That Pup Read online

it? Then Murchison could hire his dog at night, too. They huntDachs at night, don't they, Massett? Only there is no Dachshund blood inhim, either. If there was, and if there were a few Dachs-"

  Massett was mad.

  "Yes!" he cried. "And you, with your Cuban bloodhound strain! I supposeif it was the open season for Cubans, you'd go out with the dog and treea few! Or put on snowshoes and follow the Kamtchat to his icy lair!"Brownlee doesn't get mad easily.

  "Murchison," he said, "leaving out Mas-sett's dreary nonsense aboutstaghounds, I can tell you that dog would make the finest duck dog inthe State. He's got all the points for a good duck dog, and I ought toknow for I have two of the best duck dogs that ever lived. All he needsis training. If you will train him right you'll have a mighty valuabledog."

  "But I don't hunt ducks," said Murchison, "and I don't know how to traineven a lap-dog."

  "You let me attend to his education," said Brownlee. "I just want toshow Massett here that I know a dog when I see one. I'll show Massettthe finest duck dog he ever saw when I get through with Fluff."

  So he went over and got his shotgun, just to give Fluff his firstlesson. The first thing a duck dog must learn is not to be afraid of agun, and Brownlee said that if a dog first learned about guns right athis home he was not so apt to be afraid of them. He said that if a dogheard a gun for the first time when he was away from home and in strangesurroundings he was quite right to be surprised and startled, but if heheard it in the bosom of his family, with all his friends calmly seatedabout, he would think it was a natural thing, and accept it as such.

  So Brownlee put a shell in his gun and Mas-sett and Murchison sat on theporch steps and pretended to be uninterested and normal, and Brownleestood up and aimed the gun in the air. Fluff was eating a bone, butBrownlee spoke to him and he looked up, and Brownlee pulled the trigger.It seemed about five minutes before Fluff struck the ground, he jumpedso high when the gun was fired, and then he started north by northeastat about sixty miles an hour. He came back all right, three weeks later,but his tail was still between his legs.

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  Brownlee didn't feel the least discouraged. He said he saw now thatthe whole principle of what he had done was wrong; that no dog with anybrains whatever could be anything but frightened to hear a gun shot offright in the bosom of his family. That was no place to fire a gun. Hesaid Fluff evidently thought the whole lot of us were crazy, and ran infear of his life, thinking we were insane and might shoot him next.He said the thing to do was to take the shotgun into its naturalsurroundings and let Fluff learn to love it there. He pictured Fluffenjoying the sound of the gun when he heard it at the edge of the lake.

  Murchison never hunted ducks, but as Fluff was his dog, he went withBrownlee, and of course Massett went. Massett wanted to see the failure.He said he wished stags were as plentiful as ducks, and he would showBrownlee!

  Fluff was a strong dog--he seemed to have a strain of ox in him, so faras strength went--and as long as he saw the gun he insisted that hewould stay at home; but when Brownlee wrapped the gun in brown paper soit looked like a big parcel from the meat shop, the horse that they hadhitched to the buck-board was able to drag Fluff along without strainingitself. Fluff was fastened to the rear axle with a chain.

  When they reached Duck Lake, Brownlee untied Fluff and patted him,and then unwrapped the gun. Fluff gave one pained glance and made thesix-mile run home in seven minutes without stopping. He was home beforeBrownlee could think of anything to say, and he went so far into hiskennel that Murchison had to take off the boards at the back to find himthat night.

  "That's nothing," was what Brownlee said when he did speak; "young dogsare often that way. Gun fright. They have to be gun broken. You come outto-morrow, and I'll show you how a man who really knows how to handle adog does the trick."

  The next day, when Fluff saw the buck-board he went into his kennel, andthey couldn't pry him out with the hoe-handle. He connected buckboardsand guns in his mind, so Brownlee borrowed the butcher's delivery wagon,and they drove to Wild Lake. It was seven miles, but Fluff seemed morewilling to go in that direction than toward Duck Lake. He did not seemto care to go to Duck Lake at all.

  "Now, then," said Brownlee, "I'll show you the intelligent way to handlea dog. I'll prove to him that he has nothing to fear, that I am hiscomrade and friend. And at the same time," he said, "I'll not have himrunning off home and spoiling our day's sport."

  So he took the chain and fastened it around his waist, and then he satdown and talked to Fluff like an old friend, and got him in a playfulmood. Then he had Murchison get the gun out of the wagon and lay it onthe ground about twenty feet off. It was wrapped in brown paper.

  Brownlee talked to Fluff and told him what fine sport duck hunting is,and then, as if by chance, he got on his hands and knees and crawledtoward the gun. Fluff hung back a little, but the chain just coaxed hima little, too, and they edged up to the gun, and Brownlee pretended todiscover it unexpectedly.

  "Well, well!" he said. "What's this?"

  Fluff nosed up to it and sniffed it, and then went at it as if it wasMassett's cat. That Brownlee had wrapped a beefsteak around the gun,inside the paper, and Fluff tore off the paper and ate the steak, andBrownlee winked at Murchison.

  "I declare," he said, "if here isn't a gun! Look at this, Fluff--a gun!Gosh! but we are in luck!"

  Would you believe it, that dog sniffed at the gun, and did not fear itin the least? You could have hit him on the head with it and he wouldnot have minded it. He never did mind being hit with small things likeguns and ax handles.

  Brownlee got up and stood erect.

  "You see!" he said proudly. "All a man needs with a dog like this isintelligence. A dog is like a horse. He wants his reason appealed to.Now, if I fire the gun, he may be a little startled, but I have createda faith in me in him. He knows there is nothing dangerous in a gun _as_a gun. He knows I am not afraid of it, so he is not afraid. He realizesthat we are chained together, and that proves to him that he need notrun unless I run. Now watch."

  Brownlee fired the shotgun.

  Instantly he started for home. He did not start lazily, like a boystarting to the wood pile, but went promptly and with a dash. His firstjump was only ten feet, and we heard him grunt as he landed, but afterthat he got into his stride and made fourteen feet each jump. He wasbent forward a good deal in the middle, where the chain was, and in manyways he was not as graceful as a professional cinder-path track runner,but, in running, the main thing is to cover the ground rapidly. Brownleedid that.

  Massett said it was a bad start. He said it was all right to start ahundred-yard dash that way, but for a long-distance run--a run of sevenmiles across country--the start was too impetuous; that it showed a lackof generalship, and that when it came to the finish the affair would betame; but it wasn't.

  Brownlee said afterwards that there wasn't a tame moment in the entireseven miles. It was rather more wild than tame. He felt right from thestart that the finish would be sensational, unless the chain cut himquite in two, and it didn't. He said that when the chain had cut as faras his spinal column it could go no farther, and it stopped and clungthere, but it was the only thing that did stop, except his breath. Itwas several years later that I first met Brownlee, and he was stillbreathing hard, like a man who has just been running rapidly. Brownleesays when he shuts his eyes his legs still seem to be going.

  The first mile was through underbrush, and that was lucky, for theunderbrush removed most of Brownlee's clothing, and put him in betterrunning weight, but at the mile and a quarter they struck the road.He said at two miles he thought he might be overexercising the dog andmaybe he had better stop, but the dog seemed anxious to get home so hedidn't stop there. He said that at three miles he was sure the dog wasoverdoing, and that with his knowledge of dogs he was perfectly ableto stop a running dog in its own length if he could speak to it, buthe couldn't speak to this dog for two reasons. One was that he couldn'tovertake the dog and the other was that all the speak was y
anked out ofhim.

  When they reached five miles the dog seemed to think they were takingtoo much time to get home, and let out a few more laps of speed, andit was right there that Brownlee decided that Fluff had some greyhoundblood in him.

  He said that when they reached town he felt as if he would have beenglad to stop at his own house and lie down for awhile, but the dogdidn't want to, and so they went on; but that he ought to be thankfulthat the dog was willing to stop at that town at all. The next town wastwelve miles farther on, and the roads were bad. But the dog turned intoMurchison's yard and went right into his kennel.

  When Murchison and Massett got home, an hour or so later, after drivingthe horse all the way at a gallop, they found old Gregg, the carpenter,prying