I
FRATERNITY has not changed in a hundred years; yet is there always some new thing in Fraternity. It may be only that Lee Motley’s sow has killed her pigs, or that choleric Old Man Varney has larruped his thirty-year-old son with an ax helve, or that Jean Bubier has bought six yearling steers. But there is always some word of news, for the nightly interchange in Will Bissell’s store, before the stage comes in with the mail. You may see the men gather there, a little after milking time, coming from the clean, white houses that are strung like beads along the five roads which lead into the village. A muscular, competent lot of men in their comfortable, homely garments. And they sit about the stove, and talk, and smoke, and spit, and laugh at the tales that are told.
Fraternity lies in a country of little towns and villages, with curious names something more than a century old. Liberty is west of Fraternity, Union is to the southward, Freedom lies northwest. Well enough named, these villages, too. Life in them flows easily; there is no great striving after more things than one man can use. The men are content to get their gardening quickly done so that they may trail the brooks for trout; they hurry with their winter’s wood to find free time for woodcock and partridge; and when the snow lies, they go into the woods with trap for mink or hound for fox.
Thirty years ago there were farms around Fraternity, and the land was clear; but young men have gone, and old men have died, and the birches and the alders and the pines have taken back the land. There are moose and deer in the swamps, and a wildcat or two, and up in Freedom a man killed a bear a year ago....
The hills brood over these villages, blue and deeper blue from range to farther range. There is a bold loveliness about the land. The forests, blotched darkly with evergreens, or lightly splattered with the gay tops of the birches, clothe the ridges in garments of somber beauty. Toward sunset a man may stand upon these hilltops and look westward into the purple of the hills and the crimson of the sky until his eyes are drunk with looking. Or in the dark shadows down along the river he may listen to the trembling silences until he hears his pulses pound. And now and then, with a sense of unreality, you will come upon a deer along some old wood road; or a rabbit will fluster from some bush and rise on haunches, twenty yards away.
The talk in Will Bissell’s store turns, night by night, upon these creatures of the woods that lie about the town; and by the same token the talk is filled with speech concerning dogs. The cult of the dog is strong in Fraternity. Every man has one dog, some have two. These, you will understand, are real dogs. No mongrels here; no sneaking, hungry, yapping curs. Predominant, the English setter, gentlest and kindest and best-natured of all breeds; and, in second place, the lop-eared hounds. A rabbit hound here and there; but not many of these. Foxhounds more often. Awkward, low-bodied, heavy dogs that will nevertheless nose out a fox and push him hard for mile on mile. These are not such fox-hounds as run in packs for the sport of red-coated men. These are utilitarian dogs; their function is to keep the fox moving until the hunter can post himself for a shot. A fox skin is worth money; and cash money is scarce in Fraternity, as in all such little towns, and very hard to come by.
There are few sheep in Fraternity, so the dogs are free of that temptation; but there are deer. The deer is sacrosanct, to be taken only with rifle and ball, and by a woodcraft that bests the wild thing at its own game. No dog may justly chase a deer; and a dog so pursuing is outlawed and may legally be shot by any man. Men without conscience and dogs without honor will thus pursue the deer, in season and out; nevertheless, deer running is for the dogs of Fraternity the black and shameful crime.
They were talking dogs, on a certain night in late September, in Will Bissell’s store. A dozen men were there; most of them from the village itself, two or three from outlying farms. Jim and Bert Saladine, both keen hunters of the deer, who killed their legal quota year by year, leaned side by side against the candy counter, and Andy Wattles sold them licorice sticks. Lee Motley had driven down from his farm above the Whitcher Swamp; and Jean Bubier had come in from the head of the Pond; and there was Gay Hunt; and there was George Freeland, and two or three besides. Proutt was one of these others, Proutt of South Fraternity, a farmer, a fox hunter, and a trainer of setter dogs. Finally, Nick Westley, a North Fraternity man, appointed within six months’ time to be game warden for the district; a gentle man, well liked in spite of his thankless job; a man with a sense of humor, a steady and persistent courage, and a kindly tongue.
This night, as it happened, was to be the beginning of the enmity between Proutt and Westley. One-sided at first, this ill feeling. Two-sided at the last, and bitter enough on either side. A strange thing, dramatic enough in its development, fit to be numbered among the old men’s tales that were told around the stove....
Proutt, the dog breaker, was a man who knew dogs. None denied him that. “Yes,” they would say; “Proutt’ll break a dog for you. And when he gits done with your dog, your dog’ll mind.” If you scented some reservation in word or tone, and asked a question, you got no explanation. But your informant might say casually: “Hepperton’s a good man with a dog, too. Over in Liberty. Gentles ’em.”
Persistent inquiry might have brought out the fact that Hepperton never whipped a dog; that Proutt knew no other method. Lee Motley, who loved dogs, used to tell an incident. “Went out with Proutt once,” he would explain. “After woodcock, we was. He was breaking a two-year-old. Nice a dog as I ever see. First bird, she took a nice point; but she broke shot. He had him a rawhide strap; and he called her in and I never see a dog hurt worse. And after that he, couldn’t get her out from under his legs. Ain’t been out with him since. Not me.”
Proutt was not liked. He was a morose man, and severe, and known to nurse a grudge. But he turned out dogs which knew their business, and none denied him this. So had he his measure of respect; and his neighbors minded their own affairs and kept out of the man’s harsh path.
Curiously enough, though he trained setters, Proutt did not like them. He preferred the hound; and his own dog—a lop-eared brown-and-white named Dan—was his particular pride. This pride was like the pride of a new father; it showed itself in much talk of Dan’s deeds and Dan’s virtues, so that Fraternity’s ears were wearied with the name of Dan, and it was the fashion to grin in one’s sleeve at Proutt’s tales and to discredit them.
Proutt spoke, this night, of a day’s hunting of the winter before. How, coursing the woods, he had heard a hound’s bay far below him, and had taken post upon a ledge across which he thought the fox would come. “Dan ’uz with me,” he said, in his hoarse loud voice. “I says to Dan: ‘Set’ and he set on his ha’nches, right aside me, cocking his nose down where t’other dog was baying, waiting, wise as an owl.
“I had my old gun, with Number Threes in both bar’ls; and me and Dan stayed there, awaiting; and the baying come nearer all the time, till I see the fox would come acrost that ledge, sure.
“Cold it was. Wind ablowing, and the snow acutting past my ears. Not much snow on the ground; but it was froze hard as sand. I figured Dan’d get uneasy; but he never stirred. Set where I’d told him to set; and us awaiting.
“Time come, I see the fox, sneaking up the ledge at that long, easy lope o’ theirs. Dan see him too. His ears lifted and he looked my way. I says: ‘Set.’ And he let his ears down again, and stayed still. Fox come along, ’bout five rods below us. Crossed over there. So fur away I knowed I couldn’t drop him. Never pulled; and he never saw me; and old Dan set where he was. Never moved a mite.
“After a spell, Will Belter’s hound come past; and then come Will himself, cutting down from where he’d been waiting. Says: ‘See a fox go by?’ And I told him I did. He ast why I didn’t shoot; and I says the fox was too fur off. And he says: ‘Where was your dog?’ So I told him Dan was setting right by me.”
Proutt laughed harshly, and slapped a triumphant hand upon his knee. “Will wouldn’t believe me,” he declared, “till I showed him tracks, where he wuz, and where the fox went by.”
He looked around for their admiration; but no one spoke at all. Only one or two glanced sidewise at each other, and slowly grinned. The tale was all right, except for a thing or two. In the first place, Proutt was no man to let a fox go by, no matter how long the shot; and, in the second place, Dan was known to be a surly dog, not overly obedient, unruly as his master. And, in the third place, this incident, thoroughly authenticated, had happened two years before to another man and another dog, as everyone in the store knew. Proutt had borrowed his tale from a source too close home....
So they knew he lied; but no one cared to tell him so. Only, after a little silence, Nick Westley, the game warden, said with a slow twinkle in his eye: “Proutt, that reminds me of a story my father used to tell.”
Proutt grunted something or other, disgusted with their lack of appreciation; and Westley took it for encouragement, and began to whittle slow, fine shavings from a sliver of pine which he held in hand, and told the tale.
“It was when he was younger,” he explained, “before he was married, while he still lived at home. But I’ve heard him tell the story many a time.
“My Uncle Jim was living then; and he and my father had a hound. Good dog he was, too. Good as Dan, I think, Proutt.
“Well, one winter morning, with six or eight inches of loose snow on the ground, they were working up some old wood in the shed; and they saw the old hound drift off into the pasture and up the hill. And after a spell they heard him yelling down by the river.
“Jim said to my father: ‘He’s got a fox.’ And father said: ‘Jim, let’s go get that fox.’ So they dropped their axes, and went in and got their guns, and they worked up through the pasture and over the hill till they located the dog’s noise, and they figured the fox would come up around the hill by a certain way; and so they posted themselves there, one on either side of the path they thought he would take. And set to waiting. And it was cold as could be, and cold waiting, and they stamped their feet a little, but they couldn’t move much for fear the fox would see them.
“So they were both well pleased when they saw the fox coming; and they both shot when he came in range, because they were cold and in a hurry and anxious to be done.
“Well, they shot into each other. Jim yelled: ‘Damn it, my legs are full of shot!’ And my father said: ‘Mine too, you clumsy coot!’ So they made remarks to each other for a spell; and then Jim said: ‘Well, anyway, there’s the fox; and I’m full of your shot, and I’m half froze. Let’s skin the darn critter and get home.’
“So father agreed; and they went at it. The old dog had come up by then, and was sitting there with an eye on the fox, as a dog will. And father took the front legs and Jim took the hind legs, and they worked fast. And they kept cussing their hurts, and the cold, and each other. But they slit the legs down, and skinned out the tail, and trimmed up the ears and all, knives flying. And when they got about done, Jim, he said:
“‘Look ahere, there’s not a bullet in this fox.’
“Well, they looked, and they couldn’t find a hole. Only there was a blue streak across the fox’s head where a bullet had gone. And that was queer enough, but father said: ‘I don’t give a hoot. There’s bullets enough in me. Skin out his nose and let’s go.’
“So they cussed each other some more, and finished it up; and Jim, he heaved the carcass out into the brush, and father slung the skin over his shoulder, and they turned around to start home.
“Well, just about then the old dog let out behind them, and they whirled around. And father always used to say that, mad as they were at each other, they forgot all about it then; and they bust out laughing. He said you couldn’t blame them. He said you never saw anything funnier.
“You see, that fox was just stunned. The cold snow must have revived him. Because when my father and Uncle Jim looked around, that skinless fox was going up over the hill like a cat up a tree—and the old dog hot on his heels.”
The store rocked with their mirth as Westley stopped. Lee Motley roared, and the Saladines laughed in their silent fashion, and Will Bissell chuckled discreetly behind Proutt’s back. Westley himself displayed such surprise at their mirth that they laughed the more; and fat little Jean Bubier shook a finger at Proutt and cried:
“And that will put the bee to your Dan, M’sieu Proutt. That will hold your Dan for one leetle while, I t’ink.”
Proutt himself was brick-red with fury; and his eyes were black on Westley; but he pulled himself together, and he laughed ... shortly.
His eyes did not leave Westley’s face. And Lee Motley found a chance to warn the warden a little later. “It was a good joke,” he said. “You handed it to him right. But look out for the man, Westley. He’s mad.”
Westley, still smiling, was nevertheless faintly troubled. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I did it for a joke.”
“He can’t take a joke,” said Motley.
The warden nodded, considering. “I’ll tell you,” he told Motley. “I’ll square it with him.”
“If it was me,” Motley agreed, “I would.”
Westley did not like to make enemies. And there had been only the friendliest malice in his jest. He took his measures to soothe Proutt before they left the store that night.
Westley had a dog, a setter, clean-blooded, from one of the country’s finest kennels. A New York man who had shot woodcock with the warden the year before had sent the dog as a friendly gift, and Westley accepted it in the same spirit. In its second year and still untrained, it had nevertheless won Westley and won his wife and his children. They all loved the dog, as they loved each other....
Originally this dog had been called Rex. The Westleys changed this name to Reck, which may be short for Reckless, or may be a name by itself. At any rate, it pleased them, and it pleased the dog....
The dog was untrained, and Westley had no time for the arduous work of training. He had meant to send Reck, this fall, to Hepperton, in Liberty; but, to make his amends to Proutt, he took the latter aside this night and asked Proutt to take the training of the dog.
On longer consideration, he might not have done this; but Westley was a man of impulse and, as has been said, he was anxious to keep Proutt as a friend. Nevertheless, he had no sooner asked Proutt to take the dog than he regretted it, and hoped Proutt would refuse. But the dog trainer only gave a moment to slow consideration, with downcast eyes.
Then he said huskily: “I charge fifty dollars.”
“Sure,” said Westley.
“He’s a well-blooded dog,” said Proutt. “I’ll come to-morrow and fetch him.”
And with no further word—they were outside the store—he drove away. Westley, watching him go, was filled with vague disquiet. He wished he might withdraw; he wished Proutt would change his mind; he wished the trainer might not come next day....
But Proutt did come, and Westley himself bade Reck into the trainer’s buggy and watched the dog ride away with wistful eyes turned backward.
Westley’s wife was more concerned than he; and he forgot his own anxiety in reassuring her.