“You get the other forty when I get my dog,” said he. “Where is he, now? In the shack?”
“Nope. He out with Mist’ Loyce Mack, Tleve is,” replied Chang. “Not back till sup’ time. At lanch house allee night, though,” he added, consolingly.
“Good!” resumed Colt. “Now, let’s you and me go into executive session. This thing ought to be easy to fix up. Do you get a chance at the dog, alone, any time;—when the others aren’t likely to horn in?”
At supper, that evening, Treve lay as usual on the floor beside Royce’s chair. He was more or less tired from a hard workday on the range, and he looked forward with joy to his own approaching supper.
Apart from such stray tidbits as Mack might happen to toss to him at the table, Treve had but one daily meal;—one big meal a day being ample for any grown dog and far better for his health and condition than is more frequent feeding. This one meal was always served to Treve on the kitchen hearth, by Chang, when the partners’ supper was ended.
To-night, when Joel and Royce pushed back their chairs and lighted their pipes and Chang began to clear the table, Treve as usual arose and made his way to the kitchen. As a rule, his supper was awaiting him on the hearth. But to-night Chang had not placed it there.
As the dog turned toward the adjoining room in surprise at the omission, Chang came scuttling into the kitchen, laden with dishes. These dishes he set down, then tiptoed back to the door and shut it. From a cupboard he took Treve’s heaped supper plate and set it on the hearth bricks.
The dog wagged his tail in appreciation and followed the Chinaman to the hearth; his white paws beating out an anticipatory little dance on the puncheon floor. He neither liked nor disliked this shuffling and queer-smelling Celestial. But always he was keenly interested in the plate of table-scraps Chang gave him at night.
Hungrily, now, he set to work on his supper. Eating with odd daintiness, yet with egregious speed, the dog became oblivious to everything around him.
Chang stepped back to the cupboard and drew therefrom a huge canvas bag and a length of thin rope. Then, with an apprehensive glance at the door of the adjoining room, he set ajar the outer kitchen door and stole over to where the collie was eating. Holding the bag and rope ready, he came up behind Treve.