“You take her now, Bill,” he told Marie’s husband, as, telegram in hand, he returned to the problem of Michael. “Give her half a dozen tries more. And don’t forget, any time any jay farmer thinks he’s got a span that can pull, bet him on the side your best span can beat him. That means advance advertising and some paper. It’ll be worth it. The ringmaster’ll favour you, and your span can get the first jump. If I was young and footloose, I’d ask nothing better than to go out with your turn.”
Harris Collins, in the pauses gazing down at Michael, read Del Mar’s Seattle telegram:
“Sell my dogs. You know what they can do and what they are worth. Am done with them. Deduct the board and hold the balance until I see you. I have the limit of a dog. Every turn I ever pulled is put in the shade by this one. He’s a ten strike. Wait till you see him.”
Over to one side in the busy arena, Collins contemplated Michael.
“Del Mar was the limit himself,” he told Johnny, who held Michael by the chain. “When he wired me to sell his dogs it meant he had a better turn, and here’s only one dog to show for it, a damned thoroughbred at that. He says it’s the limit. It must be, but in heaven’s name, what is its turn? It’s never done a flip in its life, much less a double flip. What do you think, Johnny? Use your head. Suggest something.”
“Maybe it can count,” Johnny advanced.
“And counting-dogs are a drug on the market. Well, anyway, let’s try.”
And Michael, who knew unerringly how to count, refused to perform.
“If he was a regular dog, he could walk anyway,” was Collins’ next idea. “We’ll try him.”
And Michael went through the humiliating ordeal of being jerked erect on his hind legs by Johnny while Collins with the stick cracked him under the jaw and across the knees. In his wrath, Michael tried to bite the master-god, and was jerked away by the chain. When he strove to retaliate on Johnny, that imperturbable youth, with extended arm, merely lifted him into the air on his chain and strangled him.