“Funny thing!” spoke up Rorke, his hand on the dog’s head. “Funny think ’bout Jeffie, here! He had a dandy chance to rip the throat out of that Vining dog; and he wouldn’t do it, just because the dog was down and couldn’t help himself! What d’you think of that, Red? Just because the other dog was down. No ref’ree to penalise him for fouling, either. He just stepped back, kind of polite like, and——”
“For the love of Mike!” groaned the irate manager, “will you stop jawing about that bum cur and——”
“Then,” pursued Rorke serenely, “when Vining’s dog turned tail and sneaked away, Jeff had the chance of his life to tear in and do all sorts of damage. But he didn’t. Wouldn’t fight foul—the grand little cuss!”
Rorke fell silent. The manager stared at him in lofty and wordless contempt, but Dan did not see him. Still patting Jeff’s head aimlessly and brooding over the couchant dog with puckered half-shut eyes, he sat there. Dan Rorke was thinking; and thought, to him, was as difficult as it was rare. Presently he spoke again—in a rumbling, ruminating mutter.
“Wouldn’t fight foul, Jeff wouldn’t,” he repeated. “Fought like a bearcat, so long as the scrap was even. But not a foul stunt from first to last. Wouldn’t win on a foul. He couldn’t tell but what that big mutt would get up and tear him in half, like he’d just come plenty close to doing. But Jeff wouldn’t tackle him while he was down. Wouldn’t——”
“Say!” put in Keegan. “I’m going to the house to write a letter and then send off a wire. Keep right on talking, please, all the while I’m gone. Keep on telling about that dog fight. Then, by the time I get back, maybe the most of it will have got out’n your system and you can think of real things again. So long.”
Dan Rorke did not obey his manager’s elephantinely sarcastic request to go on talking of the dog fight in Keegan’s half-hour absence. But he did the next thing—he went on thinking about it. At least his wontedly sluggish thoughts fixed themselves on one detail of the fray, clinging to it like leeches and sending forth ramifications into the far and unused recesses of his brain.
These thoughts were not put into words. But their gist may be translated roughly into English, somewhat as follows:
Jeff had fought without training or precept. He had followed his own instincts. He had fought according to his nature. Thus, he had fought fair. He had fought clean. Not only had he disdained to make use of any crooked advantage, but he had risked defeat and possible death sooner than to foul.
Jeff was a dog.