DANNY PICKETT was mad clear through. Gingerly he made his way across the Pickett yard, leaving muddy little puddles to mark his path. Reaching the cabin’s porch, he unlaced his muddy shoes, kicked them off, and took off his socks. Stooping to wring out his trouser legs, Danny went into the cabin and slammed the door shut behind him.

He took a folded newspaper from a pile on a shelf, spread it out on the floor, stepped onto the paper, and unbuttoned his soaked shirt. He let it fall on the paper, dropped his trousers beside it, then his underwear.

Danny crossed the floor to the big tin washtub that doubled as the Picketts’ bathtub, took a tin basin from the wooden table beside the sink, and pumped it full of water. He emptied it into the tub and filled it again, and again. When the tub was half filled, Danny emptied the contents of the simmering tea-kettle into the tub, and tested the water with his finger. It was tepid.

Muttering to himself, he got a wash cloth and towel and stepped in. Danny washed himself, letting water run out of the wash cloth over his lithe young body and back into the tub. When the worst part of the muck that covered him had been removed, he began to rub himself vigorously with the wash cloth.

There was a tread on the porch, a shadow at the door, and Ross Pickett, Danny’s father, came into the room. A pail filled with wild raspberries dangled from his hand, but Ross seemed to forget them while he stared incredulously at his son.

“Why you takin’ a bath, Danny? It’s not Saturday, and right in midday like this. You feel poorly?”

“Gah!” Danny stepped out of the tub onto the floor and began to rub himself with the towel. “Sometimes I wonder if I was right about Irish setters!”

“What you mean?”

“That Mike pup, he’s got about as many brains as a half-witted jack rabbit!”

“What’s Mike done?”

“The pig pen,” Danny moaned. “He got in the pig pen and started chasing the pigs around! And when I called him he waded into the hog wallow! Right up to his neck he went, and stood there barking at me! When I made a grab for his collar, he jumped back and I fell into the wallow!”

Ross tittered, but stopped when Danny glared at him.

“What’d you do then?” Ross grinned.

“What could I do? He stuck his hind end up in the air, got down on his front quarters, and barked some more. Thought I wanted to play. Then he took off after a blue jay. I don’t know where he went. And I don’t care.”

“He won’t go far,” Ross said. He put down his pail. “I came by the big house, Danny. Thought Mr. Haggin would like some wild berries.”

“Anything new down there?”

“Yeah.” Ross frowned. “Mr. Haggin’s goin’ away. He’s leavin’ the big place in care of his nephew, a fancy-pants by the name of John Price. Givin’ him a mighty free hand with everything, he is.”

“A boss should have a free hand, shouldn’t he?”

“Maybe so, but this John Price, he don’t like Irish setters at all.”

“No!” Danny said, astounded.

Ross grunted. “‘So you’re Ross Pickett,’ he says to me, ‘one of Uncle Dick’s Irish setter men? Well, there are some dogs that can beat the red pants right off your Irishmen and I’ve got ‘em right here.’ Then he took me over to some little fences he had built, kennels, he called ‘em, and showed me some black and white dogs. English setters, he called ’em.”

“How did they look?”

“They are,” Ross said reluctantly, “a right smart lot of dog. There’s even a trainer for ‘em, man named Joe Williams. Danny, there’s trouble afoot.”

“We’ve had trouble before, Pappy.”

“If it comes,” Ross predicted, “this’ll be a different kind. Well, no use killin’ your bears before you see ‘em. I’ll go find Mike.”

Danny, no longer angry, worried a bit as he got into clean clothes. To him, Irish setters were far and away the world’s best dogs, but it was not unthinkable that СКАЧАТЬ

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IRISH RED, SON OF BIG RED

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CHAPTER ONE

Irish Red, Son of Big Red. Jim Kjelgaard
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