“Bred?” echoed Fenno. “Who? Royce? All fired ill bred, when he has a mind to be. An’ that’s about all the time. He—”
“I mean the collie. What is it you call him? Treve?”
“Treve? Bred? I don’t—”
“He means,” spoke up Royce Mack, from boyhood memories of pedigreed animals, in the East, “he means, who were Treve’s ancestors? We don’t know, Davids. A queer sort of English tourist hobo came here and sold him to us. The man absconded with all the cash in Joel’s vest and left the pup behind. As far as we know, Treve’s pedigree began on the ranch, here. Why?”
“Because,” said Davids, “he’s a high-bred dog. What’s more, he’s the true show-type of collie. He’s good enough to win a blue ribbon at any bench show in America. The hobo, most likely, stole him. Such dogs aren’t left to roam at will.”
Treve had ceased to pursue the wicked flea; or else his frantic clawing had dislodged the pest. For, with a lazy sigh, he resumed his nap on the cool puncheon. Stretched out there on his left side, silhouetted against the floor, he presented a picture to stir the heart of any collie-judge. The classic head might have been chiseled by a master-hand. The frame was mighty, yet as graceful as any greyhound’s. The coat was unbelievably heavy and it shone like burnished copper.
Joel eyed the couchant dog with outward sourness of visage; but with inward pride that Treve should have won such praise from this Eastern engineer who had halted at the Dos Hermanos ranch for the night. It was part of Fenno’s life-creed to maintain a continuous and universal grouchy disapproval of everything and everybody.
“Just what I’ve always said!” exulted Mack, at Davids’ endorsement of his pet. “I’ve always told Joel the dog was good enough to go to any A. K. C. show. He’s—”
“Yep!” snarled Fenno, “he’d make a show of us, all right. Why, most prob’ly they’d laugh him out of the place. Unless it was a flea-chasin’ match. Then he might—”
“If I were you,” put in Davids, addressing Mack and ignoring the peevish oldster, “I’d enter him for the big Dos Hermanos Show, up at La Cerra, next month. I was reading about it, on the way here. Quite a ‘spread’ on it in the Sunday Clarion. I’ll leave my copy of it with you, if you’d like to glance over it. They’re trying for a record entry. A big English judge is going to handle collies and one or two sporting breeds. On another page of the paper is a sort of primer for novice exhibitors; telling them how to enter their dogs for the show, whom to write to for premium lists and blanks, and all that, and how to make out the blanks. A lot of people don’t understand how to do it. Take my tip and enter Treve at La Cerra.”