His Dog | Page 4

off into the grass-grown, rutted hill trail which led to his farm--his way led along a spur of the state road which linked New York City with the Ramapo hill country.
And here, as Link swung glumly along through the springtide dusk, his ears were assailed by a sound that was something between a sigh and a sob--a sound as of one who tries valiantly to stifle a whimper of sharp pain.
Ferris halted, uncertain, at the road edge; and peered about him. Again he heard the sound. And this time he located it in the long grass of the wayside ditch. The grass was stirring spasmodically, too, as with the half-restrained writhings of something lying close to earth there.
Link struck a match. Shielding the flame, he pushed the tangle of grass to one side with his foot.
There, exposed in the narrow space thus cleared and by the narrower radius of match flare, crouched a dog.
The brute was huddled in a crumpled heap, with one foreleg stuck awkwardly out in front of him at an impossible angle. His tawny mass of coat was mired and oil streaked. In his deep-set brown eyes burned the fires of agony.
Yet, as he looked up at the man who bent above him, the dog's gaze was neither fierce nor cringing. It held rather such an expression as, Dumas tells us, the wounded Athos turned to D'Artagnan--the aspect of one in sore need of aid, and too proud to plead for it.
Link Ferris had never heard of Dumas, nor of the immortal musketeer. None the less, he could read that look. And it appealed to him, as no howl of anguish could have appealed. He knelt beside the suffering dog and fell to examining his hurts.
The dog was a collie--beautiful of head, sweepingly graceful of line, powerful and heavy coated. The mud on his expanse of snowy chest frill and the grease on his dark brown back were easy to account for, even to Link Ferris's none-too-keen imagination.
Link, in his own occasional trudges along this bit of state road, had often seen costly dogs in the tonneaus of passing cars. He had seen several of them scramble frantically to maintain their footing on the slippery seats of such cars; when chauffeurs took the sharp curve, just ahead, at too high speed. He had even seen one Airedale flung bodily from a car's rear seat at that curve, and out into the roadway; where a close-following motor had run over and killed it.
This collie, doubtless, had had such a fall; and, unseen by the front seat's occupants, had struck ground with terrific force--a force that had sent him whirling through mud and grease into the ditch, with a broken front leg.
How long the beast had lain there Link had no way of guessing. But the dog was in mortal agony. And the kindest thing to do was to put him out of his pain.
Ferris groped around through the gloom until, in the ditch, his fingers closed over a ten-pound stone. One smashing blow on the head, with this missile, would bring a swift and merciful end to the sufferer's troubles.
Poising the stone aloft, Link turned back to where the dog lay. Standing over the victim, he balanced the rock and tensed his muscles for the blow. The match had long since gone out, but Link's dusk-accustomed vision could readily discern the outlines of the collie. And he made ready to strike.
Then--perhaps it was the drink playing tricks with Ferris's mind--it seemed to him that he could still see those deep-set dark eyes staring up at him through the murk, with that same fearless and yet piteous look in their depths. It was a look that the brief sputter of match-light had photographed on Link's brain.
"I--I ain't got the heart to swat you while you keep lookin' that way at me," he muttered half-aloud, as if to a human companion. "Jes' you turn your head the other way, pup! It'll be over quick, an' easy."
By the faint light Link could see the dog had not obeyed the order to turn his head. But at the man's tone of compassion the great plumy tail began to thump the ground in feeble response.
"H'm!" grunted Link, letting the stone drop to the road, "got nerve, too, ain't you, friend? 'Tain't every cuss that can wag his tail when his leg's bust."
Kneeling down again he examined the broken foreleg more carefully. Gentle as was his touch, yet Link knew it must cause infinite torture. But the dog did not flinch. He seemed to understand that Ferris meant kindly, for he moved his magnificent head far enough to lick the man's hand softly and in gratitude.
The caress had an odd effect on the loveless Ferris. It was the first voluntary mark of affection he