It was also before the Spot Cash had fallen foul of the plot to scuttle the Black Eagle. It was before the big gale and all the adventures of that northward trading voyage. In short, it was before Jim Grimm moved up from the Labrador to Ruddy Cove for better fishing.
Tog had a bad name. On the Labrador coast all dogs have bad names; nor, if the truth must be told, does the reputation do them any injustice. If evil communications corrupt good manners, the desperate character of Tog’s deeds, no less than the tragic manner of his end, may be accounted for. At any rate, long before his abrupt departure from the wilderness trails and snow-covered rock of Buccaneer Cove, he had earned the worst reputation of all the pack.
It began in the beginning. When Tog was eight weeks old his end was foreseen. He was then little more than a soft, fluffy, black-and-white ball, awkwardly perambulating on four absurdly bowed legs. Martha, Jim Grimm’s 18 wife, one day cast the lean scraps of the midday meal to the pack. What came to pass so amazed old Jim Grimm that he dropped his splitting-knife and stared agape.
“An’ would you look at that little beast!” he gasped. “That one’s a wonder for badness!”
The snarling, scrambling heap of dogs, apparently inextricably entangled, had all at once been reduced to order. Instead of a confusion of taut legs and teeth and bristling hair, there was a precise half-circle of gaunt beasts, squatted at a respectful distance from Tog’s mother, hopelessly licking their chops, while, with hair on end and fangs exposed and dripping, she kept them off.
“It ain’t Jinny,” Jim remarked. “You can’t blame she. It’s that little pup with the black eye.”
You couldn’t blame Jenny. Last of all would it occur to Martha Grimm, with a child of her own to rear, to call her in the wrong. With a litter of five hearty pups to provide for, Jenny was animated by a holy maternal instinct. But Tog, which was the one with the black eye, was not to be justified. He was imitating his mother’s tactics with diabolical success. A half-circle of whimpering puppies, keeping a respectful distance, 19 watched in grieved surprise, while, with hair on end and tiny fangs occasionally exposed, he devoured the scraps of the midday meal.
“A wonder for badness!” Jim Grimm repeated.
“‘Give a dog a bad name,’” quoted Martha, quick, like the woman she was, to resent snap-judgment of the young, “‘an’–––’”