Part 23 (1/2)
”Pretty soon the pack beagles off again with glad cries; and this time, up on the hillside, what do they start but a little spike buck that has been down to a salt lick on the creek flat! They wasn't any more afraid of him than they had been of the rabbit and started to chase him out of the country. Of course they didn't do well after they got him interested. The last I saw of the race he was making 'em look like they was in reverse gear and backing up full speed. Anyway, that seemed to end the sport for the day, because the dogs and the buck must of been over near the county line in ten minutes. The old lady was mad and blamed it on the valet, who come up and had to take as sweet a roasting as you ever heard a man get from a lady word painter. It seems he'd ought to have taught 'em to ignore deer.
”Then I lied like a lady and said it was a ripping sport that I would sure go in keenly for if I had time; and we all went back to the house and sat down to what they called a hunt breakfast. Ma said at last her chits could hold up their heads in the world of sport and not be a reproach to her training. The chits looked very thoughtful, indeed.
Sister still had red eyes and couldn't eat a mouthful of hunt breakfast, and brother just toyed with little dabs of it.
”Next day I learned the pack didn't get back till late that evening, straggling in one by one, and the valet having to go out and look for the last two with a lantern. Also, these last two had been treated brutally by some denizen of the wildwood. Rex II had darn near lost his eyesight and Lady Blessington was clawed something scandalous. Brother said mebbe a rabbit mad with hydrophobia had turned on 'em. He said it in hopeful tones, and sister cheered right up and said if these two had it they would give it to the rest of the pack, and shouldn't they all be shot at once?
”Mother said what jolly nonsense; that they'd merely been scratched by thorns. I thought, myself, that mebbe they'd gone out of their cla.s.s and tackled a jack rabbit; but I didn't say it, seeing that the owner was sensitive. Afterward she showed me a lot of silver things her pets had won--eye-cups and custard dishes, and coffee urns and things, about a dozen, with their names engraved on 'em. She said it was very annoying to have 'em take after deer that way. What she wanted 'em to do was to butcher rabbits where parties in the right garments could stand and look on.
”Next day they tried again; and one fool rabbit was soon gone in for keenly to the renewed sound of sister's bitter sobs, and brother looking like he'd been in jail two years--no colour left at all in his face. But pretty soon the pack took up the scent of a deer again, and that was the end of another day's sport. Brother and sister looked glad and resumed their peaceful sports. He hunted b.u.t.terflies with a net, and she set down and looked at birds through an opera gla.s.s and wrote down things about their personal appearance in a notebook. The old lady changed to her cowboy suit and went out and roped three steers--just to work her mad off, I guess.
”Well, this time the beagles not only limped in at a shocking hour of the night but three of the others had had their beauty marred by a demon rabbit or something. They had been licked very thoroughly, indeed; and the old lady now said it must be a grizzly bear, and brother and sister beamed on her and said: 'What a shame!' And would they hunt again next day? For the first time they seemed quite mad about the sport. Mother said they better wait till she went out and shot the grizzly, but I told her we hadn't had any grizzlies round here for years; so she said, all right, they could lick anything less than a grizzly. And they beagled again next day, with terrible and inspiring results, not only to Rex II and Lady Blessington again, but to two of the others that hadn't been touched before.
”This left only two of the pack that hadn't been horribly abused by some unknown varmint; so a halt had to be called for three days while Red Cross work was done. Brother and sister tried to look regretful and complained about this break in the ripping sport; but their manner was artificial. They spent the time riding peacefully round up in the canon, pretending to look for the wild creature that had chewed their little pets. They come back one day and cheered their mother a whole lot by telling her the pack had been over the pa.s.s as far as the house of a worthy rancher, Mr. Floud by name. They said Mr. Floud didn't believe there was any bears round, and further said he greatly admired the beagles, even though at first they seriously annoyed his pet kitten.
”The old lady said this was ripping of Mr. Floud, to take it in such a sporting way, because many people in the past had tried to make all sorts of nasty rows when her pets had happened to kill their kittens.
Brother said, yes; Mr. Floud took the whole thing in a true sporting way, and he hoped the pack would soon be well enough to hunt again.
Right then I detected falsity in his manner; I couldn't make out what it was, but I knew he was putting something over on mother.
”Two days later the dogs was fit again, and another gay hunt was had, with a rabbit to the good in the first twenty minutes, and then the usual break, when they struck a deer scent. Brother said he'd follow on his horse this time and try to get whatever was bothering 'em. He didn't. He said he lost 'em. They crawled back at night, well chewed; and mother was now frantic.
”There had to be another three days in bed for the cunning little murderers, after which brother and sister both went out with 'em on horseback, with the same mysterious results--except that Rex II didn't get in till next day and looked like he'd come through a feed chopper.
For the next hunt, four days after that, the old lady went, too, all of 'em on horseback; but the same slinking marauder got at the pack before they could come up with it, and two of 'em had to be brought back in arms. They all stopped here on the way home to tell about the mystery.
Brother and sister was very cheerful and mad about the sport, but their manner was falser than ever. Mother says the pack is being ruined, and she wouldn't continue the sport, except it has roused the first gleam of interest her chits has ever showed in anything worth while. I caught the chits looking at each other in a guilty manner when she says this, and my curiosity wakes up. I says next time they go out I will be pleased to go with 'em; and the old lady thanks me and says mebbe I can solve this reprehensible mystery.
”In another three days they come by for me. The beagles was looking an awful lot different from what I had first seen 'em. They was not only beautifully scarred but they acted kind of timid and reproachful, and their yapping had a note of caution in it that I hadn't noticed before.
So I got on my pony and went along to help probe the crime. We worked up the canon trail and over the pa.s.s, with the pack staying meekly behind most of the time. Just the other side of the pa.s.s they actually got a rabbit, though not working with their old-time recklessness, I thought.
Of course we had to stop and watch this. Brother looked the other way and sister just set there biting her lips, with an evil gleam in her pale-blue eyes. Not a beagle in the pack would have trusted himself alone with her at that minute if he'd known his business.
”Then we rode on down toward Cousin Egbert's shack, with nothing further happening and the pups staying back in a highly conservative manner.
Brother says that yonder is the Mr. Floud's place he had spoken of, and ma wants to know if he, too, goes in for ranching, and I says yes, he's awfully keen about it; so she says we'll ride over and chat with him and perhaps he can suggest some solution of the mystery in hand. I said all right, and we ride up.
”Cousin Egbert is tipped back in a chair outside the door, reading a Sunday paper. Whenever he gets one up here he always reads it clean through, from murders to want ads. And he'd got into this about as far as the beauty hints and secrets of the toilet. Well, he was very polite and awkward, and asked us into his d.i.n.ky little shack; and the old lady says she hears he is quite mad about ranching, and he says, Oh, yes--only it don't help matters any to get mad; and he finds a chair for her, and the rest of us set on stools and the bed; and just then she notices that the beagle pack has halted about thirty feet from the door, and some of 'em is milling and acting like they think of starting for home at once.
”So out she goes and orders the little pets up. They didn't want to come one bit; it seemed like they was afraid of something, but they was well disciplined and they finally crawled forward, looking like they didn't know what minute something cruel might happen.
”The old lady petted 'em and made 'em lie down, and asked Cousin Egbert if he'd ever seen better ones, or even as good; and he said No, ma'am; they was sure fine beetles. Then she begun to tell him about some wild animal that had been attacking 'em, a grizzly, or mebbe a mountain lion, with cubs; and he is saying in a very false manner that he can't think what would want to harm such playful little pets, and so on. All this time the pets is in fine att.i.tudes of watchful waiting, and I'm just beginning to suspect a certain possibility when it actually happens.
”There was an open window high up in the log wall acrost from the door, and old Kate jumps up onto the sill from the outside. He was one fierce object, let me tell you; weighing about thirty pounds, all muscle, with one ear gone, and an eye missing that a porcupine quill got into, and a lot of fresh new battle scars. We all got a good look at him while he crouched there for a second, purring like a twelve-cylinder car and twitching his whiskers at us in a lazy way, like he wanted to have folks make a fuss over him. And then, all at once, catching sight of the dogs, he changed to a demon; his back up, his whiskers in a stiff tremble, and his half of a tail grown double in girth.
”I looked quick to the dogs, and they was froze stiff with horror for at least another second. Then they made one scramble for the open door, and Kate made a beautiful spring for the bunch, landing on the back of the last one with a yell of triumph. Mother shrieked, too, and we all rushed to the door to see one of the prettiest chases you'd want to look at, with old Kate handing out the side wipes every time he could get near one of the dogs. They fled down over the creek bank and a minute later we could see the pack legging it up the other side to beat the cars, losing Kate--I guess because he didn't like to get his hide wet.
”When the first shock of this wore off, here was silly old Egbert, in a weak voice, calling: 'Kitty, Kitty, Kitty! Here, Kitty! Here, Kitty!'
Then we notice brother and sister. Brother is waving his hat in the air and yelling 'Yoicks!' and 'Gone away!' and 'Fair sport, by Jove!'--just like some crazy man; and sister, with her chest going up and down, is clapping her hands and yelling 'Goody! Goody! Goody!' and squealing with helpless laughter. Mother just stood gazing at 'em in horrible silence.
Pretty soon they felt it and stopped, looking like a couple of kids that know it's spanking time.
”'So!' says mother. That's all she said--just, 'So!'