had continued to +stand, without movement or excitement, in utter apathy, where he had +dismounted from it.</p> +<p>The horse went into a reluctant and stiff-legged gallop, while Jerry +followed, snarling and growling wrath at so high a pitch that almost +he squalled.</p> +<p>“It’s all right, Michael,” Harley soothed. +“Take it easy. Don’t hurt yourself. The trouble’s +over. Anybody’ll happen along any time now and get us out +of this fix.”</p> +<p>But the smaller branch of the two composing the fork broke, and Michael +fell to the ground, landing in momentary confusion on his head and shoulders. +The next moment he was on his feet and tearing down the road in the +direction of Jerry’s noisy pursuit. Jerry’s noise +broke in a sharp cry of pain that added wings to Michael’s feet. +Michael passed him rolling helplessly on the road. What had happened +was that the livery horse, in its stiff-jointed, broken-kneed gallop, +had stumbled, nearly fallen, and, in its sprawling recovery, had accidentally +stepped on Jerry, bruising and breaking his foreleg.</p> +<p>And the man, looking back and seeing Michael close upon him, decided +that it was still another dog attacking him. But he had no fear +of dogs. It was men, with their rifles and shotguns, that might +bring him to ultimate grief. Nevertheless, the pain of his bleeding +legs, lacerated by Jerry and Michael, maintained his rage against dogs.</p> +<p>“More dogs,” was his bitter thought, as he leaned out +and brought his whip down across Michael’s face.</p> +<p>To his surprise, the dog did not wince under the blow. Nor +for that matter did he yelp or cry out from the pain. Nor did +he bark or growl or snarl. He closed in as though he had not received +the blow, and as though the whip was not brandished above him. +As Michael leaped for his right leg he swung the whip down, striking +him squarely on the muzzle midway between nose and eyes. Deflected +by the blow, Michael dropped back to earth and ran on with his longest +leaps to catch up and make his next spring.</p> +<p>But the man had noticed another thing. At such close range, +bringing his whip down, he could not help noting that Michael had kept +his eyes open under the blow. Neither had he winced nor blinked +as the whip slashed down on him. The thing was uncanny. +It was something new in the way of dogs. Michael sprang again, +the man timed him again with the whip, and he saw the uncanny thing +repeated. By neither wince nor blink had the dog acknowledged +the blow.</p> +<p>And then an entirely new kind of fear came upon the man. Was +this the end for him, after all he had gone through? Was this +deadly silent, rough-coated terrier the thing destined to destroy him +where men had failed? He did not even know that the dog was real. +Might it not be some terrible avenger, out of the mystery beyond life, +placed to beset him and finish him finally on this road that he was +convinced was surely the death-road? The dog was not real. +It could not be real. The dog did not live that could take a full-arm +whip-slash without wince or flinch.</p> +<p>Twice again, as the dog sprang, he deflected it with accurately delivered +blows. And the dog came on with the same surety and silence. +The man surrendered to his terror, clapping heels to his horse’s +old ribs, beating it over the head and under the belly with the whip +until it galloped as it had not galloped in years. Even on that +apathetic steed the terror descended. It was not terror of the +dog, which it knew to be only a dog, but terror of the rider. +In the past its knees had been broken and its joints stiffened for ever, +by drunken-mad riders who had hired him from the stables. And +here was another such drunken-mad rider—for the horse sensed the +man’s terror—who ached his ribs with the weight of his heels +and beat him cruelly over face and nose and ears.</p> +<p>The best speed of the horse was not very great, not great enough +to out-distance Michael, although it was fast enough to give the latter +only infrequent opportunities to spring for the man’s leg. +But each spring was met by the unvarying whip-blow that by its very +weight deflected him in the air. Though his teeth each time clipped +together perilously close to the man’s leg, each time he fell +back to earth he had to gather himself together and run at his own top +speed in order to overtake the terror-stricken man on the crazy-galloping +horse.</p> +<p>Enrico Piccolomini saw the chase and was himself in at the finish; +and the affair, his one great adventure in the world, gave him wealth +as well as material for conversation to the end of his days. Enrico +Piccolomini was a wood-chopper on the Kennan Ranch. On a rounded +knoll, overlooking the road, he had first heard the galloping hoofs +of the horse and the crack of the whip-blows on its body. Next, +he had seen the running battle of the man, the horse, and the dog. +When directly beneath him, not twenty feet distant, he saw the dog leap, +in its queer silent way, straight up and in to the down-smash of the +whip, and sink its teeth in the rider’s leg. He saw the +dog, with its weight, as it fell back to earth, drag the man half out +of the saddle. He saw the man, in an effort to recover his balance, +put his own weight on the bridle-reins. And he saw the horse, +half-rearing, half-tottering and stumbling, overthrow the last shred +of the man’s balance so that he followed the dog to the ground.</p> +<p>“And then they are like two dogs, like two beasts,” Piccolomini +was wont to tell in after-years over a glass of wine in his little hotel +in Glen Ellen. “The dog lets go the man’s leg and +jumps for the man’s throat. And the man, rolling over, is +at the dog’s throat. Both his hands—so—he fastens +about the throat of this dog. And the dog makes no sound. +He never makes sound, before or after. After the two hands of +the man stop his breath he can not make sound. But he is not that +kind of a dog. He will not make sound anyway. And the horse +stands and looks on, and the horse coughs. It is very strange +all that I see.</p> +<p>“And the man is mad. Only a madman will do what I see +him do. I see the man show his teeth like any dog, and bite the +dog on the paw, on the nose, on the body. And when he bites the +dog on the nose, the dog bites him on the check. And the man and +the dog fight like hell, and the dog gets his hind legs up like a cat. +And like a cat he tears the man’s shirt away from his chest, and +tears the skin of the chest with his claws till it is all red with bleeding. +And the man yow-yowls, and makes noises like a wild mountain lion. +And always he chokes the dog. It is a hell of a fight.</p> +<p>“And the dog is Mister Kennan’s dog, a fine man, and +I have worked for him two years. So I will not stand there and +see Mister Kennan’s dog all killed to pieces by the man who fights +like a mountain lion. I run down the hill, but I am excited and +forget my axe. I run down the hill, maybe from this door to that +door, twenty feet or maybe thirty feet. And it is nearly all finished +for the dog. His tongue is a long ways out, and his eyes like +covered with cobwebs; but still he scratches the man’s chest with +his hind-feet and the man yow-yowls like a hen of the mountains.</p> +<p>“What can I do? I have forgotten the axe. The man +will kill the dog. I look for a big rock. There are no rocks. +I look for a club. I cannot find a club. And the man is +killing the dog. I tell you what I do. I am no fool. +I kick the man. My shoes are very heavy—not like shoes I +wear now. They are the shoes of the wood-chopper, very thick on +the sole with hard leather, with many iron nails. I kick the man +on the side of the face, on the neck, right under the ear. I kick +once. It is a good kick. It is enough. I know the +place—right under the ear.</p> +<p>“And the man lets go of the dog. He shuts his eyes, and +opens his mouth, and lies very still. And the dog begins once +more to breathe. And with the breath comes the life, and right +away he wants to kill the man. But I say ‘No,’ though +I am very much afraid of the dog. And the man begins to become +alive. He opens his eyes and he looks at me like a mountain lion. +And his mouth makes a noise like a mountain lion. And I am afraid +of him like I am afraid of the dog. What am I to do? I have +forgotten the axe. I tell you what I do. I kick the man +once again under the ear. Then I take my belt, and my bandana +handkerchief, and I tie him. I tie his hands. I tie his +legs, too. And all the time I am saying ‘No,’ to the +dog, and that he must leave the man alone. And the dog looks. +He knows I am his friend and am tying the man. And he does not +bite me, though I am very much afraid. The dog is a terrible dog. +Do I not know? Have I not seen him take a strong man out of the +saddle?—a man that is like a mountain lion?</p> +<p>“And then the men come. They all have guns-rifles, shotguns, +revolvers, pistols. And I think, first, that justice is very quick +in the United States. Only just now have I kicked a man in the +head, and, one-two-three, just like that, men come with guns to take +me to jail for kicking a man in the head. At first I do not understand. +The many men are angry with me. They call me names, and say bad +things; but they do not arrest me. Ah! I begin to understand! +I hear them talk about three thousand dollars. I have robbed them +of three thousand dollars. It is not true. I say so. +I say never have I robbed a man of one cent. Then they laugh. +And I feel better and I understand better. The three thousand +dollars is the reward of the Government for this man I have tied up +with my belt and my bandana. And the three thousand dollars is +mine because I kicked the man in the head and tied his hands and his +feet.</p> +<p>“So I do not work for Mister Kennan any more. I am a +rich man. Three thousand dollars, all mine, from the Government, +and Mister Kennan sees that it is paid to me by the Government and not +robbed from me by the men with the guns. Just because I kicked +the man in the head who was like a mountain lion! It is fortune. +It is America. And I am glad that I have left Italy and come to +chop wood on Mister Kennan’s ranch. And I start this hotel +in Glen Ellen with the three thousand dollars. I know there is +large money in the hotel business. When I was a little boy, did +not my father have a hotel in Napoli? I have now two daughters +in high school. Also I own an automobile.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>“Mercy me, the whole ranch is a hospital!” cried Villa +Kennan, two days later, as she came out on the broad sleeping-porch +and regarded Harley and Jerry stretched out, the one with his leg in +splints, the other with his leg in a plaster cast. “Look +at Michael,” she continued. “You’re not the +only ones with broken bones. I’ve only just discovered that +if his nose isn’t broken, it ought to be, from the blow he must +have received on it. I’ve had hot compresses on it for the +last hour. Look at it!”</p> +<p>Michael, who had followed in at her invitation, betrayed a ridiculously +swollen nose as he sniffed noses with Jerry, wagged his bobtail to Harley +in greeting, and was greeted in turn with a blissful hand laid on his +head.</p> +<p>“Must have got it in the fight,” Harley said. “The +fellow struck him with the whip many times, so Piccolomini says, and, +naturally, it would be right across the nose when he jumped for him.”</p> +<p>“And Piccolomini says he never cried out when he was struck, +but went on running and jumping,” Villa took up enthusiastically. +“Think of it! A dog no bigger than Michael dragging out +of the saddle a man-killing outlaw whom scores of officers could not +catch!”</p> +<p>“So far as we are concerned, he did better than that,” +Harley commented quietly. “If it hadn’t been for Michael, +and for Jerry, too—if it hadn’t been for the pair of them, +I do verily believe that that lunatic would have kicked my head off +as he promised.”</p> +<p>“The blessed pair of them!” Villa cried, with shining +eyes, as her hand flashed out to her husband’s in a quick press +of heart-thankfulness. “The last word has not been said +upon the wonder of dogs,” she added, as, with a quick winking +of her eyelashes to overcome the impending moistness, she controlled +her emotion.</p> +<p>“The last word of the wonder of dogs will never be said,” +Harley spoke, returning the pressure of her hand and releasing it in +order to help her.</p> +<p>“And just for that were going to say something right now,” +she smiled. “Jerry, and Michael, and I. We’ve +been practising it in secret for a surprise for you. You just +lie there and listen. It’s the Doxology. Don’t +Laugh. No pun intended.”</p> +<p>She bent forward from the stool on which she sat, and drew Michael +to her so that he sat between her knees, her two hands holding his head +and jowls, his nose half-buried in her hair.</p> +<p>“Now Jerry!” she called sharply, as a singing teacher +might call, so that Jerry turned his head in attention, looked at her, +smiled understanding with his eyes, and waited.</p> +<p>It was Villa who started and pitched the Doxology, but quickly the +two dogs joined with their own soft, mellow howling, if howling it may +be called when it was so soft and mellow and true. And all that +had vanished into the Nothingness was in the minds of the two dogs as +they sang, and they sang back through the Nothingness to the land of +Otherwhere, and ran once again with the Lost Pack, and yet were not +entirely unaware of the present and of the indubitable two-legged god +who was called Villa and who sang with them and loved them.</p> +<p>“No reason we shouldn’t make a quartette of it,” +remarked Harley Kennan, as with his own voice he joined in.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MICHAEL, BROTHER OF JERRY***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1730-h.htm or 1730-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/3/1730 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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