Injun and Whitey to the Rescue | Page 3

loll out, panted,
and looked amiably at the boys. He certainly was tired.
"He's not only tired, he's thirsty," said Whitey, and ran to the stable for
water.

And while he was gone the bulldog and Injun looked at each
other--Injun with his bronze skin, his long, straight hair, his calm face,
and his steady, dark eyes. This descendant of thousands of fighting men
regarded that descendant of thousands of fighting dogs. And what they
thought of each other the dog couldn't tell, and Injun didn't, but ever
after they were friends.
Presently Whitey returned from the stable with a pan of water, and with
Bill Jordan, foreman of the Bar O, Charlie Bassett, Buck Higgins, and
Shorty Palmer, all the cowpunchers who happened to be on the place.
They all knew bulldogs, and they regarded the newcomer with awe and
respect.
Whitey put the water before the dog, who, after favoring him with a
grateful glance and a quiver of his stub tail, went to it.
"He's sure awful dry," Bill said. "Ought t' take him up to Moose Lake.
Looks like that pan o' water won't even moisten him."
"Where d'ye reck'n he come from?" asked Shorty.
"Dunno."
"Mebbe he was follerin' a wagon, an' got lost," Buck Higgins suggested
hopefully.
"Wagon nothin'!" snorted Bill. "Nobody in these parts'd have a dog like
that, an' if they did, what would he be doin' follerin' a wagon? He ain't
built to run, he's built to fight."
Where the dog had come from was something of a mystery. Neighbors
were not near by, in those days, in Montana, the nearest being fourteen
miles off, and the railway twenty-two, and nothing there but a water
tank. There was some discussion regarding the matter which ended in a
deadlock. It was certain that none of the ranchmen in the vicinity
owned such a dog, and even so, or if a visitor owned him, how would
he get to the Bar O? Walk, with "them legs"?

While the discussion went on, the subject of it gulped down large
chunks of beef which Whitey had begged from the cook, and after that
he went with the men and boys to the ranch house, where, with an
apologetic leer, and a wiggle of his tail, he stretched himself on the
veranda, and fell into a deep sleep. He was very grateful, but he was
also very tired.
In a lonely ranch house matters are of concern which would create little
comment in a city. This dog's coming was in the nature of an event at
the Bar O. Bill, the foreman, and all the punchers were ready to neglect
work for a considerable time and talk about it. Even Injun occasionally
looked interested. But all the talk could not solve the problem of the
animal's presence.
The only one who knew lay sleeping on the veranda and couldn't tell. It
isn't likely that he dreamed, but if he did it might have been of being
tied to the handle of a trunk in an overland limited baggage car; of the
train's stopping for water at a lonely tank; of the earthy, wholesome
country smell that came through the door, left open for coolness.
There had been a stirring in the grass near the track. A glimpse of an
animal that looked something like a fox and something like a wolf, and
wasn't either one, a wild animal that was sneaking around the train for
the odd bits of food that were sometimes left in its wake. As the
pungent scent of this beast reached the bulldog's snub nose, the leash
that held him to the trunk became a thing of little worth. With a violent
lurch he broke it, leaped from the door, landed sprawling alongside the
track, and was off in pursuit of the strange animal.
Now, any one who knows how a bulldog is built and how a coyote is
built can imagine how much chance the first has to catch the second.
The dog followed by sight, not by scent. With his head held as high as
his short neck would allow he dashed on. The coyote didn't bother very
much. After getting a good start he doubled on his tracks for a little
way, turned aside, and sat down. And if he wasn't too mean to laugh, he
may at least have smiled as his enemy rushed forward toward nowhere.
Then that bulldog ran and ran until he couldn't run any more. Then he

walked till he couldn't walk any farther. Then he slept all night, while
other coyotes howled dismally near by. And in the morning he started
off again, thinking he was going toward the train and his sorrowful
master, really going in the opposite direction. But there was one thing
that