“I don’t see what business it is of yours!” he snapped. “You’ve always hated the dog. You’ve always called him worthless and said you wished we could be rid of him. Well, you’ll be rid of him, all right. In less than a week he and I will be out of here for good.”
“Where do you get that stuff about ‘him and you?’ You’ll be gone. But Treve’s as much mine as he’s yours.”
Royce glanced at his scowling partner in genuine surprise.
“You don’t mean to say you’re going to be cantankerous about that, too?” he exclaimed. “Why, Joel, you hate the very sight of the dog! You’ve hated him from the beginning. You’ve never had a decent word for him. I don’t believe you ever spoke to him in his life, except to give him some order or else to swear at him. And now you talk about his being as much yours as mine. Well, let’s come to a showdown. What do you want for your share in him?”
Joel made no immediate answer. He was peering through the dim candle-light at Treve. The old man’s thin lips moved rhythmically, as though he were chewing the mysterious cud of senility. His chin quivered. Otherwise his leathery face was blank. It gave no sign of the turmoil behind it.
But Treve understood. With all a collie’s strange trick of reading human emotion behind a wordless and expressionless mask, he knew his friend was acutely unhappy. The dog got to his feet and came over to Fenno, pressing his furry bulk against the rancher’s lean legs and thrusting a sympathetic muzzle into the tough palm. He whined softly, his gaze fixed on Joel’s.
From long habit, in the presence of others, Fenno made as though to repulse the dog’s friendliness. Then, with a little intake of breath, he bent over the collie and caught the classic head almost roughly between his hands.
“Treve!” he mumbled, thickly. “Trevy, you and me know all about that, don’t we? We’re—we’re good pals, me and you, Trevy. The best pals there ever was.”
Royce Mack looked on, dumbfounded. There was caress in Fenno’s thin voice and in his rough grasp of the dog. Treve, too, was behaving as though he were well accustomed to such signs of affection from the man.
“I—I thought—” began Mack, “I thought—”