"So long, Tenderfoot," he growled. "You'll maybe find Sourdough's reach a longer one than you reckon for, I'm thinking."
It was evident that day, to O'Malley and to all his friends, that Jan felt the temporary parting with his lord and master a deal more than Dick had seemed to feel it. And yet Jan could not possibly have known, any more than Dick knew, as to what the promised forty-eight hours of separation were to bring forth.
XXV
JAN GOES ON HIS TRAVELS
Jan spent that night beside O'Malley's bunk, in the face of regulations to the contrary.
In the absence of Paddy from his stall, the good-hearted O'Malley had not liked to leave Jan to the solitude of his bench. And shortly after daylight next morning, with a new steel chain, purchased for this journey, attached to his collar, Jan was put on board the west-bound train consigned to Lambert's Siding, for wagon carriage, with Dick's kit, to Buck's Crossing. Jan did not like this business at all. The chain humiliated him, and the train was an abomination in his eyes. But at the back of his mind was a dim consciousness that he was going to his sovereign, and by his sovereign's will, and that was sufficient to prevent any sort of protest on his part.
Arrived at Lambert's Siding, Jan's chain was fastened to a post by a humorous person in greasy overalls, who said, as he noted the fine dignity of Jan's appearance:
"Guess your kerridge will be along shortly, me lord."
The man in the overalls was a new hand transferred from the East, and but lately settled in Canada, or he might probably have recognized Jan as "the R.N.W.M.P. bloodhound," of newspaper celebrity.