The Ruling Passion [38]
two of his brothers and nigh killed 'em both. Every
dog in the place has a grudge at him, and hell's loose as oft as he
takes a walk. I'm loath to part with him, but I'll be selling him
gladly for fifty dollars to any man that wants a good sledge-dog,
eh?--and a bit collie-shangie every week."
Pichou had heard his name, and came trotting up to the corner of the
store where MacIntosh was talking with old Grant the chief factor,
who was on a tour of inspection along the North Shore, and Dan
Scott, the agent from Seven Islands, who had brought the chief down
in his chaloupe. Pichou did not understand what his master had been
saying about him: but he thought he was called, and he had a sense
of duty; and besides, he was wishful to show proper courtesy to
well-dressed and respectable strangers. He was a great dog, thirty
inches high at the shoulder; broad-chested, with straight, sinewy
legs; and covered with thick, wavy, cream-coloured hair from the
tips of his short ears to the end of his bushy tail--all except the
left side of his face. That was black from ear to nose--coal-black;
and in the centre of this storm-cloud his eye gleamed like fire.
What did Pichou know about that ominous sign? No one had ever told
him. He had no looking-glass. He ran up to the porch where the men
were sitting, as innocent as a Sunday-school scholar coming to the
superintendent's desk to receive a prize. But when old Grant, who
had grown pursy and nervous from long living on the fat of the land
at Ottawa, saw the black patch and the gleaming eye, he anticipated
evil; so he hitched one foot up on the porch, crying "Get out!" and
with the other foot he planted a kick on the side of the dog's head.
Pichou's nerve-centres had not been shaken by high living. They
acted with absolute precision and without a tremor. His sense of
justice was automatic, and his teeth were fixed through the leg of
the chief factor's boot, just below the calf.
For two minutes there was a small chaos in the post of the
Honourable Hudson's Bay Company at Mingan. Grant howled bloody
murder; MacIntosh swore in three languages and yelled for his dog-
whip; three Indians and two French-Canadians wielded sticks and
fence-pickets. But order did not arrive until Dan Scott knocked the
burning embers from his big pipe on the end of the dog's nose.
Pichou gasped, let go his grip, shook his head, and loped back to
his quarters behind the barn, bruised, blistered, and intolerably
perplexed by the mystery of life.
As he lay on the sand, licking his wounds, he remembered many
strange things. First of all, there was the trouble with his mother
She was a Labrador Husky, dirty yellowish gray, with bristling neck,
sharp fangs, and green eyes, like a wolf. Her name was Babette.
She had a fiendish temper, but no courage. His father was supposed
to be a huge black and white Newfoundland that came over in a
schooner from Miquelon. Perhaps it was from him that the black
patch was inherited. And perhaps there were other things in the
inheritance, too, which came from this nobler strain of blood
Pichon's unwillingness to howl with the other dogs when they made
night hideous; his silent, dignified ways; his sense of fair play;
his love of the water; his longing for human society and friendship.
But all this was beyond Pichou's horizon, though it was within his
nature. He remembered only that Babette had taken a hate for him,
almost from the first, and had always treated him worse than his
all-yellow brothers. She would have starved him if she could. Once
when he was half grown, she fell upon him for some small offence and
tried to throttle him. The rest of the pack looked on snarling and
slavering. He caught Babette by the fore-leg and broke the bone.
She hobbled away, shrieking. What else could he do? Must a dog let
himself
dog in the place has a grudge at him, and hell's loose as oft as he
takes a walk. I'm loath to part with him, but I'll be selling him
gladly for fifty dollars to any man that wants a good sledge-dog,
eh?--and a bit collie-shangie every week."
Pichou had heard his name, and came trotting up to the corner of the
store where MacIntosh was talking with old Grant the chief factor,
who was on a tour of inspection along the North Shore, and Dan
Scott, the agent from Seven Islands, who had brought the chief down
in his chaloupe. Pichou did not understand what his master had been
saying about him: but he thought he was called, and he had a sense
of duty; and besides, he was wishful to show proper courtesy to
well-dressed and respectable strangers. He was a great dog, thirty
inches high at the shoulder; broad-chested, with straight, sinewy
legs; and covered with thick, wavy, cream-coloured hair from the
tips of his short ears to the end of his bushy tail--all except the
left side of his face. That was black from ear to nose--coal-black;
and in the centre of this storm-cloud his eye gleamed like fire.
What did Pichou know about that ominous sign? No one had ever told
him. He had no looking-glass. He ran up to the porch where the men
were sitting, as innocent as a Sunday-school scholar coming to the
superintendent's desk to receive a prize. But when old Grant, who
had grown pursy and nervous from long living on the fat of the land
at Ottawa, saw the black patch and the gleaming eye, he anticipated
evil; so he hitched one foot up on the porch, crying "Get out!" and
with the other foot he planted a kick on the side of the dog's head.
Pichou's nerve-centres had not been shaken by high living. They
acted with absolute precision and without a tremor. His sense of
justice was automatic, and his teeth were fixed through the leg of
the chief factor's boot, just below the calf.
For two minutes there was a small chaos in the post of the
Honourable Hudson's Bay Company at Mingan. Grant howled bloody
murder; MacIntosh swore in three languages and yelled for his dog-
whip; three Indians and two French-Canadians wielded sticks and
fence-pickets. But order did not arrive until Dan Scott knocked the
burning embers from his big pipe on the end of the dog's nose.
Pichou gasped, let go his grip, shook his head, and loped back to
his quarters behind the barn, bruised, blistered, and intolerably
perplexed by the mystery of life.
As he lay on the sand, licking his wounds, he remembered many
strange things. First of all, there was the trouble with his mother
She was a Labrador Husky, dirty yellowish gray, with bristling neck,
sharp fangs, and green eyes, like a wolf. Her name was Babette.
She had a fiendish temper, but no courage. His father was supposed
to be a huge black and white Newfoundland that came over in a
schooner from Miquelon. Perhaps it was from him that the black
patch was inherited. And perhaps there were other things in the
inheritance, too, which came from this nobler strain of blood
Pichon's unwillingness to howl with the other dogs when they made
night hideous; his silent, dignified ways; his sense of fair play;
his love of the water; his longing for human society and friendship.
But all this was beyond Pichou's horizon, though it was within his
nature. He remembered only that Babette had taken a hate for him,
almost from the first, and had always treated him worse than his
all-yellow brothers. She would have starved him if she could. Once
when he was half grown, she fell upon him for some small offence and
tried to throttle him. The rest of the pack looked on snarling and
slavering. He caught Babette by the fore-leg and broke the bone.
She hobbled away, shrieking. What else could he do? Must a dog let
himself