Jan

Jan

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jan, by A. J. Dawson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Jan A Dog and a Romance
Author: A. J. Dawson
Release Date: July 9, 2005 [EBook #16252]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: Frontispiece]
JAN
A DOG AND A ROMANCE
BY
A.J. DAWSON

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Published by Arrangement with Harper & Brothers
JAN: A DOG AND A ROMANCE Copyright, 1915, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published October, 1915

CONTENTS I. HOW FINN CAME HOME
II. NUTHILL AND SHAWS
III. INTRODUCING THE LADY DESDEMONA
IV. THE OPEN-AIR CALL
V. DESDEMONA'S WANDERINGS
VI. HOW DESDEMONA FOUND HER NEST
VII. DESDEMONA FORGETS HER MANNERS
VIII. FINN IS ENLIGHTENED
IX. THE LONE MOTHER
X. FAMILY LIFE--AND DEATH
XI. JAN GOES TO NUTHILL
XII. SOME FIRST STEPS
XIII. SAPLING DAYS
XIV. WITH REFERENCE TO DICK VAUGHAN
XV. JAN'S FIRST FIGHT
XVI. GOOD-BY TO DICK
XVII. JAN BEFORE THE JUDGES
XVIII. FIT AS A TWO-YEAR-OLD
XIX. DISCIPLINE
XX. SUSSEX TO SASKATCHEWAN
XXI. INTRODUCING SOURDOUGH
XXII. MURDER!
XXIII. THE FIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE
XXIV. PROMOTION
XXV. JAN GOES ON HIS TRAVELS
XXVI. THE RULE OF TRACE AND THONG
XXVII. MUTINY IN THE TEAM
XXVIII. THE FEAST AND THE FASTER
XXIX. THE FIGHT IN THE WOODS
XXX. REAL LEADERSHIP
XXXI. THE COST OF INCOMPETENCE
XXXII. JAN OBEYS ORDERS AT THE GREAT DIVIDE
XXXIII. BACK TO THE TRAIL
XXXIV. THE PEACE RIVER TRAIL
XXXV. THE END OF JAN'S LONE TRAIL
XXXVI. "SO LONG, JAN!"
XXXVII. BACK TO REGINA
XXXVIII. THE FALL OF SOURDOUGH
XXXIX. HOW JAN CAME HOME

JAN

I
HOW FINN CAME HOME
Rightly to appreciate Jan's character and parts you must understand his origin. For this you must go back to the greatest of modern Irish wolfhounds, Finn; and to the Lady Desdemona, of whom it was said, by no less an authority than Major Carthwaite, that she was "the most perfectly typical bloodhound of her decade." And that was in the fifteenth month of her age, just six weeks before Finn's arrival at Nuthill.
When the Master was preparing to leave Australia with Finn he said, "It's 'Sussex by the sea' for us, Finn, boy, in another month or so; and, God willing, that's where you shall end your days."
Just fourteen weeks after making that remark (and, too, after a deal more of land and sea travel for Finn than comes into the whole lives of most hounds) the Master bought Nuthill, the little estate on the lee of the most beautiful of the South Downs from the upper part of which one sees quite easily on a clear day the red chimneys and white gables of the cottage in which Finn was born. But at the time of that important purchase Finn was lying perdu in quarantine, down in Devonshire; a melancholy period for the wolfhound, that. The Master spent many shipboard hours in discussing this very matter with the Mistress of the Kennels on their passage home from Australia, and he tried hard to find a way out of the difficulty, for Finn's sake. But there it was. You cannot hope to smuggle ashore, even in the most fashionably capacious of lady's muffs, a hound standing thirty-six inches high at the shoulder and weighing nearer two hundred than one hundred pounds. It was a case of quarantine or perpetual exile, and so Finn went into quarantine. But, as you may guess, there were pretty careful arrangements made for his welfare.
The wolfhound had special quarters of his own in quarantine, and his enforced stay there had just this advantage about it, that when the great day of his release arrived there was no more travel and hotel life to be suffered, for by this time the Master was thoroughly settled down at Nuthill, the Mistress of the Kennels had made that snug place a real home, and her niece, Betty Murdoch, was already an established member of the household. So Finn went straight from quarantine at Plymouth to the best home he had ever known, and to one in which his honored place was absolutely assured to him.
But it must not be supposed that, because of his much-honored place in the Master's world, Finn had entirely put behind him and forgotten his strange life among the wild kindred in Australia. That could hardly be. The savor of that life would remain for ever in his nostrils, no matter how ordered and humanized his days at Nuthill; just as consciousness of human cruelty and the torture of imprisonment had been burned into his memory and nature, indelibly as though branded there by the hot irons of the circus folk in New South Wales. Finn adapted himself perfectly to the life of the household at Nuthill, and