Trading Jeff and His Dog

by Jim Kjelgaard

The dog waited, anger rising in his heart. He too knew how to fight. For the barest fraction of a minute he gauged the bulls' advance, then he attacked. He was not as swift as he ordinarily was because he had not eaten enough. But with his staghound and collie lineage, he had inherited all the fluid, rippling grace of such dogs. It was not his way to bore in, to seek a hold and keep it, but to slash and slice. He struck the first bull, cut it to the shoulder bone, and leaped clear over his enemy before there could be a return thrust. He whirled to face the second.

It came at him with a short, choppy gait, eyes half closed and mouth open as it sought any hold at all. As soon as it was able to get one, it would clamp its jaws and grind until the piece of flesh in its mouth was torn out. Then it would get another hold, and another, and literally tear its enemy apart.

The dog waited, as though he were about to meet the bull head on. But when only inches separated them, he glided to one side, ducked to get hold of a front leg, and used all his strength to throw the bull clear over his head. He turned to meet the second bull that, recovering, had come in to grab his thigh.

Twisting himself almost double, the dog slashed and bit and each time he slashed fresh blood spurted from the brindle bull's hide. The dog opened his huge mouth, clamped it over the bull's neck, and shook his adversary back and forth.

The bulls had courage, but they were cross-breeds and not the fighting bulls that will gladly die if they can take their enemy with them. They staggered twenty feet off and faced the dog warily, as though seeking some new way to attack him. He waited, ready for whatever they might do, and when he finally limped away he did so with his head turned to see if he was being followed.

He was not afraid to renew the battle, but he wanted most to be let alone by this ugly pair. In spite of all the rebuffs and even physical violence that he had met up with, however, he could not abandon the driving urge that had sent him forth. He could not live without a master. Somewhere and somehow he must find one.

He passed from settled country into forest where there was only an occasional clearing. When two deer fled before him he gave halfhearted chase. But his shoulder still hurt and the battle had wearied him. When the deer outdistanced him, he stopped to eat a few mushrooms that grew on a stump. They were tasteless fare, but they helped still the gnawing in his belly. Near the edge of a pond, he found and ate a fish that had been hurt in battle with a bigger fish, and after that he caught a mouse. All together were mere tidbits, and the dog thought wistfully of the delicious meals Johnny Blazer used to prepare for him.

Night had fallen when he stopped suddenly, his nose tickled by the tantalizing odor of food. Mingled with it was the smell of wood smoke and a man. The dog's nose informed him that there was a creek, and he caught the faintly-acrid smell of cinders and steel that meant a railroad. The dog slowed to a walk and went closer to verify with his eyes what his nose had already told him.

There was a creek spanned by a railroad bridge. Beneath the bridge was a small, bright fire over which, on a forked stick, hung a pot of simmering coffee. Crouched beside the fire was a man, and because there is a difference in the odors of young and old, the dog knew that this was a young man.

The dog padded silently through tall, wild grass growing beside the creek. He drooled at the odor of food, but because painful experience had taught him to be very careful in all dealings with men, he did not go any nearer. He licked his chops with a moist tongue and excitement danced in his eyes. How he would love to be near that fire, partaking of the food and the caresses of the young man!