The Dogs of Boytown. Dyer Walter Alden

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СКАЧАТЬ him. Running ahead of him was a beautiful English setter, speckled white with black markings. Her every motion was swift and graceful as she ran sniffing from one clump of shrubbery to another. Sometimes the man would give a peculiar little whistle, and then the dog would pause and look up, and then dart off to right or to left in obedience to a wave of the man's arm.

      Suddenly the dog stopped and stood rigid as a statue, her tail held out straight behind, one foreleg raised, and her neck and nose stretched toward a patch of sheep laurel. The man stealthily approached while the dog stood perfectly motionless with quivering nostrils.

      They were quite near the boys now. There was a sudden movement in the sheep laurel, a whir of wings, and four or five birds rose swiftly into the air and shot off toward the woods.

      "Bang!" went the man's gun, and both boys jumped so that they scarcely noticed a bird fall.

      "Bang!" went the other barrel almost immediately, and another bird fell fluttering to earth. Then the dog broke her point and brought the birds back to her master in her sensitive mouth.

      To tell the truth, the boys were a little frightened at this gun-fire so close at hand, especially Jack, and they watched anxiously as the man reloaded his gun. But the birds had disappeared and the man started off in the direction they had taken. He whistled to his dog, but a new scent had attracted her attention, and she trotted down toward the brook and began sniffing the air.

      "She smells our potatoes," said Ernest.

      Jack forgot his fears in this new interest.

      "Let's call her over," said he.

      "Come here, sir!" called Ernest, making a kissing noise with his lips. "Come here!"

      The dog lightly leaped the brook and came slowly up the bank toward the Cave, her tail waving in a friendly manner. Ernest scraped out a bit of potato and held it out to her. She stood for a moment, sniffing, as if in doubt. Then she came forward and daintily took the proffered food. In a few minutes both boys were smoothing the silky head, looking into the fine eyes, and talking to their visitor.

      "Tryin' to steal my dog?"

      They had not noticed the man's approach, he had stepped so softly, and the gruff voice so close beside them startled them.

      "Oh, no," protested Ernest, hurriedly. "She – we – "

      The man's face was very solemn, but there was a humorous twinkle in his eyes that somehow made the boys feel easier. The dog placed her paw on Jack's arm as though begging for more petting.

      "Won't you sit down?" asked Ernest, in an effort to be polite.

      The man's face broke into many wrinkles and he laughed aloud.

      "Don't know but what I will," said he, "if you ain't afraid I'll hurt your parlor chairs."

      It was now the boys' turn to laugh, and the ice was broken. The man squatted down beside the fire as though glad of a chance to rest, and the dog stretched herself out at his feet.

      "I'm glad you didn't mean to steal her," said the man, "because then I wouldn't have no one to find birds for me. Then what would I do?"

      There seemed to be no answer to this, so Ernest asked him if he had shot many.

      "Five this morning," said the man, and tumbled the pretty dead things out of his pockets.

      "They're quail, aren't they?" asked Ernest, stroking one of them.

      "Yep," said he, "Bob-Whites. They're runnin' pretty good this year, too."

      Something in the man's friendly manner inspired a sort of boldness in young Jack.

      "Don't you hate to shoot them?" he asked.

      The man looked into Jack's frank brown eyes for a moment and then moved a little closer.

      "Say," he said, "I'll tell you a secret. I s'pose I've shot more birds and rabbits than any man in this county, if I do say it, and I never bring down a partridge or kill a chicken that I don't feel sorry for it. I ain't never got over it and I guess I never shall. But it's the only thing old Sam Bumpus is good for, I reckon, and it has to be done. Folks has to eat and I have to make a livin'. I don't do it for fun, though I don't know any finer thing in this world than trampin' off 'cross country with a gun and a good dog on a fine mornin'. It's my business, you see."

      "Gee!" exclaimed Ernest. "I'd like that business better than insurance, I guess. That's what my father is."

      "Who is your father?" inquired Sam Bumpus. "You see I'm very partic'lar who I know."

      "He's Mr. Whipple. We're Ernest and Jack Whipple."

      "Oh, you live down on Washburn Street?"

      Ernest nodded.

      "Well, that's all right," said Sam. "I guess you'll pass."

      He seemed in no great hurry to be getting on. Taking an old black pipe from his pocket he filled it from a greasy pouch and lighted it. He took a few reflective puffs before he spoke again.

      "What do you know about dogs?" he asked, abruptly.

      "Why – not very much, I guess," confessed Ernest.

      "We like them, though," added Jack.

      "Well, that's half the game," said Sam. "There's two kinds of people in this world, them that likes dogs and them that don't, and you can't never make one kind understand how the other kind feels about it. It just ain't possible. And if you don't like dogs you can't never know dogs, and if you don't know dogs you're missin' – well, I can't tell you how much."

      "I've known Nan here," he continued, stroking the setter's head, while she looked up at him with adoration in her eyes, "I've known Nan for goin' on seven years, and I learn somethin' new about her every day. I raised her from a puppy, broke her to birds, and lived with her summer and winter, and I tell you I never seen a man or a woman that knows any more than what she does or one that I could trust so far. That's the thing about a dog; you can trust 'em. There's bad dogs and good dogs, and no two is just alike, but if you once get a good one, hang onto him, for you'll never find another friend that'll stick to you like him."

      The man seemed so much in earnest that the boys remained silent for a time. Then Jack asked, "Can she do tricks?"

      "If you mean sit up and roll over and play dead, no," said Sam. "I don't believe in spoilin' a good bird dog by teachin' 'em things that don't do 'em no good. But what she don't know about huntin' ain't worth knowin'. It positively ain't."

      For half an hour more Sam Bumpus told the boys of various incidents that proved the sagacity of Nan and the other dogs he had owned. He told how once, when a burning log rolled from his fireplace in the night and set his little house on fire, a pointer named Roger had seen the flames through the window, had broken his collar, plunged through the mosquito netting across the window, and had wakened his master by pulling off the bedclothes and barking.

      "If that dog hadn't known how to think and plan, I wouldn't be here to-day talkin' to you boys."

      Suddenly he jumped to his feet.

      "That reminds me," said he. "I've been sittin' talkin' here too long. I've got to be about my business and your folks'll wonder why you don't come home to dinner. Come, Nan, old girl."

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