CHAPTER XX
THE REFORMED SHOWMAN
King Harry, as he said, had never been trained as his grandmother was, for he had been stolen when he was a puppy, but he inherited enough trailing instinct to do pretty good amateur work, and we dogs were always setting him tasks, and were surprised at his cleverness in picking up a trail.
One night, shortly after my conversation with him about his grandmother, we gave him something to do for our owners. We thought at first that there was going to be a serious case, but in the long run it turned out more happily than we thought it would.
It was about ten o’clock on a fine spring evening. There had been a lot of cold weather, when suddenly this glorious day burst upon us, like a harbinger of summer. Everybody had been out-of-doors all day long, and master and mistress sat on the front veranda, too contented to go to bed.
Little stars peeped timidly from a somewhat misty sky, and the river babbled happily of even warmer days to come, and summer delights of flower and song, for the birds were beginning to return from King Harry’s sunny South.
Master sat in a big chair, mistress was swinging in a hammock, Amarilla was cuddled in her arms. I lay under the hammock, King Harry was sprawled on the gravel walk below, and Cannie, the Dandie Dinmont terrier, had gone down to the river to get a drink.
We had steps down to the pond near the house where the goldfishes were, but he never would drink from the place where those yellow things lived, as he called mistress’s Japanese beauties.
The night was very still, and presently I heard Cannie’s soft paddies coming back, pit-a-pat with excitement.
King Harry didn’t notice this. The good dog depended more on his nose than his ears and eyes. Perhaps from having been with human beings so much, I see and hear more quickly than most dogs. Something was the matter with Cannie, that was one thing sure.