Jan: A Dog and a Romance

by A. J. Dawson

But he lacked as yet his sire's inimitable fighting craft, just as he lacked entirely the lightning cunning of the half-wolf Sourdough. And before he had touched the husky his sound shoulder had been grooved, and one of his ears badly torn.

It might have been better tactics on Sourdough's part to have made direct for some killing hold, instead of administering these instructive preliminary chastenings. Seeing clearly Jan's inferiority in wolf tactics, Sourdough underrated the forces of his size, weight, endurance, power, and quite indomitable bravery. In fact, the cunning Sourdough was very thoroughly deceived by Jan. Never having in his varied experiences encountered chivalry, nobility, nor yet much gallantry in a dog, he made no allowance for these qualities in Jan. He could not conceive that the attack which had bowled him over was no more than a generous attempt to save Micky Doolan. And so he thought it was a challenge to combat; and combat, as the husky saw it, meant an effort to kill by any and every means available. In the same way, the reckless scorn of himself and of a palpable advantage, which Jan had shown after knocking him over, was a thing not to be comprehended for what it really was by Sourdough. He thought it evidence of weakening, of sudden fear, of terror inspired in Jan by the sight of the thing he had impulsively done.

Yes, Sourdough entirely misread Jan; and he believed now that he had ample time in which to bleed and cripple the big hound by means of his natural wolf tactics, and then to finish off a helpless enemy at leisure. Cunning often does mislead those who possess it. In this case it was responsible for tactics by which, had he but known it, Sourdough presented his enemy with triple-thick armor, and schooled him finely for the task that lay before him.

Sourdough's second slash cost Jan a split ear, but gave him flashlight vision of his fight with Grip in Sussex, with Grip of the wolf-like fighting methods. Sourdough's third attack cost Jan a burning groove down his hitherto untouched shoulder; but, by that token, it effectually completed the lesson of attack number two, and brought a final end to the period of Sourdough's really enjoyable fighting. So poorly, then, did Sourdough's cunning serve him, that his fourth attack came near to costing him his life.

With bloody glee in his eyes, and wide-parted drooling jaws, he darted in to take his fourth cut at Jan, eager for the joyous moment in which the repetition of these slashes should have reduced Jan to ripeness for the killing thrust—the throat-hold. But Jan had learned his lesson. At the psychological fraction of a moment he changed his position, and, instead of passing on comfortably through space after his attack, Sourdough's shoulder met another bigger shoulder, braced like a granite buttress to receive the impact, and the husky reached earth on his side. That rather shook the wind out of him; but that was nothing by comparison with the fact that, in the same moment, Jan's viselike jaws closed about one side of his neck, close in to the skull where the hair shortened. That was a serious moment, if you like, for Sourdough; for in addition to the huge power of those jaws there was weight—a hundred and sixty-four pounds of sinew, bone, and rubber-like muscle behind and above the jaws.

A very desperate vigor stirred in Sourdough's limbs as he took the course which is only taken at critical moments. He deliberately turned farther on his back—the position of all others most dreaded—in order to bring his feet into play, his jaws being momentarily helpless. His abdominal muscles were in splendid order. Like a lynx, Sourdough drew in and up his powerful hind quarters, and, as if they had been a missile launched from a catapult, slashed his two hind feet along Jan's belly, as a carpenter might rip a board down with a chisel.

In that same moment Sergeant Moore stepped forward, with a hoarse cry:

"Here, damme!" he shouted at O'Malley, "you'd better haul off your captain's dog, or—or mine'll kill him!"

And with a resounding thwack he brought his riding-cane down across Jan's forehead. It was this, rather than his own very serviceable two chisels, that brought the husky sudden release from the grip upon his neck, which, already deep-sunk, had been like to finish his career. The high-crowned shape of Jan's skull, and the soft fineness of the skin and hair that covered it, made him very sensitive to a blow on the head. Also he knew it was a man's attack, and not a dog's. When he saw who the man was, he roared at him very ferociously. And that was the first occasion upon which Jan had ever shown his teeth in real anger to a human.

Had not Sourdough been there, it is hard to say what might have happened. As it was, the sergeant's intervention and Jan's angry response thereto gave Sourdough the opportunity he had longed for. It gave him, in safety, the rush at Jan from the side. It would have availed him little if Jan had seen him coming. But Jan, engaged in threatening his human enemy, saw nothing till the tremendous impact of Sourdough's rush took him off his feet, and the husky got, not precisely the true throat-hold he wanted, but a deadly hold, none the less, in the flesh of Jan's dewlap.