This was his Moment. This was the supreme moment which had cost him nearly ten thousand dollars in all. He was due, at last, to win a trophy that would be the talk of all the sporting universe. These country-folk who had won lesser prizes from under his very nose—how they would stare, after this, at his gun-room treasures!
"Ready, Mr. Glure?" asked the Judge.
"All ready!" graciously returned the Wall Street Farmer.
Taking a pull at his thick cigar, and replacing it between the first two fingers of his right hand, he pointed majestically with the same hand to the first post.
No word of command was given; yet Lochinvar moved off at a sweeping run directly in the line laid out by his owner's gesture.
As the Merle came alongside the post the Wall Street Farmer snapped his fingers. Instantly Lochinvar dropped to a halt and stood moveless, looking back for the next gesture.
This "next gesture" was wholly impromptu. In snapping his fingers the Wall Street Farmer had not taken sufficient account of the cigar stub he held. The snapping motion had brought the fire-end of the stub directly between his first and second fingers, close to the palm. The red coal bit deep into those two tenderest spots of all the hand.
With a reverberating snort the Wall Street Farmer dropped the cigar-butt and shook his anguished hand rapidly up and down, in the first sting of pain. The loose fingers slapped together like the strands of an obese cat-of-nine-tails.
And this was the gesture which Lochinvar beheld, as he turned to catch the signal for his next move.
Now, the frantic St. Vitus shaking of the hand and arm, accompanied by a clumsy step-dance and a mouthful of rich oaths, forms no signal known to the very cleverest of "working" collies. Neither does the inserting of two burned fingers into the signaler's mouth—which was the second motion the Merle noted.