Part 15 (2/2)

”I can keep Romulus,” said Sam, ”but I've got to ask you to take Remus back. I've given him every chance and I find he's hopeless as a bird dog. He learns quick enough--quicker than Romulus if anything. But he's got no nose, none at all, and a setter with no nose is about useless in the field. It would be a waste of time to try to train him, and when we got on the birds he would only get in Romulus's way and spoil him. So I guess you'll have to take him back and let me go ahead with the good one.”

”Why, what do you mean?” inquired Jack, struggling to hide his disappointment. ”Can't he smell?”

”Oh, I s'pose he can tell spoiled fish when he gets it, but he don't catch the scent of anything on the air. I guess it was the distemper that did it. He had it worse than Romulus and it often spoils their noses when they have it hard enough. I'm sorry, but it can't be helped and it can't be cured.”

For a few minutes Jack stood silent, pressing his lips together. Then suddenly he knelt down beside Remus and hugged him pa.s.sionately.

”I don't care whether you've got a nose or not, Remus,” he cried. ”I don't want to go hunting, ever. Noses don't matter. You're the best dog in the whole world, anyhow.”

And so they took Remus back with them that afternoon, leaving Romulus behind, howling mournfully for his brother.

Such reports as they received from Sam indicated that the training of Romulus proceeded with fair rapidity during the fall. They were not able to go up to his shack very often for one reason or another, and Jack, at least, was not so anxious to do so as he had been. Remus lived in solitary luxury in Rome and was in some danger of being spoiled by the petting he received from his loyal master.

Romulus, so Ernest learned, could now retrieve at command and would bring back a dead pigeon or other bird without rumpling its feathers.

He would also range in obedience to a wave of Sam's hand and was gradually learning to stand fast and hold his point when he flushed a covey of birds. Finally Sam took out his gun to shoot over him, and the rest of his training was to be chiefly that persistent practice which finally makes perfect.

It was decided that Romulus should remain with Sam until snow fell, but one night there came a scratching and a whining at the door and a series of peculiar short little barks so persistently kept up that they awakened both the boys. They slipped on their dressing gowns and slippers and stole downstairs.

At the door they found Romulus with a broken bit of rope tied to his collar.

”Why,” cried Jack, ”it's Romulus. See, he must have broken away.”

”He came all the way home alone in the dark,” said Ernest. ”How do you s'pose he ever found his way?”

Romulus seemed to understand that it was not the time to make a noise, for though he kept leaping on the boys in an access of delight and making little sounds in his throat that were almost human, he refrained from the loud, joyous barking that he would have indulged in if it had been daytime. Remus had heard him, however, and was making a considerable commotion in Rome. So the boys took Romulus quietly out to his brother, who greeted him with paw and tongue and voice, and bidding both dogs goodnight, they went back to the house.

So it was decided that if Romulus so much desired his own home, he should be deprived of it no longer. Sam came down in a day or two to find out about it.

”I thought he'd probably run home,” said he, ”but I wanted to make sure. I guess we'd better leave him here now. I'm pretty near through with him for this fall, anyway. You just bring him up once in awhile so I can take him out and not let him forget what I've learned him.”

Meanwhile the affairs of Boytown were going on much as usual. Autumn pa.s.sed in golden glory, with nutting expeditions in October in which sometimes as many as a dozen boys and a dozen dogs joined forces. As they started out through the town streets, Mr. Fellowes, the news dealer and stationer, said it looked as though a circus had come to town.

Such things, however, were of common and regular occurrence. Only two episodes of that season deserve to be specially recorded. One was a dog fight which for a time brought the dog-owning fraternity of Boytown into ill repute.

For some time several of the boys had been bragging, as boys will, about the prowess in battle of their particular dogs, and this narrowed down at length to an unsettled controversy between Monty Hubbard and Harry Barton. Monty maintained that the Irish terrier was the greatest dare-devil and fighter in the canine world, and he quoted books and individuals to prove it. Harry, on the other hand, insisted that the bulldog's grit and tenacity were proverbial, and loudly a.s.serted that if Mike once got a grip on Mr. O'Brien's throat, it would be good-by, Mr. O'Brien.

It is only fair to the boys to state that it was the Irish terrier that started the fracas on his own initiative. He was a sc.r.a.ppy terrier, always ready to start something, and it usually required considerable vigilance to keep him out of trouble. But it must be confessed that on this particular occasion his master did not exert the usual restraint.

It happened out on the road that Ernest and Jack so often took when they visited Sam b.u.mpus or Trapper's Cave. Mr. O'Brien had been annoying the other dogs for some little time, rus.h.i.+ng and barking at them and inviting a friendly encounter. He was not vicious, but he loved a tussle. Finally Mike the bulldog, usually so long-suffering, lost patience and turned on Mr. O'Brien with a menacing snarl that seemed to mean business. For a moment the Irishman stood still in surprise, while Mike, his head held low, waited with a stubborn look in his eyes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Irish Terrier]

That was clearly the time for interference, but I regret to say that instead of interfering, the boys grouped themselves about with feelings of not unpleasant antic.i.p.ation. I further regret to say that Ernest Whipple was one of the most interested.

Suddenly Mr. O'Brien, recovering from his surprise, returned to the attack with an impetuous rush which nearly bowled Mike over. But Mike was heavier than Mr. O'Brien and stood very solidly on his four outspread feet. He merely turned about and presented a terrifying front to his more active antagonist. Again Mr. O'Brien rushed, seeking a hold on Mike's big, muscular neck.

For a time Mr. O'Brien seemed to be having the best of it. He took the offensive and seemed to be on all sides of Mike at once. The bulldog's ear was bleeding and Harry urged him to retaliate.

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