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Treve

[Pg 39] <h2>CHAPTER II: THIRST!</h2> Treve lay drowsing, in the early morning sunshine, in front of the Dos Hermanos ranch house. The big young collie sprawled lazily on his left side; his classic head outlined sharply against the warming sand of the dooryard; his tiny white forepaws thrust forward as if in a gallop; the sun’s rays catching and burnishing his massive tawny-gold coat. Treve was well content to sprawl idly like this. It had been a large night. Mack and Joel Fenno, and three of their men, had spent hours of it in rounding up a bunch of stray sheep that had butted their silly way out of the rotting home fold, after sundown, and had rambled off aimlessly down the coulée. The sheep had been gone for hours and had traveled with annoying steadiness and speed before their loss was noted. Then, it had taken some time, through the dark, to overhaul them; and far longer to convoy them home. The sheep might never have started upon their illicit ramble—assuredly they would never have proceeded along ten minutes of it—if Treve had been on the job. But the big young dog had[Pg 40] gone with Royce Mack, in the buckboard, over to Santa Carlotta, for the week’s mail; and had not gotten home until dark. It was only during his before-bedtime patrol of the outbuildings that he found the forced wattle; and realized what had befallen the fold’s occupants. He had dashed up to the ranch house. There, by his clamor of wild barking, he had brought the two partners out of doors on the jump. He led them to the empty fold and obligingly took up the scent there; tracing the strays far faster than his human companions could follow through the dense dark and over the rough ground. Ahead of him, this morning, was another long day’s work as soon as the partners should finish breakfast. In the meantime, it was pleasant to sprawl sleepily on the dooryard’s soft sand. Through the open door, rumbled the sound of voices. Being only a real-life collie and not a phenomenon, Treve could not understand one word in ten that reached his keen ears, as he lay there. But he did not need a knowledge of words to tell him the two men were quarreling. Vaguely, Treve regretted this; not only as a highly developed collie always dislikes the sound of human strife, but because one of those men was his god. He did not like the thought that any one should be speaking unkindly to this deity of his. [Pg 41] However, he had heard quarrels, before, since he came to Dos Hermanos Ranch; and none of them had ended in any harm to his deity. So, he listened drowsily, rather than apprehensively. To both the partners Treve was docilely obedient. Under their tutelage he had become one of the best herding dogs in that valley of herding dogs. But to only one partner did Treve grant the allegiance of his heart. Old Joel Fenno regarded all livestock as mere counters in his game for a livelihood. He neither liked nor disliked Treve. He worked him hard; and he saw that the collie obeyed orders. There the man’s interest in him ended. Young Royce Mack was different. By nature he was a dog-lover. Moreover, he “had a way” with dogs. Between him and Treve, from the outset, a deep friendship had sprung up. At every off-duty moment, Treve was at Mack’s heels. He slept beside his bunk, at night; and usually lay beside his chair at meals. He joined Mack, right joyously, on all walks or rides. In brief, he adopted Royce as his overlord; and gave him glad worship. With disgusted grunts, old Fenno had noted the jolly chumship between dog and man. To him it was as absurd as though Royce Mack had made a pet of a horned toad. Yet never until now had he voiced any active objection. Fenno[Pg 42] was a man of few and grudging words. To-day, however, he considered it high time to speak. He chose the breakfast table as the place for his rebuke. “If that cur had been to home, where he belongs, yesterday afternoon,” he grumbled, as he began his second cup of coffee, “them sheep wouldn’t ever have got a chance to stray.” “If he hadn’t been here, last night,” said Royce, “we’d never have found them in a week. Besides, it wasn’t his fault he was off the job, in the afternoon. I took him to Santa Carlotta with me. You know that.” “Sure, I know it,” growled Joel. “Why wouldn’t I know it? Cost me a night’s sleep, didn’t it? Oh, I know it, all right! But what I’m gettin’ at is: Every critter in this outfit has got to earn his way; got to pay for his keep. If he don’t, then he’s got to stop eatin’ our grub. Treve pays for himself when he works. And when he don’t work, he’s dead wood. Dos Hermanos Ranch can’t afford dead wood. We don’t hire Treve to go drivin’ to Santa Carlotta in lux’ry and to traipse around on loafin’ walks with you. Nor yet we don’t hire him to snore in the bunk room, nights, when he’d ought to be on guard. If that’s what he’s goin’ to do, the sooner we feed him a lump of lead, the better.” The old fellow returned to the task of [Pg 43]demolishing his breakfast. He ate surlily and without gusto. He did all things surlily and without gusto. Royce Mack did not speak for a moment or two. He had been waiting for this outbreak ever since the mischance at the fold. It was like old Fenno not to have blurted it in the first flush of the excitement; but to wait until he had marshaled his facts and had cooled down to normal. Royce, too, had had time for preparation. Presently he made reply; schooling himself to calmness and even to an assumption of good humor. “Treve isn’t dead wood,” he said. “If he’d never done another lick of work, since we had him, he’d have paid for a lifetime’s keep by rounding up that bunch of strays, last night. You remember where he found them. And they were still traveling—still heading north. By daylight, they’d have been over the edge of the Triple Bar range. And you can figure what that outfit of cow-men would have done to ’em. We’d never have seen wool nor hoof of one of ’em again. The Triple Bar or any other of the cattle crowd wouldn’t ask better than to shoot up a flock of sheep that strayed onto their range.” Joel Fenno kept on munching his food, interspersing this with noisy swigs of coffee. He said nothing. Mack resumed: [Pg 44] “Besides, we’ve got Zit and Rastus, for the regular herding and for night guard. That isn’t supposed to be Treve’s job. They’re both born to it. They’re little and black and squat and splayfooted and they can’t be made homelier by galloping all day and every day, over hardpan, for hundreds of miles in the broiling sun. Neither of them has got Treve’s brain or his looks. I don’t want him turned into a splayfoot drudge. He earns his keep, good and plenty, here on the home tract. We agreed to that, long ago.” “You agreed to it,” mumbled Fenno, his mouth full, his eyes glum. “I didn’t. I haven’t been jawin’. But I’ve been watchin’. An’ here’s where we come to a showdown. Till we got that cur, there wasn’t any loafin’ here. Since then, you go on silly walks with him, when you might be workin’. That comes out of my pocket. You let him sleep in the bunk room, like he was a Christian. The Dos Hermanos is a workin’ outfit. No time for measly pets and the like. It’s got to stop.” “I don’t neglect my job, by taking Treve up into the hills or along the coulée for a tramp, Sundays,” denied Mack. “Better do that, on my rest day, than play poker in the mess shack or ride over to Santa Carlotta and get drunk[Pg 45] on bootleg. He’s my chum. If you don’t like him—” “I don’t. I don’t like a hair of him. He—” “Then figure out what his keep costs us; and deduct it from my share of the profits, every month. That’s fair, isn’t it?” “No,” denied Joel, sullenly. “It ain’t. You’re makin’ us both lose money by the time you waste, learnin’ him tricks and suchlike, and loafin’ around with him. Besides, it sets a bad example to the hands. Yesterday, I saw Toni tryin’ to learn Rastus to shake hands. Tryin’ to make him do like Treve does. Nice stunt for a sheep-wrastler, huh? Shakin’ hands! It’s got to stop.” “If it stops, then I stop, too,” said Mack. He spoke without heat, but with much finality. Fenno grunted as usual and pushed back his chair from the table. Royce continued, getting to his feet: “I’m the only man who ever was able to get on with you, Joel. I’ve stood your grouches and your crankiness; because I figured those grouches hurt you a lot more than they could hurt me. And I’ve always tried to dodge any squabbles with you. I’m still going to try to. So I guess you’d better think over what you’ve just said about our getting rid of Treve. If Treve gets out, I get out. Not that I’m fool[Pg 46] enough to value a dog more than I value a man; but because when one partner begins handing out ultimatums, it’s time for the other to quit. The ultimatum habit is a rotten one. If I gave in to the first ultimatum, there’d be more and more of ’em; till some day there’d come one that I’d have to fight over. So, the first ultimatum is going to be the last one. That’s why I’m asking you to think it over and take it back. See you at supper time. So long.” Still holding in his temper, he left the shack; Joel Fenno staring after him in baleful speechlessness. As Mack came out into the dooryard, Treve was off the ground in one leap; and cantering up to him; eagerly expectant of accompanying his god whithersoever Royce might be going. But Mack checked him. “No, old boy,” he whispered, stooping to pat the classic head. “Not this morning. He’s riled. No sense in riling him worse, by us starting off to work, together. He’d figure we were going to waste half the day in chasing jackrabbits and learning tricks. Stay here. He’s going down to the South Quarter this morning. He said so yesterday. He said, then, he’d need you to help Rastus drive that South Quarter bunch over to the Bottoms. I’ve got to pack the big truck across to Santa Carlotta for[Pg 47] the freight we found there yesterday. It’d be good fun for both of us, to have you ride on the front seat with me, Treve, son. But—well, just now, he’d likely throw a fit if you took the morning off.... Lie down there and wait for him.” The dog obeyed. But he did so with none of his wonted gay alacrity. Naturally, he understood not a tithe of Royce’s harangue. But he caught some of its drift, from the tone and from a scattered word or so that was within his experience. Like so many lonely men, Mack had fallen into the habit of talking to this collie chum of his, during their long rides or hikes, as if to a human. The dog, in true collie fashion, had learned to read both voice and face; and to pick up the meaning of certain familiar words. For example, he understood perfectly, now, that he must not accompany his god as usual, but must lie down and wait for his other owner’s commands. This was ill news to the dog. His deepset dark eyes were full of wistful appeal, as he stretched himself reluctantly in the sand again and stared after the departing Royce. Treve had not long to wait there, alone. In another minute Joel Fenno slouched out of the ranch house and stood on the threshold looking moodily down at him. The collie did not greet Fenno’s advent with any of the exuberant joy[Pg 48] wherewith he had hailed Mack’s. Indeed, he did not greet Joel at all. He lay, returning the man’s look. Treve was ready to obey any command given him by this oldster or to do any work Fenno might assign him to. He recognized that as his duty. But duty did not entail an enthusiastic greeting to a man who had never yet lavished so much as a careless pat on his head or spoken a pleasant word to him. Joel Fenno was wont to bolt breakfast and then to hustle busily off to the morning’s tasks. But to-day he stood quite still, his brooding old puckered eyes scanning the dog; his ears strained for some expected sound. Presently he heard the sound he had been awaiting. It was the starting of the truck’s engine; down at the barn. Joel shifted his puckered gaze to the group of ramshackle adobe buildings. Royce Mack was backing the big truck out of its cubby-hole. He swung it about and headed bumpily for the main road. Treve’s own eyes and ears were at attention, as he saw Mack departing on a jaunt without his chum. He whimpered, low down in his throat; and peered longingly after the truck. Then with a sigh of resignation he turned again to face Joel. As the truck vanished in a fluff of choky [Pg 49]yellow dust, Fenno came to life. Stepping back into the shack, he scribbled a few lines on a crumpled paper bag; and pinned the paper to the deal surface of the table, where it must catch Royce’s notice as soon as the younger man should come into the house again. Writing was a tedious and grunt-evoking labor to Joel Fenno. He took a pardonable pride in his few literary productions. Now, he gratified such pride by bending over to reread what he had written. Half aloud he muttered the scrawled words: <blockquote> “Mack, maybe I was too hot under the collar about Treve. Maybe he is a good chum, like you say. I aim to find out. I am going to let Toni take the bunch over to the South Quarter with Zit or Rastus to-day. And I am going to take a two-day camping trip down to the Ova and back. Last year this time the waterholes down there had kept the grazing pretty good. If it is as good this year we can maybe save a couple of weeks rent money on the gov’t grazing lands up on the peaks by going to the Ova first. It is worth a try. I ought to be back by to-morrow night. I am going to take Treve along for company. Joel.” </blockquote> Fenno, for the first time in his sixty-odd years, was attempting wily diplomacy. And he was[Pg 50] doing it very badly indeed. It did not occur to him that his partner might not accept, at its face value, this unprecedented taste of his for Treve’s society. True, both ranchers had had a hazy idea of investigating grazing conditions in the Ova, before shifting their flocks, as usual, to the government grazing lands on the slopes of the Dos Hermanos peaks, for the summer and autumn. But it was a trip any of their men could have made for them. It was unlike Joel to waste two busy days that way, in person. Royce could not well avoid wondering at it. This possibility, too, escaped Fenno’s imagination. To him, his scheme appeared truly inspired. He valued Mack’s partnership. In a grouchy way, he was fond of the jolly young fellow. Royce was a hard worker and a good sheep man. Moreover, he had up-to-date ideas which more than once had been coined into money for the ranch. Fenno had no intention of breaking with so useful a partner. At the same time, he had still less intent of letting Royce go on loafing and frittering valuable time away, as Joel deemed it, by making a pet of a dog. He regarded the romps and comradeship and long walks of the two, as a hustling financier might view a card game among his employees in the middle of a busy office day. [Pg 51] Time was money. Also, if Mack had any energy and inventiveness to spare, he might better place those at the service of the ranch than in teaching a cur to find his tobacco pouch or to catch food-morsels from the top of his own nose. Joel had protested. His protest had been met by Mack’s firm refusal to give up the collie. There was no sense wasting time in useless bickering. The one wise move was to get rid of the dog; and to do it in such a manner that Mack should not suspect his partner of doing it purposely. Fenno’s plan had been worked out, in swift detail, as soon as Royce had departed for the day’s work. He would start on horseback toward the Ova. At some spot too far from the ranch for Mack to trace the deed, and lonely enough to preclude the chance of witnesses, he would stop; put a bullet through the collie; scoop out a shallow grave in the sand and bury him. Then, the same evening Fenno would return to the ranch house, saying Treve had run away during their journey and that he had come back for him. Mack could prove nothing. According to Joel’s elaborate calculations, he could suspect nothing. Treve would merely seem to have strayed from his human companion of the trip, and either to have lost his way home or to[Pg 52] have been stolen by some Mexican or else shot by a passing cattleman. It was very simple. Fenno made certain of his scheme’s verisimilitude by ordering Chang, the cook, to put up two days’ rations for him. Then, giving commands to Toni, he saddled his mustang for the lethal ride toward the Ova. At his imperative whistle, Treve ranged alongside the pony, and the two set forth. The dog did not relish the prospect of a ride with Joel. True, almost every dog enjoys a walk or a ride with even a human whom he does not love. But Treve was aware of a queer distaste for to-day’s jaunt. Perhaps he was warned by the sixth sense which puzzles so many collie-students. Perhaps the heat of the day and the glum company of Fenno made the outing seem less attractive than usual. Yet, obediently, even if not ecstatically, he loped along at the pony’s side. The mustang enjoyed the trip still less than did the collie. Fenno had no understanding of horses. He rode, as he did everything else; busily and unsparingly. He had no sympathy or sense of fellowship with his mount. To him, a horse was a machine which must be made to earn its cost and upkeep. He would have sworn derisively at any one who might have suggested to him the need of warming a horse’s bit on an[Pg 53] icy morning or of dismounting during a ten-minute halt or of easing his mount over the heavy going of the sands or tethering him out of draughts and in the shade rather than in wind and sun. Horses understand such failings on the part of the men who use them. Thus, not a pony on the Dos Hermanos ranch bothered to lift head and to whinny when old Fenno clumped into the barn in the morning. Not one that did not toss back the head in fear of a fist-blow when Joel undertook to bridle him. His mount, to-day, was a temperamental little buckskin, Pancho by name, whose devil temper and inborn mischief had never been trained fully out of him. Royce Mack understood Pancho and got good service from him, in spite of the buckskin’s occasional phases of meanness. But Joel Fenno and Pancho had a steady hatred for each other. Joel had chosen the buckskin for to-day’s ride, because his own temper was still frayed from the night’s work and the morning’s squabble. Subconsciously, he yearned for something on which to vent his crankiness. He found himself watching for any trick or meanness on the part of Pancho which should warrant the liberal use of quirt and spur. When a man is looking for a fight, Destiny is[Pg 54] prone to send one to him. Fenno had not ridden for more than two hours, when Pancho saw, or affected to see, something terrifying about a jack rabbit that bounded out of a sage-clump in front of the pony’s nose. Pancho went straight up into the air, wheeling half-way about, as he did so, and coming to earth again, stiff-legged, in a series of spine-jarring buck-jumps. The first of these banging impacts nearly unseated Fenno and wholly snapped the ill-tied cord which strapped the bundle of rations to the back of the saddle. So occupied was Joel with the punitive values of curb and quirt and heel that he did not observe the loss of his provisions and water bag. Treve had viewed the advent of the jack rabbit with pleased interest; foreseeing some excitement in chasing the long-eared and longer-legged bunny. But, instantly, the scrimmage between man and horse offered far more excitement for him, and with less need for active exercise. Wherefore, the collie stood, tulip ears cocked and classic head interestedly on one side, watching the battle. Two or three times, it is true, he had to dodge back in lightning haste, to avoid Pancho’s flying heels or crazy plunges. But, on the whole, it was a most entertaining and lively spectacle, wherewith to vary the tedium of the hot trip.[Pg 55] Nor was the collie’s fun in it marred by any anxiety as to the outcome. Once or twice when Pancho had cut up like this with Royce Mack, the dog had been terrified for his god’s safety; and had even sprung for the plunging pony’s nose, until Royce had shouted gayly to him to stand clear. But to-day, Treve could witness the fight with unmarred interest. He did not care, in the very least, whether Pancho should demolish Joel or Joel demolish Pancho. He had no liking for either of them. It was an enthralling spectacle to watch. And no personal feeling was involved. The horse fought frantically. The man fought back with scientific fury. For ferocity and murderous brutality, he outbattled the beast. In little more than a minute, Pancho gave up the conflict. Not that he was subdued, but because he found he could not hope to win this particular bout. He stood trembling and non-resisting; while the rider whaled him unmercifully. Then, at a harsh-voiced order, the mustang continued his journey; his mouth dripping blood-flecked foam; his coat a white lather of sweat and weals; his sides scored bloodily by the rowels. Joel settled himself down into his saddle. Grimly, he was pleased with himself. He had[Pg 56] worked off his sour temper, and he had won a victory. The dog, resignedly trotting along beside him, could have told him how far he had come from breaking his foe’s spirit. For Treve could see the pony’s eyes. And a devil was smoldering behind them. Their whites showed unduly. There was a hint of murder in their rolling irises. Joel Fenno, smugly confident in his own horsemanship and in the victory of man over brute, would have sworn there could not be an atom of fight left in the sweating and trembling victim of his beating. Thus, for the billionth time in history, a man might have profited vastly had he known as much as did his dog. Two hours went by. And another hour. Then, Fenno began to scan the distance for some shady spot where he might make his noonday halt, for a bite of lunch and ten minutes’ rest. There was no shade in sight. In fact it was the most shadeless season of a shadeless region in that semi-arid belt of shadeless country. In Dos Hermanos County, except on the slopes and summits of the Dos Hermanos Peaks, the average yearly rainfall is but twenty-four inches. And more than twenty-one of those twenty-four inches fall between November and April. Late May had arrived. The level ground—most [Pg 57]of it little better than hardpan—was beginning to dry to the consistency of friable clay. The lower foothills were losing the last of their verdure and beginning to assume their summer coat of khaki tan. True, in such lowlands as the Ova, the occasional waterholes, and like receptacles for rainfall, sometimes on wet years kept enough green grass alive to serve as temporary grazing ground for sheep; before the utter drouth of summer sent the sheep men to the government land high in the mountains, with their flocks, in search of grass to carry the livestock through until late autumn. But this was not a wet year. Joel Fenno saw the arid sweep of ground; broken, perhaps a mile ahead of him, by an irregular ring of yellowish green. Here, by all signs, should be a waterhole. True, no shade was near it. But it might offer a chance to bathe his hot face and wrists in moderately cool water. The increasing heat of the day made this seem more and more desirable. Fenno headed for the waterhole. His tired pony plodded along over the uneven ground with head adroop. Treve had moved from Pancho’s right side, to his left; seeking such tiny patch of shade as the mustang’s moving body might afford. The air hung dead and stifling.[Pg 58] The sun blazed down in a copper glare from the pitilessly hot sky. Nature seemed dead and blistering. Joel’s tough skin sweated drippingly. It was the hottest day, thus far, of the year; and the weatherwise man knew it was the first of at least three scorchingly hot days. He was not minded to continue the ride any farther than he must. It would be well to do what he had come to do, and then turn back toward the ranch. This was as good a spot as any for his purpose. Here, at intervals, patches of soft and easily-diggable sand cropped out through the hardpan and rock. It would be easy enough to gouge a space deep enough to bury the body of a dog. Yes, and it would be best to do so, before getting any nearer to the waterhole. The presence of water might well attract other wayfarers,—men who might investigate a newly heaped mound of sand, in the dead level. The burial would better be here, a mile on the hither side of the waterhole and on a trackless bit of ground. Joel Fenno halted his mustang, and glanced around to make certain he had the wide sweep of swooningly arid country to himself. In that pitilessly clear atmosphere, his keen old eyes could have descried any moving object, many miles away. Treve, still keeping in the shadow of the pony, stopped and looked inquiringly up[Pg 59] at the man. It had been a long and fast and steady ride, under the sickeningly hot sun glare and over the ever-hotter hardpan. The dog was glad for a rest. Then, suddenly, his attention was caught by Fenno’s upraised voice. Joel, in the course of his sweeping survey of the country behind him, had chanced to drop his gaze to the hips of his sweating and welt-skinned mount. He saw the water bag and the bundle of rations were gone from behind his saddle. He was an old enough plainsman to realize what this implied. It meant he must go hungry until night—he who had ridden himself into such a hearty appetite. It meant, too, that he must do all his drinking from the muddy and perhaps alkaline puddle of the mile-distant waterhole; and that thereafter he must travel through the heat with unassuaged thirst until he should get back to the ranch at nightfall. Small wonder that he burst into a roar of red profanity! He knew well enough how the mischance had occurred. His spine still ached from the bucking of Pancho, four hours ago. It must have been during that series of jarring bucks that the water bag and the bundle had been loosened and had tumbled unheeded to earth. It was Pancho’s fault—all Pancho’s fault! [Pg 60] In a gust of wrath, he slashed the mustang across the neck with his quirt. Now a horse is almost as quick as a dog to note a change in his master’s mood. Even before the blow—even before the burst of swearing—Pancho had become aware of a slackening in his rider’s wonted grim self-command. He had prepared, in his meanly uncertain mind, to take advantage of it. Before the quirt had fairly landed athwart his neck, Pancho had left ground. This time he did not buck. Straight up in air shot his forequarters. There was no warning of the outbreak. Moreover, Fenno had been sitting carelessly in the saddle; for the horse had been standing still. There was no scope for guarding against the trick. Scarce did the man’s knees seek to grip the pony, in anticipation of any plunge the quirt blow might entail, when Pancho reared. With the speed of light, the mustang flung his head and shoulders upward. In practically the same motion he hurled his tense body back; dashing himself to the ground, with his rider beneath him. More than once, in former battles, Pancho had attempted this, with Joel. But, usually a fist-thump between the ears had brought him down on all fours again before the ruse was[Pg 61] complete. Failing to land such a punch, Fenno had at other times twisted out of the saddle and safely out of the falling body’s path, before the pony could strike ground. But, to-day, the outshot fist started its drive an instant too late. It grazed Pancho’s ear. Joel slipped from the saddle; but again a fraction of a second too late. Down crashed the nine-hundred-pound mustang, full on the helplessly struggling body of his fallen rider; pinning Fenno to earth on an outcrop of shale rock. With a snort and a wriggle, Pancho was up on his feet again. On the trampled ground behind him floundered a writhing and bruised man, who twisted like a stamped-on snake. With all his might, Joel Fenno strove to get up. He knew something of untamable horses’ temper; and he knew what must be in store for himself, should he fail to regain his feet. But he could not arise. He did not know why. His legs refused to obey him. The fall, and the crushing weight that ground his back into the rock, had wrenched the spine. While his injury was not mortal or even beyond easy surgical cure, yet it had left his legs temporarily numb and useless. He was paralyzed. The mustang celebrated his own release by a[Pg 62] thunderous circular gallop; the circle bringing him again toward the prostrate man. With lips drawn back from his evil teeth, and with ears flat, the infuriated pony charged. Here was the longed-for chance to revenge himself on the enemy who had scourged and roweled him and jerked his lips to ribbons with the curb chain! The devil that lurked behind the rolling eyes flamed forth in murder. With an effort that wellnigh made him faint with agony, Fenno reached back to his hip for the service revolver he had strapped to his belt that morning for the killing of Treve. Then, the agony of his mind made him forget the anguish of his body. In his tumble, the pistol had bounced from its holster. It was lying some ten feet away; impotently reflecting from its blue barrel and cylinder the glint of the noonday sun. For all use the weapon could now be to its owner, it might as well lie in the next county. Down at the helpless cripple thundered Pancho. The mustang’s flashing forefeet were in air above the man; poised for the tearing beats which should stamp their victim to a jelly. Joel shut his eyes. But the murderous hoofs did not reach their goal. [Pg 63] This because a tawny-golden body whizzed through the air, from nowhere in particular, but with the deadly accuracy of a rifle shot. A pair of snapping jaws sunk their teeth deep in the mustang’s sensitive nose; while a sixty-pound furry body whirled itself so sharply to one side that Pancho’s aim and velocity were deflected. Down came the hoofs; but waveringly and scramblingly and not within ten inches of the fallen man. Before they could rear again, the grip on the nose was changed to a slash along the left side of the mustang’s head. Under the pain of this, Pancho veered. A second slash veered him still farther from the crippled Joel. Probably Treve had no clear idea why he dashed to the rescue of the man for whom he had no feeling except a vague dislike. While Pancho and Joel had fought upon more even terms, the dog had looked on impersonally, entertained by the spectacle, and with no impulse to interfere. But now that the man was down and helpless, somehow it was different. To a dog, all men are gods. That does not mean they are his own particular gods or that he has any interest in most of them. But they are of the race which he and his ancestors have served and guarded and worshiped since the days when the new earth was covered with vapor[Pg 64] and the Neanderthal man tamed the first wolf-cub. So now, when Joel Fenno lay stricken and defenseless and the mustang turned on him in murder, the collie played true to ancestral instinct. Pancho spun about at the dog that had balked his yearning to murder the man. Apparently the collie must be gotten rid of, before the mustang could finish the task of killing Fenno, with any peace and absence of interruption. Wherefore, the pony turned his attention to killing Treve. But, in less than a handful of seconds, he found he had taken upon himself a job far too big and too dangerous for his powers. The dog entered rapturously into the sport. He was everywhere at once and nowhere at any particular moment. He was rending the bloody nostrils of the mustang. He was nipping the mustang’s hocks. He was slashing at the throat; he was tearing at face and chest and hips, in almost the same instant. With perfect ease, he eluded the flailing hoofs and the pony’s wide-snapping jaws. Joel Fenno forgot his own intolerable pain in the fascination of the combat. But, as suddenly as it began, the fight ended. The mustang had wit enough to know when he was bested. [Pg 65]Bleeding, smarting, confused, all the lust of battle bitten out of him, he turned tail and fled. After the first few yards of clamorous barking and heel-teasing, Treve let him go and trotted back to the groaning Fenno. Gravely, inquisitively, the collie stood over the man who had brought him here to shoot him. Down into the tortured face he looked. Joel returned the sorrowful gaze, with something of terror in his own leathern visage. He was jolted out of a lifetime’s beliefs and theories. His thoughts would not assemble themselves. He tried once more to get to his feet. But his legs were numb. He sought to wriggle along on his stomach toward the mile-off waterhole. There he could quench the awful thirst that had begun to grip him. There, too, he might be found by some passerby, seeking water on the way across the arid waste. But the pain of even the slightest motion was more than his iron nerve could endure. With a groan he gave up the attempt. Supine and panting, Fenno lay where he had fallen; the great dog standing protectingly above him. From time to time Treve would bend down to lick the tortured face or to whine softly in sympathy. He knew the man was helpless and in pain. But there was nothing he could do except to interpose his own hot shaggy body between[Pg 66] Fenno’s head and the terrific sun-rays. And even this may have been done by accident. Thirst gripped Joel; tenfold more agonizingly than did the pain of his wrenched back. His mouth was parched and burning. His tongue had begun to swell. Burying his face—now sweatless and dryly torrid—in his hands, he lay and prayed for death. When he looked up again, Treve was gone. An awful sense of loneliness seized the tormented sufferer. Blithely would he have given his share of the ranch, in return for the dog’s comforting presence at his side. More blithely would he have given ten years of life for one drop of water, to ease the fever and maniac thirst that possessed him. To few is it given to receive the granting of the only two wishes they make. But, presently, it was granted to Joel Fenno. He heard a patter of running feet. Toward him, from the direction of the waterhole, Treve came bounding. The collie’s massively shaggy coat was adrip with water. Up to the parched victim he trotted, and lay down beside Fenno’s head. Greedily Joel dug both fevered hands in the dog’s mattress of soaked fur, squeezing into his own mouth the drops of grimy water wherewith the coat was saturated. [Pg 67] Now, Treve had done no miraculous thing; although to Fenno it seemed a major miracle of brain and devotion. Indeed, the dog had done something absolutely normal and characteristic. Seeing Joel lie still, with his face buried in his hands, he had concluded the man was asleep; and thus was in no immediate need of the collie’s services. Thus, the young dog had scope to think of his own needs. For more than five hours, through the scorching heat, Treve had been running; without so much as a single drink of water to cool his throat. Collies, more than almost any other dogs, require plenty of drinking water. Now that he was at leisure to consider his own wants, Treve realized he was acutely thirsty. His uncanny sense of smell told him there was water, somewhere ahead. Off he went to investigate. Finding the waterhole, he drank his fill; then, collie-like, he wallowed deep in the muddy liquid. Cooled and with his thirst assuaged, he recalled his duty; and galloped back to the injured man; lying down in front of him to await orders. That his soaked coat chanced to contain enough water to soothe the torment of Joel’s fever-thirst, was mere coincidence. Twice more, during that terrible afternoon of heat, the dog stole away to the waterhole to drink and to wallow. Both times he came back[Pg 68] to the sufferer who waited so frantically to wring out into his own burning mouth the life-saving drops. Even before the riderless Pancho came cantering home in late afternoon, Royce Mack had begun to worry. Returning early from Santa Carlotta, he had found Joel’s note; and had read perplexedly between the lines. At sight of Pancho, he flung a saddle on another pony and yelled to two of his men to follow. Then he set off at top speed along the trail toward the Ova. Dark had fallen, hours agone, when the bark of a collie came to Mack, on his plodding ride. Then there was a scurry of padded feet; and Treve was leaping and barking about Royce’s pony. From a mile to one side of Mack’s line of march, the night breeze had brought the collie his master’s scent. He had galloped to intercept him and to guide him to where a half-delirious old man lay sprawled out on a hot rock. At sight of the rescuer, Joel Fenno tensed his muscles and forced his face into its wonted sour grimness. But he could not keep his delirium-tickled tongue from babbling. “Say!” he grunted, before Mack could speak. “We’ll keep Treve, if you’re so set on keepin’ him. Not that he’s reely wuth keepin’—except maybe sometimes. Let him stay on at Dos[Pg 69] Hermanos, if you like. He’s—he’s only part collie, though. He’s got some of the breedin’ of—of the ravens that fed Elijah. Let him stay with us. I don’t mind, so long as he don’t eat too much.... Now quit gawpin’ like a fool; and help get me to a doctor! Why, that collie’s got more sense than what you’ve got. Besides, he’s—he’s sure one grand water-dog!” <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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