Jim McAllister had driven off downstream early that morning with two horses and a heavy wagon to buy provisions at the town of Woodstock. The round trip was an all-day job. Ben O’Dell shouldered an ax after dinner and, accompanied by the youngest of the three O’Dell dogs, went back to mend a brush fence and see if the highest hay field was ripe for the scythe. Mrs. O’Dell and little Marion Sherwood washed and dried the dinner dishes and Mrs. O’Dell took a great ham from the oven and set it to cool in the pantry. At three o’clock she and the little girl took an armful of books to the old orchard between the house and the river. Red Lily went with them; Red Chief, the oldest of the O’Dell setters, remained asleep in the kitchen.
Mrs. O’Dell and the little girl from French River returned to the house at five o’clock, having finished “Treasure Island.” Red Chief arose from his slumbers and welcomed them with sweeps of his plumed tail. Mrs. O’Dell went to the pantry to see how the ham looked—and the ham wasn’t there!
Some one had been in the pantry, had come and gone by way of the kitchen, and yet Red Chief had not barked. Mrs. O’Dell was not only puzzled but alarmed. A thief had visited the house of the O’Dells, a thing that had not happened for generations; and, worse still, a dog of the famous old red strain had failed in his duty. And yet Red Chief had many times proved himself as good a dog as any of his ancestors had been. Red Chief, the wise and true and fearless, had permitted a thief to enter and leave the house without so much as giving tongue. It was a puzzling and disturbing thought to the woman who held the honor of her dead husband’s family so high that even the honor of the O’Dell red dogs was dear to her.
She said nothing about the stolen ham to her little guest but she took the old setter by his silken ears and gazed searchingly into his unwavering eyes. But there was neither guile nor shame in those eyes. Devotion, courage, vision and entire self-satisfaction were there. The old dog’s conscience was clear.
Mrs. O’Dell went through the pantry. Two loaves of bread had gone with the ham. She searched here and there through the rest of the house but could not see that anything else had been taken. Nothing of value was gone, that was certain, and she felt less insecure though as deeply puzzled. She decided not to mention the vanished food and the old dog’s strange passivity to her son or her brother.
A week passed over O’Dell’s Point without an unusual incident. Ben and Uncle Jim commenced haying in the early upland fields; and then O’Dell’s Point received its first official visit from the law. Ben brought the horses in at noon, watered them and followed them into the cool and shadowy stable; and there he found Mel Lunt and a stranger smoking cigars. Ben was startled, for he knew Mel Lunt to be the local constable; and the consciousness of being startled drove away his natural shyness and added to his indignation at the glowing cigars. His eyes brightened and his cheeks reddened.
“Young man, what do you know about Richard Sherwood?” asked the stranger, stepping forward and knocking the ash from his cigar.
“We don’t smoke in here, if you don’t mind,” said the overgrown youth. “It isn’t safe.”
“This here’s Mr. Brown from Woodstock, Ben,” said Lunt hastily. “He’s depity sheriff of the county.”
“Mel’s said it. Don’t you worry about the cigars, young man, but tell me what you know, an’ all you know, about Richard Sherwood.”