Dogtown / Being Some Chapters from the Annals of the Waddles Family Set Down in the Language of Housepeople

CHAPTER XIII BEN UNCAS'S LAST HUNT

One Saturday Anne discovered that Waddles was very low in his mind. It was after a week when she had been busy at school, and had devoted her afternoons and evenings to taking and developing more or less successful dog pictures, to make the albums in aid of Mrs. Carr’s “fund,” so that she had paid less attention than usual to the house fourfoots.

At first Anne thought that Waddles felt neglected, and was a bit sulky; but as petting did not mend matters, she looked about for some other cause. It could not be that the sixlets bothered him, for they now lived in separate quarters, and had a garden to themselves; and Mr. Hugh had secured Tiger Lily, Dinah, and Bobwhite to add to the beagle pack he was forming, when they should be old enough, much to the relief of Anne’s parents; for the prospect of six puppies cutting their second teeth upon any and everything they could seize was certainly rather appalling.

Fortunately, neither Anne nor Tommy objected to halving the pups with Mr. Hugh, for they could visit them at any time, and though his dogs were obliged to obey, and to be very tidy and good, they were allowed to spend their evenings lying in rows by the enormous fireplace in the hall, and always sat in a group about his chair when he dined or breakfasted alone.

Happy, having weaned the pups, had seemingly given them entirely into the guardianship of Jack Waddles, who was so watchful and motherly in his care of them that Miss Letty said his name should be changed to Jane, and that he should wear a nurse’s cap and apron. But Anne, who understood him, loved him for his gentleness, and was glad to have one stay-at-home dog, that, though he knew and liked the hunting in a way, did not run himself to a skeleton over it, for the cool weather had set in, and Happy’s voice could be heard far and wide, telling of her running ability; while upon more than one occasion she stayed out so late at night that she did not have to get up for breakfast.

Strange to say, Waddles suddenly stopped hunting with her; of course he was an old dog now, but why he should run one week and then stop puzzled Anne. She felt his nose; it was moist and cool. She examined his paws; there were neither cuts or thorns visible. His coat was well-kept and flexible,—a rough, brittle coat tells its own tale of illness both in dogs and horses,—likewise, his eyes were bright, yet he ate but little, and lay all day silently guarding a large accumulation of ungnawed bones.

“Miss Jule says ‘if a horse seems all right, yet doesn’t eat, look at his teeth.’ Perhaps it may be the same with dogs; anyway, I will look,” said Anne to herself.

At the first attempt Waddles resisted and growled a little; then he changed his mind. Sure enough, the tooth back of the right canine was not only broken, but quite loose, and the gum red and swollen.

“You poor Waddlekins! Of course you can’t chew without getting a dreadful pain! Baldy shall pull the old thing out, and it will all be over in a minute,” said Anne, soothingly. Waddles sat perfectly still, looking out of the side of his eyes at his mistress. He suspected something, and yet he had no experience in tooth-drawing to give him a hint of what was coming.

Anne first found Baldy, then going to her father borrowed a little pair of pincers that he had kept in a drawer by his desk, ever since they had done duty on her easy first teeth, and would soon do the same for Tommy. Then she called Waddles to come to the garden where Baldy was working. After thinking for a few minutes, he obeyed, walking very slowly on tiptoe, his gait when either suspicious or reluctant. When Baldy tried to hold him firmly between his knees, Waddles instantly freed himself from collar and all, with the single backward jerk of the head for which he was celebrated; but the next moment seated himself quietly by Anne, and without being held, allowed Baldy to pull out the tooth.

An expression of surprise, quickly followed by one of relief, crossed his mobile face. He choked and coughed a little, then straightway understood the whole affair, took a drink from the birds’ bath-tub under the big syringa bush, and walking straight back to what Tommy called “Waddles’s bone-garden” unearthed a particularly ripe and delicious beef rib and began to gnaw it with relish, his tooth and low spirits having disappeared together.

The next day Waddles had a long call from Mr. Wolf, Miss Jule’s old St. Bernard, and after the usual pleasant exchange of sniffs and other greetings the two adjourned to the south side of the orchard wall, which, topping a slope, commanded a wide stretch of country. Here, lying back to back so that eye, ear, and nose might have as wide a range as possible, they proceeded to “watch out” for game.

Mr. Wolf, otherwise known as Ben Uncas, and Waddles were the leading members of a curious sort of club that hunted fur, and, as a usual thing, let feathers severely alone. This club now numbered six members of various sizes and breeds, and when the queerly assorted pack started off for a day or night outing, the House People of Dogtown, hearing the babel of cries, said, “Ben Uncas & Co. are on the war-path!”Until this particular season the club had consisted of the St. Bernard, its leader, Waddles, Colin, Tip, and Quick; now Hamlet had been initiated, and was one of the most daring members, especially in the matter of sometimes swimming down even the web-footed muskrats, who sought safety by taking to the water.

The animals that the club hunted ranged in size from meadow-mice, moles, chipmunks, muskrats, rabbits, skunks, woodchucks, foxes, coons, and occasionally a rare and wily opossum, while these native animals were liberally punctuated by an assortment of cats. Now this matter of cat hunting by Ben Uncas & Co. has a very dreadful sound, and requires a word of explanation.

It had its origin in what some shiftless sort of House People called “their tender feelings” in this way. Any number of people living in the farms and on the country edge of the village kept cats which they fed and housed after a fashion, but when kittens were born, instead of humanely destroying those for which they could not care, they simply shifted the responsibility to the poor kittens, allowing them to grow up as best they might and provide for themselves.

Those that did not starve to death soon formed a roving band of feline bandits of every age, sex, and colour, that haunted deserted barns, remote haymows, and even hollow trees in the deep woods, living by preying upon song and game birds, rabbits, and barnyard fowls.

Waddles’s fierce old enemy, Tiger, the miller’s cat, had been adopted from this race, and so constantly had Waddles, as well as Mr. Wolf and the smaller dogs, heard the cry of “cats!” and been called to hunt the enemy from a chicken coop or an orchard full of nestlings, that they regarded wildcats as lawful hunting.

One thing, however, was a proof of the wonderful intelligence of the hunters; they knew perfectly well the difference between the pet cats of the neighbourhood and the wild tribe, and if, as happened but very rarely, in the heat of the run they made a mistake, after one experience and its punishment they never again bore the victim home as a trophy, as they would a woodchuck, muskrat, or weasel, but hid it carefully in bushes or tall grass, and pretended that the chase was a failure. But when the kill was satisfactory, no matter who was the catcher, Mr. Wolf always took it home to Miss Jule, who rewarded the hunters with petting and a plate of tidbits.

Their hunting methods were also peculiar to themselves, and the labours were divided quite equally among the six.

Waddles and Tip, the little spaniel, had the keenest noses and the best minds for planning strategy. Quick, the fox terrier, who was all that his name implied, added to the endurance and bound of a collection of steel springs, was the explorer of small holes and the pioneer of attacks upon burrows that must be dug out or chinks between rocks that must be explored.

It was Quick, also, who spurred the flagging energy of the larger dogs in tiresome runs, though often to their hurt, as will be seen, and had generally managed to lead his friends into the few misdeeds of which they were guilty. Though Mr. Wolf appeared to be the leader because of his size and heavy weight, he was really quite subject to Quick’s commands, and the most confiding and intimate relations existed between the pair. They shared both bed and board, and it was a study in dog love to see the expression of impertinence that Quick usually wore change to one of complete adoration as he gazed up in the face of his big friend, standing on tiptoe to lick his nose.

As to Colin, the big, blundering red setter, with the beautiful eyes and the silky hair, his use was as general encourager when the hunt flagged; for though in the course of a long life, and he lived into his fifteenth year, he never caught anything wilder than a frightened chicken or disabled rabbit, yet he was never discouraged, starting off each day with the joy of first experience, and if the party caught nothing, he would retrieve a stick of decayed wood, a bit of old leather, or even a spruce cone and carry it to Miss Jule on his own account.

Upon one occasion, being left in the rear by the others, he came upon a wood-duck that had lain dead for some time in the pond meadow. After rolling on it very thoroughly in the manner of dogs and wolves, to identify themselves with their finds in the noses of other dogs, he succeeded, after much difficulty, in bearing it home and into the dining room during a company tea, where he laid it at Miss Jule’s feet. He had such an expression of bringing a gift worth having upon his face, that also wore a broad grin, that no one, even among the guests, had the heart to scold him, but politely held their breaths and noses while Miss Jule called Colin “a good fellow,” and escorted him out, accompanied by the duck in a dust-pan. She also allowed him the crowning joy of burying it, which he did as a matter of course, instead of casting it ignobly on the refuse heap, which would have not only hurt his feelings, but have given him the extra trouble of retrieving it a second time, and so prolonged the odour.

When Ben Uncas & Co. hunted ground beasts their methods were wholly different from their pursuit of tree climbers. Of ground beasts the woodchuck and muskrat seemed the most interesting quarry, and of climbers the breed of vagrant wildcats and the coons of Pine Ridge were the favourites. The native tailless bob-cat or red lynx was now so rare as to be, like the rattlesnake, almost a hearsay beast of imagination, seen only by the people who, carrying brown jugs, took a short cut through the Den woods on their way home from the cider-mill, and paused to rest on the way.

There were many old fields and orchards between Happy Hall and the Hilltop Kennels, and when Ben Uncas & Co. organized for hunting, three years before this time, there was barely a five-acre lot without its woodchuck family, while Waddles’s old bugaboo, the skunk, called scent cat by its comrades through fearsome politeness, inhabited stone fences and tumble-down cellars at will. In fact, one pair were so bold as to raise a litter under the henhouse at Pinkie Scott’s, in order to be conveniently near a poultry and egg market, while Pinkie petted and fed the little things, mistaking them for queer black and white kittens, until one evening, when Hans Sachs was with her, their mother came back and objected. Then Pinkie’s illusion and the skunk family were dispelled together.

Of course people trapped skunks, and they were more or less hunted by other dogs, but to the method of Ben Uncas & Co. belonged the honour of having freed the entire hillside of the pests, even though as individuals they had often been obliged to retire to private life in consequence.

Anne and Tommy had never been able to follow a skunk hunt closely enough to see exactly how it began, but one thing was certain, it was always Quick who, jumping upon the animal’s back, gave the sudden shake to the neck that settled the question just as he did with a rat, at the same time taking extra care not to be bitten; for to be bitten by a skunk is one of the “mustn’t be’s” of dog law, and a calamity they are careful to avoid, while they are quite reckless about the more powerful chisel teeth of both woodchuck and muskrat.

The woodchucks were less easily exterminated even though they are more abroad by day, for not only are their homes more difficult to reach, but when living in a colony they usually post sentinels at the entrances of their burrows. Several times, when the settlements in the old fields and orchards had been scattered, new families from other places seemed to move into the empty burrows. Then again woodchucks hole up in middle autumn and stay wholly out of reach until spring, so they are never driven to take the risks during the hard winter months that drive so many of the wood fourfoots recklessly into the open for food.

A wily old woodchuck is a hard animal to chase, clumsy though it is, it knows so many twists and turns and paths back to its burrow. It is a still harder one for a small dog to kill, owing to the toughness of its skin, the layer of fat that covers its vital parts at most seasons, and the ferocity of its attack when at bay and thoroughly aroused, its nose being really its most vulnerable spot.

The tactics of Ben Uncas & Co. were these,—when the party started out at random the conditions of the day for sport were usually left for Waddles and Tip to decide, as they had the most discriminating noses of the lot. Mr. Wolf knew the scent of wild beasts on general principles, and Quick had cat on the brain to such an extent that if a trail ran anywhere near a tree he would jump at conclusions, and so often went astray.

A woodchuck chase belongs chiefly to still hunting, and requires waiting ability. After the dogs agreed together that the scent said, for instance, that in the upper orchard, where there was but a single family, the old folks were out foraging, they divided, Mr. Wolf and Quick following the trail of the elders, in a silent, leisurely way, while Waddles, Tip, and, during the last few months, Hamlet, would sit motionless and wait well back of the burrow openings, Waddles generally choosing the main entrance, while Colin roved about afield, sniffing here and there, chasing grasshoppers and playing the part of unconcerned idler to perfection, because that was what he really was. To Colin the hunting meant play, but to the others it was as serious a business as if their food depended on it; hence it will be seen that they were true sportsmen.

Colin.

If things combined rightly, after a time the more or less young cubs of the year in the burrow would wake from their nap, and after the manner of young things, finding their parents absent, would set about to explore, one by one cautious heads appearing above ground. Woodchucks are very clever about making the entrances to their homes. They are seldom in perfectly level ground, but are protected on one side by a hillock, old corn hill, stone heap, or at least by the mound of earth thrown from the burrow itself, so that when the animal peers out it cannot at once be seen from the rear.

No sooner did the young woodchucks get their heads fairly above ground, than, spying Colin skirting the field in his gambols, their attention was riveted and their curiosity aroused, for with these, as with many wild things, it is difficult to say which is the stronger instinct, caution or curiosity. In a moment more two, three, or oftentimes four young woodchucks would be seen seated sometimes a foot away from the hole, all backed toward it as for protection, their eyes fastened upon the distant dog.

Often at this critical moment the old ones, sniffing danger in the wind, would start to return, only to be met by Mr. Wolf and Quick waiting in some likely nook, who, though they could not altogether conquer the experienced pair, would manage to hold them at bay and make them very late in getting home.

Meanwhile Waddles waited at his post, alert, one paw raised like his attitude before the spring and rapid digging in mole hunting. As soon as the cubs were well clear of the burrow, he pounced upon the bunch, trying to land between them and the opening, giving a call to his comrades that evidently told them what to do, for sometimes they came tumbling up, and a general scrimmage ensued at close quarters, and at others the bunch would scatter over the field, followed by Waddles, while the other dogs did not come to the attack until the woodchucks had doubled and were on the home stretch. In such cases the results were usually two victims, one of which was generally either buried for future use or left on the field for a second trip, while the other was borne proudly home intact by Mr. Wolf, with head held high and important, ambling gate. In fact, no less strong a dog could carry even a two-months-old woodchuck, sometimes a full mile over stone fences and other obstruction, without at least partly dragging it along the ground.

After the kill Tip, Hamlet, and Colin often lost interest and skirmished about on their own account for a while before returning; but Waddles and Quick invariably followed Mr. Wolf, and shared Miss Jule’s praise, and the plate of tidbits that were a part of it.

The Reward.When, however, a tree animal was scented, the hunt was both noisy and rapid. Either Waddles or Quick would pick up the trail of one of the bandit cats, and give tongue according to their vocal abilities, Quick’s being a most piercing and unearthly scream. Then the oddly assorted pack would start off, noses to the ground, barking, baying, yelping as if Dogtown itself was hunting the great phantom cat of whom all naughty puppies live in dread, whose grin is sometimes seen on the full moon on foggy nights, and whose trail always either leads to water or rises in the air.If the cat thus pursued should happen to be at rest when the trail is discovered, it is soon on foot again, spurred by the approaching noise. If in the open, it makes for the nearest trees; for cats are poor long distance runners, their specialties being leaping and climbing.

A cat of experience and steady nerve, having gained a medium-sized tree, will retreat to the upper branches, secure a good perch, and there sit and wait indefinitely without looking down, for the cat who looks down upon a pack of jumping, yelping dogs is lost, being either confused into letting go her grip and dropping, or else startled into jumping squirrel-like for the branches of an adjoining tree which may bend to the earth with her weight.

If the cat, when treed, does neither of these things, then the hunters divide forces and prepare to wait. Mr. Wolf, seating himself a few feet from the tree, where he can see well up into the branches (for in tree work sight supplements scent in a great degree) begins a monotonous and incessant barking. Quick going backward a couple of yards makes rapid runs at the tree-trunk, managing to scramble up six or eight feet before dropping back, or sometimes, if the branches are thick and low, landing securely upon one of them. Tip and Hamlet wait at a little distance in case the cat tries a long leap and run, while Waddles turns strategist and disappears, that is, as far as the cat is concerned. Really he is crouching close against the tree-trunk directly under the cat’s perch, silent, with glistening eyes, and, in spite of rheumatism, all his catapult force gathered in the muscles of his back like a bent bow, for in every chase Waddles lives over his youth and his feud with the miller’s cat.

On goes Mr. Wolf’s hypnotic chanting, echoed occasionally by Tip or carried into a banshee scream by Hamlet, who finds time hanging heavy to his impatient feet. At last the cat looks down, hesitates whether to climb higher or risk a long jump; confused by the noise, it does half of each, and as a result drops directly at the root of the tree. Waddles’s back straightens,—there is one bandit cat the less. Then the good news is passed quickly on by the gossips of Birdland, all a-twitter in the neighbouring trees.

Such hunting was wearing to a heavy dog past middle age like Mr. Wolf, and after each run that season he rested longer, and felt less appetite for his good dinner and go-to-bed bone.

In dog friendships, like those of people, there should be a certain amount of physical as well as mental equality, or one will lead the other beyond his strength, and this is what Quick did to his dear friends, as both Mr. Wolf and Waddles would often have continued to doze under the stone wall, and let certain signs of game pass unnoticed if Quick had not literally burrowed them out and nagged them into action, saying, both Miss Jule and Anne suspected, many taunting things that no old dog likes to hear from his juniors.

Miss Jule noticed that Mr. Wolf was growing rather thin, and she tried to keep him more with her, coaxing him to lie in the hall of afternoons, or by her desk, as he used to even in his youth, before Quick had come to win his friendship and urge him to the hunting for which he was not intended. But the nervous, tireless fox terrier was so persistent, crawling and fawning before the St. Bernard, or even pawing him awake when he slept, that the poor old fellow had little peace. Finally Miss Jule resolved to give Quick to some children living away in another county, who wanted exactly such an active pet, but, as it chanced, she had put it off over long.

Early in October a heavy rain flooded the low, river meadows, and turned the muskrat hunting-grounds of Ben Uncas and Co., that before had been merely wet here and there, into a wide pool, where the dogs shorter of leg than Mr. Wolf and Colin were obliged to paddle along. There were already one or two of the muskrats’ winter homes in these meadows. These huts looked like low stacks of coarse hay and reeds, and the odour of the builders was sufficient to provoke the dogs to attack them, even though the entrances ran under ground for some way before opening under water in the river bank, something after the manner of beaver runs, though the beaver’s house is in the water itself, not on partly submerged meadow land. Because the muskrat is a poor runner, it trusts itself on dry land as little as possible, and the dogs hunted it either by digging it from its burrows, the only way in which they had real success, or by swimming after it. This last might do well enough as sport for water dogs on summer evenings, but it was poor work for elderly Mr. Wolf and Colin, with the autumn chill in the air. As for Waddles, he was wise in his own generation, and would no longer even cross a brook where he was obliged to wet more than the tips of his toes, and even did that with a very staccato tread. So when the others spent afternoons splashing about the muskrats’ huts, he, dry and comfortable, merely sat upon a low bridge close by, talked to himself, and occasionally bayed advice. But then, Waddles was a genius.

Ben Uncas.Miss Jule was away the first day of this unwise hunting. When she came home she found Mr. Wolf more tired still, and she was fairly shocked to see how lean his body was, now that the thick, long hair that had given it bulk was pasted close by mud and water.

She had him carefully dried by the kitchen fire, well brushed out, fed him herself with warm stew, and put him to bed in a box stall deep with straw covered with a horse blanket for a bed, thinking to keep him prisoner a few days for his own good and give him the necessary exercise herself.

The next day was bright and warm for the season, and Miss Jule thought that a sun bath on the south piazza would do Ben worlds of good. When she went for him he whined with joy, licked her hands, and looked into her face with old-time fervour; but when they started together toward the house, he lagged behind, took a few steps, lay down, then struggled to his feet and seemed to force himself to cover the distance, sinking down on the mat his mistress placed in the porch corner with a sigh, and closed his eyes. Miss Jule plainly saw that Ben Uncas was very ill, and wishing to take no risks, she telephoned for a skilled veterinarian from the town half a dozen miles away. In another hour the quick trot of his horses’ hoofs sounded on the drive. A good veterinary surgeon who loves his work, always comes quickly, for he knows the sorrow of helplessly watching the pain of an animal who cannot put his needs into the words House People can understand.

He took temperature and pulse, felt here and listened there, and said poor Ben had distemper from wasted strength and drinking ditch water when on the run. He said Mr. Wolf was very ill, but not, he thought, past help. He must go back to the box stall where he could have both air and shelter, and leaving medicine to be faithfully given, he went away, promising to come again at night.

For a time Ben seemed brighter and walked back to the stable without resting on the way, took a long drink of water, swallowed his medicine without a struggle, and fell into a doze.

In the afternoon he waked, tried to drink the soup Miss Jule brought him, and could not, neither could he swallow water, though he gratefully licked a bit of ice his mistress gave him. Then when pain seized him and his sunken eyes told of suffering, she put hot cloths upon his stomach and gently rubbed his head which laid in her lap.

The surgeon came at evening, looked sober, but said to keep on with the medicine, and that Ben would probably improve the next morning.

That night the horses in the stable saw an odd sight—fat, middle-aged Miss Jule, buttoned to the chin in an old ulster with a crimson wool Tam O’ Shanter cap of Letty’s fastened on askew, was sitting on an upturned pail in the box stall beside her sick friend, while for company, Martin, the reliable, slept on a heap of hay in a distant corner, wrapped in a carriage robe.Mr. Hugh had offered to stay with Ben in Miss Jule’s place and Letty to watch with her, but a grim “No” had been her answer.

In the middle of the night Ben grew worse, and in spite of his courage he groaned with pain, and stretched his paws to his mistress as if for help, but could not otherwise move. She roused Martin and sent him to telephone the doctor, but the answer came that he was out and might not return until morning.

Miss Jule had felt from the first that Ben was fatally ill; now she questioned herself as to how far she should allow him to suffer under the chance that he might recover for a time, and thus spare her pain.

More time passed, again he stretched out his paws and turned a pitiful look upon her that said, “Help me, mistress, I cannot bear the pain.”

“Yes, old fellow, missy will help you. Put your head down and I will rub it—so. Martin, go to my locked closet and bring me the bottle labelled chloroform. Yes, that is right; now that horse sponge there and the bit of newspaper.” She took the bottle with a hand that shook, poured some upon the sponge that she had thrust in a cone made of twisted paper. Then she raised the feverish nose resting upon her knee and gently covered it saying softly, “Good-by my Ben, good-by dear Mr. Wolf.” That was all.

A healthy animal often struggles at the scent of chloroform, but to the very ill it brings swift peace. Ben Uncas was in the happy hunting-grounds which were not far away. Then brave Miss Jule broke down and laid her head upon the tawny one and sobbed aloud. She was sitting thus when the doctor, having received her summons on his tardy return home, crossed the floor with rapid tread.

At first the doctor said that she should have had patience and given the medicine a longer chance to work. But later, that she had done well in stopping useless pain, for the sickness was typhoid distemper, and nothing could have saved old Ben.

“I suppose that you are laughing to yourself, and thinking what an old fool I am to care so,” said Miss Jule, leaning wearily against the door post, a wild object with straws sticking in her hair, red-eyed and dishevelled in the dawning light.

“I laugh at grief for a dog?” answered the doctor. “Possibly once but not now, or ever again. Look at this,” and opening his watch he showed her the miniature of a dog painted on the inside cover. It was the head of a finely bred bull terrier with soft brown and white markings, and a broad browed face, for the technical term muzzle could not be applied to one having all the thoughtful intelligence of a human being.

“That is Jim,” said the doctor, speaking slowly, and fixing his eyes upon the picture.

“Oh, yes, I remember him,” said Miss Jule; “he was rather small for his breed, and lame in his left hind leg, but compact and alert. He always used to ride about with you, and when you went indoors would sit and wait with an expression of patience in his eyes that seemed to say that he knew just what you were about, and that of course he expected you to take your time, do your work thoroughly, and not hurry; but you’ve not brought him this season, have you?”

The doctor shook his head, still keeping his eyes upon the miniature and continued: “I reared Jim from a pup, and it seems as if there never was a time that he was so young but what he understood what I said almost before I spoke the words; he travelled everywhere with me, and was a companion for work as well as play. If I went to a hotel, in a day he knew at which floor our room was, and where the elevator should stop. He knew my telephone call, and would bark at me when the bell rang it. If I was at the office, he at home, I could call him to come to me if some one lowered the receiver to his range. He could carry numbers in his head, too, that is, as far as four; above that he was uncertain.

Jim (Seeley photo).“One day, three years or so ago, while I was waiting at a railway station not far from Boston, in some strange way a train struck Jim and hurled him upon a bank above. It may be that he refused the train right of way; however it was, the crowd that gathered said he was done for, and should be put out of misery. But bruised, his leg broken at the hip, and maimed though he was when I picked him up, Jim looked at me and I at him, and we agreed to make a fight for it. I took him into Boston to the hospital. We won; his leg was set, and for a time it did well, and we went about in company once more; but the fracture join was brittle, it soon broke again, and was united with silver wire. For a couple of years he went about, a cheerful cripple,—but at that, worth all the other dogs in Christendom to me, and seeming to grow keener witted as his body was more dependent.

“Then the leg began to bother him, and I tried every known expedient short of amputation. If I had done that in time he might have lived longer, but I hesitated, and Jim died, conscious and knowing me.“That was more than a year ago, but I have not forgotten. There never was but one Jim, and no other dog can be the same to me. One thing, though, Jim has done for his fellows,—he has made me think of and treat all dogs differently for his sake, and remembering him and what he was, knocking about as I do, I’m fast getting to believe that dogs are almost the only friends one has that can be quite trusted. If a man is old or young, rich or poor, a dog sees no fault in his master.”

A man seldom has the relief of tears that helps a woman, but instead, sorrow grasps his throat and chokes him, and there were tears in the doctor’s voice as he closed his watch on Jim’s portrait.

“Do have a cup of coffee, Miss Jule, dear. You must be done up,” said Anna Maria, who also looked awry and as if she had been up all night, as she bustled into the stable with coffee-pot and cups on a tray, which she set on top of the nearest feed-bin, while Martin emerged from below, where he had been ducking his head in a pail of water in order to appear fully awake. “And the doctor here, too; he must be faintin’, for he was the fore half of the night at the Ridge with Squire Burley’s old mare, the drivin’ boy says,” she added, hurrying back to the house.

Miss Jule filled two cups, and handed one to the doctor. Anna Maria had forgotten the spoons, so they stirred the coffee with stout straws.

Miss Jule raised the cup to her lips, and then paused, saying, “To the friendship of two faithful dogs, Ben Uncas and Jim,” and they drank the coffee slowly and in silence.

Quick was to have gone to his youthful new owners that same day, and Mr. Hugh thoughtfully slipped over and took him away before Miss Jule awoke from her belated sleep, so that two members of the hunting club vanished at the same time, and it disbanded as if by mutual consent; for Waddles and Tip at least seemed to comprehend what had happened, and Colin, who was himself growing old, became more reliable, and seldom left his mistress.

“Let’s go up and hug Miss Jule and tell her how sorry we are, and lend her the sixlets for a week to ’muse her,” said tender-hearted Tommy, when he heard the news.

“Better not,” said Anne, who understood; “if it was Waddles, I would rather be let alone.” And when she, turning quickly, asked Waddles the familiar question, “Where is Ben? where is Mr. Wolf?” instead of cheering and trotting off toward the gate as usual, to meet his friend, he never stirred, but gave her a reproachful look, and throwing back his head, bayed dismally.

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