Part 6 (1/2)

Then there was the time down in the creek bottoms when he had sat down on a log, and Frank had rushed toward him, leaped the log, and jerked the life out of a big copperhead moccasin coiled just behind him in the gra.s.s. And not very long ago, at the country store up the road, when a big boy had tried to bully him, Frank had come to his side and growled, and the boy had backed off, his face white. Frank had always stuck to him.

His face grew solemn, a lump rose in his throat. He could not sit here any longer with Frank chained up around yonder waiting a beating. He got up and started once more around the house. He was just in time to see his father cross the yard and stop in front of a bush.

He stood where he was, watching with alarmed eyes. When his father turned he had a switch in his hand. At sight of it the blood rushed to the boy's face, and every nerve tingled. He had doubted it a little bit up to this time; now there was no doubt left. His father was going to whip Frank.

Once at Tom Belcher's store he had seen a man whip a dog. The dog had writhed rather comically on the ground, and his cries had filled the air. He himself had stood on the store porch and watched the performance in a detached, judicial frame of mind. It had been a spectacle, and nothing more; but this was vastly different. That had been an old hound, and this was Frank.

That was a big switch his father had cut, and his father was very strong. It would hurt, hurt even through Frank's long hair, hurt terribly. Frank would writhe on the ground, Frank's cries would fill the air. He watched his father's face as Earle came toward him. It was serious and grim, so serious that it almost hurt. Maybe his father didn't want to whip Frank; maybe he was doing it because he thought, in his ignorance and simplicity, that he ought to; maybe his father hated to do it.

He thought of retreating once more to the side porch where he could not see, of hurrying beyond it to the orchard and there crying, perhaps. But he could not do that. Breathing fast, he followed his father, led by the fascination of horror. Anybody looking at him, unless it was his mother, would have thought he was going out of curiosity, to see the thing well done. But there was a humming sound in his ears; the lump was choking him cruelly; the whole yard was swimming round, and everything looked strange.

As they drew near the kennel, Frank rose quickly to his feet, his tail tapping the taut chain, his eyes eager and glowing as he looked from one friend to another. Frank thought they had come to turn him loose and give him his supper in his tin plate on the back steps. Then he saw, and his ears drooped--saw the look on their faces, saw the switch, and he sank down on his stomach and laid his big head humbly between his paws at his master's feet.

”Don't!” shrieked the boy. ”Papa, Papa, don't!”

In the midst of the whirling yard and barns and things, his father had turned and looked down at him with strange burning eyes.

”I can't let him kill chickens, son.”

It all happened in a flash. He hadn't intended doing any such thing. His last resolve, even as he came around the house, had been to stick to his spoken word. But now pa.s.sionately he threw the air rifle away from him, and stood looking up at his father with dilated eyes and heaving, st.u.r.dy chest.

”Take the old gun!” he cried. ”I don't want it! I killed Pete--F'ank never done it. I shot him through the head!”

His father had stooped down now, and he was in strong arms. His cheek was pressed against his father's cheek, and over a broad shoulder, through a haze of tears, he looked miserably into the red glow of the setting sun.

”I tol' F'ank to kill him,” he sobbed brokenly, ”an' he wouldn't. I drove--drove him off, an' he kept comin' back. I killed him--I shot him through the head!”

The arms tightened about him, the cheek pressed closer to his cheek.

”That's all right, old man,” said his father. ”I understand.”

Gradually the sobs ceased, for he fought them down like a little man.

And when at last Earle rose, Tommy looked up clear-eyed into his father's face, as he used to look before he ate of his forbidden fruit.

Then his father went to the gun, picked it up, and came back to him.

”It's yours,” he said gently.

For the second time that day Tommy could hardly believe his ears; his eyes were uncomprehending, for he had never expected to own the gun again.

”You've earned it,” said Earle, with a smile.

Then, within the house, swung l.u.s.tily by old Aunt Cindy's strong wrist, the supper bell rang. At the top of the kitchen steps the mother waited with happy face. And up these steps, the sinking sun s.h.i.+ning upon them, went father and boy and dog together.

III

THE BOLTER

One January afternoon there got off the train at a straggling little Southern town a ma.s.sive man past middle age, with a craggy face and deep-set eyes, and the looks and manner of one with power and wealth.

His name was William Burton, manufacturer of the famous Burton ploughs, and he could have bought this town out, lock, stock, and barrel, and the county in which the town sat, and a very considerable portion of the state itself. What he had come to buy, though, was a dog.