Now around this dog's neck was a band of leather, the only kind of collar that pioneer puppies knew. Mr. Holman had glanced at this collar. He knew what it meant, but he did not say a word about it. Doby also knew what it meant, but he did not speak of it, either. He sat and stared at it by the hour together.
The collar had been made and fastened on the dog by some other boy. The dog was some other boy's dog. He was a pet dog. If he was set free he might return to some far-away home—to that other boy.
At this moment he was looking at Doby with adoring eyes, as that uncomfortable boy thought, "If I keep him a long time, keep him shut up and well fed, he will finally like me best and be my pet, for I saved his life." The dog wagged a hearty assent to this; and to all Doby's claims to loyalty he pounded his tail thankfully on the resounding floor of the flatboat.
"The scouts would listen to me and take me along, almost surely take me along, if I could show them a good tracking-hound," he argued. "It is my one chance to get in with them." He was more miserable now with the dog than he had ever been without it—well—because he kept thinking.
The dog licked Doby's hands and reached for his face with a moist and loving tongue. "I believe they would take me if he went, too." The dog begged for a joyous tussle. He was the greatest fun to play with.
"You want to stay with me, don't you?" Doby asked of the completely restored and lively hound, flushed and happy as they paused in a romp. But the dog was already beginning to pace back and forth inside the barricaded boat. He whined at every crack. He brought pleading sniffs to Doby's feet.
The boy stood and thought. He must decide what to do about another man's property. The more he thought, the deeper he frowned. His face was a tangled hard knot of lines when, after a long inner struggle, he finally got out his knife to cut a strip of bark from a slippery-elm tree, stopping frequently to sigh over the hard task he had given himself.
On the plain white inner side of the bark his stone knife carved plainly, THE FOX TAIL IS ON HOLMAN'S FLATBOAT IN CINCINNATI HE IS A FINE DOG WE HELPED HIM OBADIAH HOLMAN. Carefully rolling and tying it, he fastened it inside the dog's collar as messages were sometimes sent.
He carried the dog ashore and released him. He was sure that all his hopes for going with the scouts vanished with the dog.
A strange feeling of being grown up came over him. "After this when I ought to do a thing, I'll just go ahead and do it, and not hesitate so long about the deed I know is right."