The Day of the Dog | Page 3

he watched the mystified dog below. At last he laughed aloud. He could not help it. The enemy glanced upward and blinked his red eyes in surprise; then he stared in deep chagrin, then glared with rage. For a few minutes Crosby watched his frantic efforts to leap through fifteen feet of altitudinal space, confidently hoping that some one would come to drive the brute away and liberate him. Finally he began to lose the good humor his strategy in fooling the dog had inspired, and a hurt, indignant stare was directed toward the open door through which he had entered.
"What's the matter with the idiots?" he growled impatiently. "Are they going to let this poor dog snarl his lungs out? He's a faithful chap, too, and a willing worker. Gad, I never saw anything more earnest than the way he tries to climb up that ladder." Adjusting himself in a comfortable position, his elbows on his knees, his hands to his chin, he allowed his feet to swing lazily, tantalizingly, below the beam. "I'm putting a good deal of faith in this beam," he went on resignedly. The timber was at least fifteen inches square.
"Ah, by George! That was a bully jump--the best you've made. You didn't miss me more than ten feet that time. I don't like to be disrespectful, you know, but you are an exceedingly rough looking dog. Don't get huffy about it, old fellow, but you have the ugliest mouth I ever saw. Yes, you miserable cur, politeness at last ceases to be a virtue with me. If I had you up here I'd punch your face for you, too. Why don't you come up, you coward? You're bow-legged, too, and you haven't any more figure than a crab. Anybody that would take an insult like that is beneath me (thank heaven!) and would steal sheep. Great Scott! Where are all these people? Shut up, you brute, you! I'm getting a headache. But it doesn't do any good to reason with you, I can see that plainly. The thing I ought to do is to go down there and punish you severely. But I'll-- Hello! Hey, boy! Call off this--confounded dog."
Two small Lord Fauntleroy boys were standing in the door, gazing up at him with wide open mouths and bulging eyes.
"Call him off, I say, or I'll come down there and kick a hole clear through him." The boys stared all the harder. "Is your name Austin?" he demanded, addressing neither in particular.
"Yes, sir," answered the larger boy, with an effort.
"Well, where's your father? Shut up, you brute! Can't you see I'm talking? Go tell your father I want to see him, boy."
"Dad's up at the house."
"That sounds encouraging. Can't you call off this dog?"
"I--I guess I'd better not. That's what dad keeps him for."
"Oh, he does, eh? And what is it that he keeps him for?"
"To watch tramps."
"To watch--to watch tramps? Say, boy, I'm a lawyer and I'm here on business." He was black in the face with indignation.
"You better come up to the house and see dad, then. He don't live in the barn," said the boy keenly.
"I can't fly to the house, boy. Say, if you don't call off this dog I'll put a bullet through him."
"You'd have to be a purty good shot, mister. Nearly everybody in the county has tried to do it." Both boys were grinning diabolically and the dog took on energy through inspiration. Crosby longed for a stick of dynamite.
"I'll give you a dollar if you get him away from here."
"Let's see your dollar." Crosby drew a silver dollar from his trousers pocket, almost falling from his perch in the effort.
"Here's the coin. Call him off," gasped the lawyer.
"I'm afraid papa wouldn't like it," said the boy. The smaller lad nudged his brother and urged him to "take the money anyhow."
"I live in Chicago," Crosby began, hoping to impress the boys at least.
"So do we when we're at home," said the smaller boy. "We live in Chicago in the winter time."
"Is Mrs. Delancy your aunt?"
"Yes, sir."
"I'll give you this dollar if you'll tell your father I'm here and want to see him at once."
"Throw down your dollar." The coin fell at their feet but rolled deliberately through a crack in the floor and was lost forever. Crosby muttered something unintelligible, but resignedly threw a second coin after the first.
"He'll be out when he gets through dinner," said the older boy, just before the fight. Two minutes later he was streaking across the barn lot with the coin in his pocket, the smaller boy wailing under the woe of a bloody nose. For half an hour Crosby heaped insult after insult upon the glowering dog at the bottom of the ladder and was in the midst of a