Like so many lonely men, Mack had fallen into the habit of talking to this collie chum of his, during their long rides or hikes, as if to a human. The dog, in true collie fashion, had learned to read both voice and face; and to pick up the meaning of certain familiar words.
For example, he understood perfectly, now, that he must not accompany his god as usual, but must lie down and wait for his other owner’s commands. This was ill news to the dog. His deepset dark eyes were full of wistful appeal, as he stretched himself reluctantly in the sand again and stared after the departing Royce.
Treve had not long to wait there, alone. In another minute Joel Fenno slouched out of the ranch house and stood on the threshold looking moodily down at him. The collie did not greet Fenno’s advent with any of the exuberant joy wherewith he had hailed Mack’s. Indeed, he did not greet Joel at all.
He lay, returning the man’s look. Treve was ready to obey any command given him by this oldster or to do any work Fenno might assign him to. He recognized that as his duty. But duty did not entail an enthusiastic greeting to a man who had never yet lavished so much as a careless pat on his head or spoken a pleasant word to him.
Joel Fenno was wont to bolt breakfast and then to hustle busily off to the morning’s tasks. But to-day he stood quite still, his brooding old puckered eyes scanning the dog; his ears strained for some expected sound.
Presently he heard the sound he had been awaiting. It was the starting of the truck’s engine; down at the barn. Joel shifted his puckered gaze to the group of ramshackle adobe buildings.
Royce Mack was backing the big truck out of its cubby-hole. He swung it about and headed bumpily for the main road. Treve’s own eyes and ears were at attention, as he saw Mack departing on a jaunt without his chum. He whimpered, low down in his throat; and peered longingly after the truck. Then with a sigh of resignation he turned again to face Joel.
As the truck vanished in a fluff of choky yellow dust, Fenno came to life. Stepping back into the shack, he scribbled a few lines on a crumpled paper bag; and pinned the paper to the deal surface of the table, where it must catch Royce’s notice as soon as the younger man should come into the house again.
Writing was a tedious and grunt-evoking labor to Joel Fenno. He took a pardonable pride in his few literary productions. Now, he gratified such pride by bending over to reread what he had written. Half aloud he muttered the scrawled words:
“Mack, maybe I was too hot under the collar about Treve. Maybe he is a good chum, like you say. I aim to find out. I am going to let Toni take the bunch over to the South Quarter with Zit or Rastus to-day. And I am going to take a two-day camping trip down to the Ova and back. Last year this time the waterholes down there had kept the grazing pretty good. If it is as good this year we can maybe save a couple of weeks rent money on the gov’t grazing lands up on the peaks by going to the Ova first. It is worth a try. I ought to be back by to-morrow night. I am going to take Treve along for company. Joel.”