Bruce | Page 9

look about her,--Hazen had doubled around a corner and had
vanished.
At a run, he made for home, glad the unpleasant job was over. At the
door his wife met him.
"Well," she demanded, "did you drown her in the canal, the way you
said?"
"No," he confessed sheepishly, "I didn't exactly drown her. You see,
she nestled down into my arms so cozy and trusting-like, that I--well, I
fixed it so she'll never show up around here again. Trust me to do a job
thoroughly, if I do it at all. I--"
A dramatic gesture from Mrs. Hazen's stubby forefinger interrupted
him. He followed the finger's angry point. Close at his side stood Lass,
wagging her tail and staring expectantly up at him.
With her keen power of scent, it had been no exploit at all to track the
man over a mile of unfamiliar ground. Already she had forgiven the
kick or had put it down to accident on his part. And at the end of her
eager chase, she was eager for a word of greeting.
"I'll be--" gurgled Hazen, blinking stupidly.
"I guess you will be," conceded his wife. "If that's the 'thorough' way
you do your jobs at the factory--"
"Say," he mumbled in a sort of wondering appeal, "is there any
HUMAN that would like to trust a feller so much as to risk another
ribcracking kick, just for the sake of being where he is? I almost
wish--"

But the wish was unspoken. Hazen was a true American husband. He
feared his wife more than he loved fairness. And his wife's glare was
full upon him. With a grunt he picked Lass up by the neck, tucked her
under his arm and made off through the dark.
He did not take the road toward the canal, however. Instead he made
for the railroad tracks. He remembered how, as a lad, he had once
gotten rid of a mangy cat, and he resolved to repeat the exploit. It was
far more merciful to the puppy--or at least, to Hazen's conscience,--than
to pitch Lass into the slimy canal with a stone tied to her neck.
A line of freight cars--"empties"--was on a siding, a short distance
above the station. Hazen walked along the track, trying the door of each
car he passed. The fourth he came to was unlocked. He slid back the
newly greased side door, thrust Lass into the chilly and black interior
and quickly slid shut the door behind her. Then with the silly feeling of
having committed a crime, he stumbled away through the darkness at
top speed.
A freight car has a myriad uses, beyond the carrying of legitimate
freight. From time immemorial, it has been a favorite repository for all
manner of illicit flotsam and jetsam human or otherwise.
Its popularity with tramps and similar derelicts has long been a theme
for comic paper and vaudeville jest. Though, heaven knows, the inside
of a moving box-car has few jocose features, except in the imagination
of humorous artist or vaudevillian!
But a far more frequent use for such cars has escaped the notice of the
public at large. As any old railroader can testify, trainhands are forever
finding in box-cars every genus and species of stray.
These finds range all the way from cats and dogs and discarded white
rabbits and canaries, to goats. Dozens of babies have been discovered,
wailing and deserted, in box-car recesses; perhaps a hundred miles
from the siding where, furtively, the tiny human bundle was thrust
inside some conveniently unlatched side door.

A freight train offers glittering chances for the disposal of the
Unwanted. More than once a slain man or woman has been sent along
the line, in this grisly but effective fashion, far beyond the reach of
recognition.
Hazen had done nothing original or new in depositing the luckless
collie pup in one of these wheeled receptacles. He was but following an
old--established custom, familiar to many in his line of life. There was
no novelty to it,--except to Lass.
The car was dark and cold and smelly. Lass hated it. She ran to its door.
Here she found a gleam of hope for escape and for return to the home
where every one that day had been so kind to her. Hazen had shut the
door with such vehemence that it had rebounded. The hasp was down,
and so the catch had not done its duty. The door had slid open a few
inches from the impetus of Hazen's shove.
It was not wide enough open to let Lass jump out, but it was wide
enough for her to push her nose through. And by vigorous thrusting,
with her triangular head as a wedge, she was able to widen the aperture,
inch by inch.