His Dog | Page 9

me, not even yet. I
don't get the hang of it. But I know this much: I know you got ten times
the sense what I'VE got. Where you got it an' how you got it the good
Lord only knows. But you've got it. I--I was figgerin' on lickin' you
'most to death, a few minutes back. Chum. Honest, I was. I'm clean
'shamed to look you in the face when I think of it. Say! Do me a favor,
Chum. If ever I lift hand to lick you, jes' bite me and give me
hydrophoby. For I'll sure be deservin' it. Now come on home!"
He patted the silken head of the jubilant dog as he talked, rumpling the
soft ears and stroking the long, blazed muzzle. He was sick at heart at
memory of his recent murderous rage at this wonder-comrade of his.
Chum was exultantly happy. He had had a most exhilarating ten
minutes. The jolliest bit of fun he could remember in all his two years
of life. The sight of those queer sheep--yes, and the scent of them,
especially the scent--had done queer things to his brain; had aroused a
million sleeping ancestral memories.
He had understood perfectly well his master's order that he leave them
alone. And he had been disappointed by it. He himself had not known
clearly what it was he would have liked to do to them. But he had
known he and they ought to have some sort of relationship. And then at
the gesture and the snarled command of "Go get them!" some closed
door in Chum's mind had swung wide, and, acting on an instinct he
himself did not understand, he had hurled himself into the gay task of
rounding up the flock.
So, for a thousand generations on the Scottish hills, had Chum's
ancestors earned their right to live. And so through successive
generations had they imbued their progeny with that accomplishment
until it had become a primal instinct. Even as the unbroken pointer of
the best type knows by instinct the rudiments of his work in the field so
will many a collie take up sheep herding by ancestral training.
There had been nothing wonderful in Chum's exploit. Hundreds of
untrained collies have done the same thing on their first sight of sheep.
The craving to chase and slay sheep is a mere perversion of this olden
instinct; just as the disorderly "flushing" and scattering of bird coveys
is a perversion of the pointer or setter instinct. Chum, luckily for
himself and for his master's flock, chanced to run true to form in this

matter of heredity, instead of inheriting his tendency in the form of a
taste for sheep murder.
The first collie, back in prehistoric days, was the first dog with the wit
to know his master's sheep apart from all other sheep. Perhaps that is
the best, if least scientific, theory of the collie's origin.
But to Link Ferris's unsophisticated eyes the achievement was all but
supernatural, and it doubled his love for the dog.
That afternoon, by way of experiment, Ferris took Chum along when
he went to drive the sheep back from pasture to the fold. By the time he
and the dog were within a hundred yards of the pasture gate Chum
began to dance, from sheer anticipation; mincing sidewise on the tips of
his toes in true collie fashion, and varying the dance by little rushes
forward.
Link opened the crazy gate. Waiting for no further encouragement the
dog sped into the broad field and among the grazing sheep that were
distributed unevenly over the entire area of the lot.
Ordinarily--unless the sheep were ready to come home--it was a matter
of ten or fifteen minutes each evening for Link to collect them and start
them on their way. To-day, in less than three minutes, Chum had the
whole flock herded and trotting through the opening, to the lane
outside.
Nor, this time, did the sheep flee from him in the same panic dread as
in the morning. They seemed to have learned--if indeed a sheep can
ever learn anything--that Chum was their driver, not their enemy.
From the fold Link as usual went to the woodlot where his five head of
lean milch cattle were at graze. Three of the cows were waiting at the
bars for him, but one heifer and a new-dry Holstein were hidden
somewhere in the recesses of the second-growth timber.
The afternoon was hot; it had been a hot day. Link was tired. He
dreaded the labor of exploring ten acres of undergrowth for his two
missing cattle. An inspiration came to him. Pointing to the three
stolidly waiting cows at the bars he waved his arm in the general
direction of the