The big collie lay at ease, his tawny-and-white length stretched out in lazy luxury across the mouth of the lane which led from the Hampton highroad to Link Ferris’ hillside farmhouse.

Of old, this lane had been rutted and grass-hummocked and bordered by tangles of rusty weeds. Since Link and his farm had taken so decided a brace, the weeds had been cut away. This without even a hint from the county engineer, who of old had so often threatened to fine Link for leaving them standing along the highway at his land’s edge. The lane had been graded and ditched, too, into a neatness that went well with the rest of the place.

But—now that Link Ferris had taken to himself a wife, as efficient as she was pretty—it had been decreed by young Mrs. Ferris that the lane’s entrance should be enhanced still further by the erecting of two low fieldstone piers, one on either side, and that the hollow at the top 68of each pier should be filled with loam for the planting of nasturtiums.

It was on this decorative job that Link was at work to-day. His collie, Chum, was always near at hand wherever his master chanced to be toiling. And Chum, now, was lying comfortably on the soft earth of the lane head, some fifty feet from where Link wrought with rock and mortar.

Up the highroad, from Hampton village a mile below, jogged a bony yellow horse, drawing a ramshackle vehicle which looked like the ghost of a delivery wagon. The wagon had a sharp tilt to one side. For long years it had been guiltless of paint. Its canvas sides were torn and stained. Its rear was closed by a wabbly grating. The axles and whiffletree emitted a combination of grievously complaining squeaks from the lack of grease. And other and still more grievous noises issued from the grated recesses of the cart.

On the sagging seat sprawled a beefy man whose pendulous cheeks seemed the vaster for the narrowness of his little eyes. These eyes were wandering inquiringly from side to side along Link’s land boundary, until they chanced to light upon the recumbent collie. Then into their shallow recesses glinted a look of sharp interest. It was on this collie’s account that the man had driven out from Hampton to-day. His drive was a reconnoitre.

He clucked his bony steed to a faster jog, his gaze fixed with growing avidity on the dog. As he neared the mouth of the lane, he caught sight of Link and the narrow orbs lost a shade of their jubilance.

So might a pedestrian’s eyes have glinted at sight of a dollar bill on the sidewalk in front of him. So might the glint have clouded on seeing the bill’s owner reaching down for his property. The simile is not far-fetched, for 69the driver, on viewing Chum, had fancied he beheld the equivalent of several dollars.

He was Eben Shunk, official poundmaster and dog catcher of Hampton Borough. Each and every stray dog caught and impounded by him meant the sum of one dollar to be paid him, in due form, by the Hampton Borough treasurer. And the fact that Chum’s sturdy master was within hail of the invitingly supine collie vexed the thrifty soul of Eben Shunk.

Yet there was hope. And upon this hope Eben staked his chances for the elusive dollar and for the main object of his visit—which was no mere dollar. Briefly, in his mind, he reviewed the case and the possibilities and laid out his plan of campaign. Halting his bony horse at the mouth of the lane, he hailed Link.

“Look-a-here!” he called. “Did you take out a license for that big mutt of your’n yet?”

Link glanced up from his work, viewed the visitor with no semblance of favour and made curt reply.

“I didn’t. And he ain’t.”

“Huh?” queried Mr. Shunk, puzzled at this form of answer.

“I didn’t license him,” expounded Link, “and he ain’t a mutt. If that’s all you’ve stopped your trav’lin’ m’nagerie at my lane for, you can move it on as quick as you’re a mind to.”

He bent over his work again. But Eben Shunk did not take the hint.

“’Cordin’ to the laws an’ statoots of the Borough of Hampton, county of P’saic, state of Noo Jersey,” proclaimed the dog catcher with much dignity, “it’s my perk’s’t an’ dooty to impound each an’ every unlicensed dog found in the borough limits.”

“Well,” assented Link, “go on and impound ’em, then. 70Only don’t pester me about it. I’m not int’rested. S’pose you get that old bag of bones to haul your rattletrap junk cart somewheres else! I’m busy.”

"Bein’ a smarty won’t get you nowheres!" declared Shunk. “If your dog ain’t licensed, it’s my dooty to impound him. He—”

“Here!” snapped Link. “You got your answer on that when you tackled my wife about it down to her father’s store last week. She told me all about it. You came a-blusterin’ in there while she was buyin’ some goods and while Chum was standin’ peaceful beside her. You said if he wasn’t licensed he’d be put in pound. And if it hadn’t been for her dad and the clerk throwin’ you out of the store, you’d ’a’ grabbed him, then and there. She told you, then, that we pay the state and county tax on the dog and that the law doesn’t compel us to pay any other tax or any license fee for him. If your borough council wanted to get some easy graft by passing an ordinance for ev’ry res’dent of Hampton Borough to pay one dollar a year license fees on their dogs—well, that’s their business. It’s not mine. My home’s not in the borough and—”

"Some says it is an’ some says it ain’t," interrupted Shunk. “The south bound’ry of the borough was shifted, by law, last month. An’ the line takes in more’n a half-acre of your south woodlot. So you’re a res’d’nt of—”

"I don’t live in my south woodlot," contradicted Link, “nor yet within half a mile of it. I—”

“That’s for the courts to d’cide,” said Shunk. “Pers’n’lly, I hold you’re a borough res’d’nt. An’ since you ain’t paid your fee, your dog is forf’t to—”

“I see!” put in Ferris. “You’ll grab the dog and you’ll get your dirty dollar fee from the borough treasury. Then if the law decides my home is out of the borough, you’ll still have your money. You’re a clever man, Shunk.”

71“Well,” averred the dog catcher, mildly pleased with the compliment, “it ain’t for me to say as to that. But there don’t many folks find me a-nappin’, I’m sittin’ here to tell all an’ sundry. Now, ’bout that dog—”

“Yes,” repeated Link admiringly, “you’re a mighty clever man! Only I’ve figgered that you aren’t quite clever enough to spell your own name right. Folks who know you real well think you’ve got an ‘h’ in it that ought to be a ‘k.’ But that’s no fault of yours, Shunk. You do your best to live up to the name you ought by rights to have. So—”

"You’ll leave my name be!" thundered the dog catcher.

“I sure will,” assented Link. “By the way, did you ever happen to hear how near you came to not gettin’ this office of dog catcher down at Hampton?”

“No,” grunted the other, “I didn’t hear nothin’ of the kind. An’ it ain’t true. Mayor Wipple app’inted me, same week as he took office—like he had promised he would if I’d git my brother an’ the three boys to vote for him an’ if I’d c’ntribbit thutty-five dollars to his campaign fund. There wasn’t ever any doubt I’d git the app’intment.”

“Oh, yes, there was,” cheerily denied Link, with a sidelong glance at his pretty wife and her six-year-old sister, Olive Chatham, who were advancing along the lane from the house to note the progress of the stonework piers. "There was a lot of doubt. If it hadn’t been for just one thing you’d never have landed the job.

“It was this way,” he continued, winking encouragement to Mrs. Ferris who had come to a momentary and disapproving halt at sight of her husband’s uninvited guest. “The day after Wipple was elected mayor, I asked him who he was aiming to appoint to the high and loocrative office of dog catcher. He told me he was goin’ to appoint you. I says to him, ‘But Eben Shunk’s the meanest man 72in town!’ And Wipple answers ‘I know he is. He’s as mean as pussly. That’s why I’ve picked him out for dog catcher. No decent feller would take such a dirty job.’ That’s what Mayor Wipple told me, Shunk. So you see if you hadn’t happened to be the meanest man in Hampton, you’d never ’a’ got—”

"It’s a durn lie!" bellowed the irate Shunk. “It’s a lie! Wipple never said no such a thing. He—”

"What’s in the wagon, there?" spoke up little Olive Chatham, as a dolorous whimpering rose from the depths of the covered cart. “It sounds awful unhappy.”

“It is ‘awful unhappy,’ Baby,” answered her brother-in-law. “Mr. Shunk has been on his rounds, picking up some more poor little stray curs, along the road. He’s going to carry them to a filthy pen in his filthy back yard and leave them to starve and be chewed by bigger dogs there, while he pikes off to get his dollar, each, for them. Then, if they aren’t claimed and licensed in twenty-four hours, he’s going to—”

“Link!” interposed Dorcas, his wife, warningly, as she visualised the effect of such a word picture on her little sister’s tender heart.

But Olive had heard enough to set her baby eyes ablaze with indignation. Wheeling on Link, she demanded:

“Why don’t you whip him and let out all those poor little dogs? And then why don’t you go and put him in prison for—”

“Hush, dear!” whispered Dorcas, drawing the little girl close to her. “Better run back to the house now! That isn’t a nice sort of man for you to be near.”

Eben Shunk caught the low-spoken words. They served to snap the last remaining threads of the baited dog catcher’s temper. His fists clenched and he took a step toward Ferris. But the latter’s lazily wiry figure did not 73seem to lend itself to the idea of passivity under punishment. Shunk’s angry little eyes fell on the collie.

“That dog of your’n ain’t licensed,” he said. “He’s layin’ out on the public road. An’ I’m goin’ to take him along.”

“Go ahead,” vouchsafed Link indifferently, with a covert glance of reassurance at his scandalised wife, who had made a family idol of Chum. “He’s there. Nobody’s stoppin’ you.”

Pleased at meeting with no stouter resistance from the owner, Shunk took a step toward the recumbent collie. Little Olive cried out in hot protest. Link bent over her and whispered in her ear. The child’s face lost its look of panic and shone with pleased interest as she watched Eben bear down upon his victim. Ferris whistled hissingly between his teeth—an intermittent staccato blast. Then he, too, turned an interested gaze on the impending capture.

Chum had not enjoyed the past few minutes at all. His loafing inspection of his master’s job had been interrupted by the arrival of this loud-voiced stranger. He did not like the stranger. Chum decided that, at his first glimpse and scent of the man—and the dog catcher’s voice had confirmed the distaste. Shunk belonged to the type which sensitive dogs hate instinctively. But Chum was too well versed in the guest law to molest or snarl at any one with whom Link was in seemingly amicable talk. So he had paid no overt heed to the fellow.

There were other and more interesting things, moreover, which had caught Chum’s attention. The sounds and scents from the wagon’s unseen interior carried to him a message of fear, of pain, of keen sorrow. Chum had half-risen, to investigate. Link, noting the action, had signalled the dog to lie down again. And Chum, as always, had obeyed.

74But now, through his sullen brooding, pierced a sound that set every one of the collie’s lively nerves aquiver. It was a hissing whistle—broken and staccato. It was a signal Link had made up, years ago—a signal which always brought the dog to him on the gallop. For that signal meant no summons to a romp. It spelled mischief. For example, when cattle chanced to stroll in from the highway, that whistle signified leave for the dog to run them, pell-mell, down the road, with barks and nips—instead of driving them decorously and slowly, as he drove his own master’s cows. It had a similar message when tramp or mongrel invaded the farm.

At the sound of it, now, Chum was on his feet in an instant. He found himself confronting the obnoxious stranger, who was just reaching forward to clutch him.

Chum eluded the man and started toward Link. Shunk made a wild grab for him. Chum’s ruff—a big handful of it—was seized in the clutching fingers. Again sounded that queer whistle. This time—thanks to the years of close companionship between dog and master—Chum caught its purport. Evidently, it had something to do with Shunk, with the man who had laid hold on him so unceremoniously.

Chum glanced quickly at Link. Ferris was grinning. With an imperceptible nod of the head he indicated Shunk. The dog understood. At least, he understood enough for his own purposes. The law was off of this disgusting outlander. Ferris was trying to enlist the collie’s aid in harrying him. It was a right welcome task.

In a flash, Chum had twisted his silken head. A single slash of his white eyetooth had laid open the fat wrist of the fat hand that gripped him. Shunk, with a yell, loosed his hold and jumped back. He caught the echo of a smothered chuckle from Link and turned to find the 75Ferrises and the child surveying the scene with happy excitement—looking for all the world like three people at an amusing picture show. The dog catcher bolted for his wagon and plunged the lacerated arm into the box beneath the seat. Thence he drew it forth, clutching in his hand a coil of noosed rope and a strong oversized landing net.

“Tools of his trade!” explained Link airily, to his wife and Olive.

As he spoke, Ferris made a motion of his forefinger toward the tensely expectant dog and thence toward the lane. The gesture was familiar from sheep herding experience. At once, Chum darted back a few yards and stood just inside the boundaries of his master’s land. A clucking sound from Link told him where to halt. And the collie stood there, tulip ears cocked, plumy tail awag, eyes abrim with mischief, as he waited his adversary’s next move. Seldom did Chum have so appreciative an audience to show off before.

Shunk, rope and net in hand, bore down upon his prey. As he came on he cleared decks for action by yanking his coat off and slinging it across one shoulder. Thus his arms would work unimpeded. So eagerly did he advance to the hunt that he paid no heed to Link. Wherefore, he failed to note a series of unobtrusive gestures and clucks and nods with which Link guided his furtively observing dog.

The next two minutes were of interest. Shunk unslung his rope as he advanced. Five feet away from the politely waiting collie he paused and flung the noose. He threw with practised skill. The wide noose encircled the dog. But before Shunk could tighten it, Chum had sprung lightly out of the contracting circle and, at a move of Link’s finger, had backed a few feet farther onto Ferris’s own property.

Chagrined at his miss and spurred on by the triple 76chuckle of his audience, the man coiled his rope and flung it a second time. Temper and haste spoiled his aim. He missed the dog clean. Baby Olive laughed aloud. Chum fairly radiated contempt at such poor marksmanship. Coiling his rope as, at another signal, Chum backed a little farther away, Shunk shouted:

“I’ll git ye, yet! An’ when I do, I’ll tie you to a post in my yard an’ muzzle you. Then I’ll take a club to you, till there ain’t a whole bone left in yer carcass. If Ferris buys you free, there won’t be more’n sassage-meat fer him to tote home.”

Olive gasped. The grin left Link’s face. Dorcas looked up appealingly at her husband. Shunk flung his noose a third time. Chum, well understanding now what was expected of him, bounded far backward.

“Get off of my land!” called Ferris, in a queerly gentle and almost humble voice.

“When I take this cur off’n it with me!” snarled the catcher, too hot on the quest to be wholly sane.

He coiled his rope once more. At a gesture from Link, the dog lay down.

“In the presence of a competent witness I’ve ordered you off my land,” repeated Ferris, in that same meek voice. “You’ve refused. The law allows me to use force in such a case. It—”

Deceived by the humility of the tone and lured by the dog’s new passivity, Shunk made one final cast of the noose. This time its folds settled round the collie’s massive throat ruff. In the same fraction of a second, Ferris yelled:

“Take him, Chum! Take him!”

The dog heard and most gleefully he obeyed. As the triumphant Shunk drew tight the noose about his victim’s neck and sought to bring the landing net into play, Chum 77launched himself, like a furry catapult, full at the man’s throat.

And now there was no hint of fun or of mischief in the collie’s deep-set dark eyes. They flamed into swirling fury. He had received the word to attack. And he obeyed with a fiery zest. So may Joffre’s grim legions have felt, in 1914, when, at the Marne, they were told they need no longer keep up the hated retreat, but might turn upon their German foes and pay the bill for the past months’ humiliations.

As the furious collie sprang, Shunk instinctively sought to clap the landing net’s thick meshes over Chum’s head. But the dog was too swift for him. The wooden side of the net smote, almost unfelt, against the fur-protected skull. The impact sent it flying out of its wielder’s grasp.

The blow checked the collie’s charge by the barest instant. And in that instant, Shunk wheeled and fled. Just behind him was a shellbark tree, with a low limb jutting out above the lane. Shunk dropped his coat and leaped for this overhanging limb as Chum made a second dash for him.

The man’s fingers closed round the branch and he sought to draw himself up, screaming loudly for help. The scream redoubled in volume and scaled half an octave in pitch as the pursuing collie’s teeth met in Shunk’s calf.

His flabby muscles galvanised by pain and by terror, the man made shift to drag his weight upward and to fling a leg over the branch. But as the right leg hooked itself across the bough, the dangling left leg felt a second embrace from the searing white teeth, in a slashing bite that clove through trouser and sock and skin and flesh and grated against the bone itself.

Screeching and mouthing, Shunk wriggled himself up onto the branch and lay hugging it with both arms and both 78punctured legs. Below him danced and snarled Chum, launching himself high in air, again and again, in a mad effort to get at his escaped prey. Then the dog turned to the approaching Ferris in stark appeal for help in dislodging the intruder from his precarious perch.

“That’s enough, Chummie!” drawled Link. “Leave him be!”

He petted the dog’s head and smiled amusedly at Chum’s visible reluctance in abandoning the delightful game of man treeing. At a motion of Ferris’s hand, the collie walked reluctantly away and lay down beside Dorcas.

Chum could never understand why humans had such a habit of calling him off—just when fun was at its height. It was like this when he ran stray cattle off the farm or chased predatory tramps. Still, Link was his god; obedience was Chum’s creed. Wherefore, so far as he was concerned, Eben Shunk ceased to exist.

The dog catcher noted the cessation of attack. And he ceased his own howls. He drew himself to a painful sitting posture on the tree limb and began to nurse one of his torn legs.

“You’ll go to jail for this!” he whined down at Ferris.

“I’ll swear out a warr’nt agin ye, the minute I git back to Hampton. Yes, an’ I’ll git the judge to order your dog shot as a men’ce to public safety an’—”

“I guess not!” Ferris cut him short as Shunk’s whine swelled to a howl. “I guess not, Mister Meanest Man. In fact, you’ll be lucky if you keep out of the hoosgow, on my charge of trespass. You came onto my land against my wish. You couldn’t help seein’ my No Trespassing sign yonder. I ordered you off. You refused to go. I gave you fair warnin’. You wouldn’t mind it. I did all that before I sicked the dog on you. My wife is a reli’ble 79witness. And she can swear to it in any court. If I sick my dog onto a trespasser who refuses to clear out when he’s told to, there’s no law in North Jersey that will touch either me or Chum. And you know it as well as I do. Now I tell you once more to clear off of my farm. If you’ll go quick I’ll see the dog don’t bother you. If you put up any more talk I’ll station him under this tree and leave you and him to companion each other here all day. Now git!”

As though to impress his presence once more on Mr. Shunk, Chum slowly got up from the ground at Dorcas’ feet and slouched lazily toward the tree again. Link, wondering at the dog’s apparent disobedience of his command to leave the prisoner alone, looked on with a frown of perplexity. But at once his face cleared.

For Chum was not honouring the tree dweller by so much as a single upward glance. Instead, he was picking his way to where Shunk’s discarded coat lay on the ground near the tree foot. The dog stood over this unlovely garment, looking down at its greasily worn surface with sniffling disapproval. Then, with much cold deliberation, Chum knelt down and thrust one of his great furry shoulders against the rumpled surface of the coat and shoved the shoulder along the unkempt expanse of cloth. After which he repeated the same performance with his other shoulder, en............