Part 6 (2/2)

During the trip down, in his stateroom, instead of examining financial reports or reading the latest magazines, old Burton had studied, with the aid of his spectacles and of Ferris, his professional dog handler, the pedigree of a young pointer that lived in this town. He had noted how at recurrent intervals in the family tree occurred the word Champion. Already, in the years since he entered, as a hobby, the field-trial game, he had bought, at the recommendation of handlers, some hundreds of bird dogs. All of them had been disappointments. Now he had taken the matter into his own hands. Usually when he took charge of a thing, that thing succeeded.

A lazy Negro at the dreary railroad station showed him and Ferris the way to Jim Arnold's place--a neat, modest cottage on the edge of the town from whose back yard, as they approached, came a challenging bark.

A telegram had preceded them, and Jim Arnold himself, veteran bird-dog trainer, owner of the young pointer, came out to meet them, hobbling painfully on a stick.

Ferris could have explained the hobble and the stick. It's the kind of thing you see now and then among field-trial men. Earlier in the season, while running in a field trial the very dog who had brought the visitors here, his horse had fallen, crus.h.i.+ng Arnold's knee. Jim Arnold could never ride a horse again. Consequently, Jim Arnold could never again run a dog in a National Champions.h.i.+p race.

With the crippled man came his daughter Jessie, a slim, dark-eyed girl, pretty in a serious sort of way. Burton was hardly conscious of her, but Ferris respectfully raised his hat. Dog men knew Jessie Arnold because she sometimes rode with her father and helped him handle. She had been with him when his knee was crushed, and had held his head in her lap till the doctor came.

After the briefest of greetings the three men, followed by the girl, went around to the rear yard. Here, in a lot enclosed by a high wire fence, wagging his tail like any other dog, was the National Champions.h.i.+p hope.

Great dogs, like great men, do not always look the part. This one did.

He was a big white fellow, his ears and a portion of his head liver brown. His head was n.o.bly carved, his back long and straight, his legs rangy, clean-cut, his tail thin, like a lance; he was all a pointer of the highest breeding ought to be. But to the man who knows dogs there was in his eyes something wild, headstrong, untamed, the kind of thing you see in the eyes of young aviators.

”Let him out, Jess,” said Arnold.

The girl opened the gate and he sprang out. He ran eagerly around the yard, inspecting the familiar premises to see if there had been any other dog there recently. Every motion showed unbounded power, as if the yard, and even the town itself, were too small for him. Not until Arnold called him twice, and severely, did he come to them. But he had no attention to bestow upon his distinguished visitor. His eyes sought first his master's face, then the face of the girl. There they rested a moment in adoration. Then he reared gently up against her, ears thrown back, upraised eyes affectionately searching her face.

Old Burton had been looking on with impa.s.sive countenance. But from the moment his eyes rested on this dog he wanted him. His hunch told him that here was a champion, and he went by hunches. He looked at Ferris, quickly, significantly. Ferris nodded in a way which indicated that he would like to speak in private. Millionaire and handler withdrew a few steps from father and daughter and dog.

”I don't like that look in his eyes!” whispered Ferris vehemently.

”I do!” said old Burton.

In Arnold's little over-furnished parlour the business was transacted.

But neither the young pointer out there, nor the girl who remained with him, were to know anything about it. So far as the dog was concerned, man, his master and G.o.d, moves in mysterious ways. As for the girl, it was her father who requested that the trade be kept a secret from her.

”She sets a lot of store by Drake,” he explained. ”She picked him out from the litter when he was a pup. She's fed him and raised him. People are always comin' to see him. She thinks that's the reason you come--just to look at him.”

Burton glanced at the crippled trainer with slightly hardened eyes. He resented this intrusion of the human element into a deal, particularly when that human element was a girl. It has a way of breaking things up.

However, for a while, things went smoothly, though the conversation was carried on in lowered tones. Three thousand was the price agreed upon.

It was a good price for Arnold to get if the dog did not win the champions.h.i.+p. It was a poor price if he did.

For to own a national champion means a steady income from his puppies.

It brings fame to the owner and to the trainer. He has trained one champion--maybe he can train another. Men send him their dogs; his price goes up, like that of the teacher who had turned out a prima donna. To own and train a national champion may put a man like Arnold on the map.

And now he was gambling with the chance. His face showed the strain he was under. However, it was he who set the price. But when Burton, thinking the matter closed, got out his check book, again the crippled trainer introduced the element of mystery.

”One minute, sir,” he said. ”There's something I ought to tell you. I'm sellin' Drake because I can't afford to take chances on his winnin'. But I want him to win, sir, just the same as if he was goin' to be mine.”

”Well?” said Burton.

”There's one thing goin' to stand in his way. After this year I think he'll settle down. But right now, I'll be honest with you, Drake's a bolter. You know what a bolter is, I guess. He's a dog that won't keep in the course, that will run away. Drake's one of 'em. When you turn him loose in the field he forgets there's such things as human bein's on this planet. Don't I know him? I won the Southern Champions.h.i.+p with him.

I managed to keep up and hold him in. But I come mighty nigh ridin' a horse to death. Here's the price I paid myself, sir,” and he tenderly felt his warped and shattered knee, ”paid it the last five minutes of the race.”

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