Billy Topsail & Company: A Story for Boys. Duncan Norman
Tog retreated. Jimmie rushed upon him. At a bound, Tog passed, turned, and came again. Before Jimmie had well faced him, Tog had leaped for his throat. Down went the boy, overborne by the dog’s weight, and by the impact, which he was not prepared to withstand. But Tog was yet a puppy, unpracticed in fight; he had missed the grip. And a heavy stick, in the hands of Jimmie’s father, falling mercilessly upon him, put him in yelping retreat.
“I ’low, Jimmie,” drawled Jim Grimm, while he helped the boy to his feet, “that that dog is teachin’ you more ’n you knowed.”
“I ’low, dad,” replied the breathless Jimmie, “that he teached me nothin’ more than I forgot.”
“I wouldn’t forget again,” said Jim.
Jimmie did not deign to reply.
CHAPTER II
In Which Jimmie Grimm is Warned Not to Fall Down, and Tog, Confirmed in Bad Ways, Raids Ghost Tickle, Commits Murder, Runs With the Wolves, Plots the Death of Jimmie Grimm and Reaches the End of His Rope
Jimmie Grimm’s father broke Tog to the traces before the winter was over. A wretched time the perverse beast had of it. Labrador dogs are not pampered idlers; in winter they must work or starve–as must men, the year round. But Tog had no will for work, acknowledged no master save the cruel, writhing whip; and the whip was therefore forever flecking his ears or curling about his flanks. Moreover, he was a sad shirk. Thus he made more trouble for himself. When his team-mates discovered the failing–and this was immediately–they pitilessly worried his hind legs. Altogether, in his half-grown days, Tog led a yelping, bleeding life of it; whereby he got no more than his desserts.
Through the summer he lived by theft when thievery was practicable; at other times he went fishing for himself with an ill will. Meantime, he developed strength and craft, both in extraordinary degree. There was not a more successful criminal in the pack, nor was there a more despicable bully. When the first snow fell, Tog was master at Buccaneer Cove, and had already begun to raid the neighbouring settlement at Ghost Tickle. Twice he was known to have adventured there. After the first raid, he licked his wounds in retirement for two weeks; after the second, which was made by night, they found a dead dog at Ghost Tickle.
Thereafter, Tog entered Ghost Tickle by daylight, and with his teeth made good his right to come and go at will. It was this that left him open to suspicion when the Ghost Tickle tragedy occurred. Whether or not Tog was concerned in that affair, nobody knows. They say at Ghost Tickle that he plotted the murder and led the pack; but the opinion is based merely upon the fact that he was familiar with the paths and lurking places of the Tickle–and, possibly, upon the fact of his immediate and significant disappearance from the haunts of men.
News came from Ghost Tickle that Jonathan Wall had come late from the ice with a seal. Weary with the long tramp, he had left the carcass at the waterside.
“Billy,” he said to his young son, forgetting the darkness and the dogs, “go fetch that swile up.”
Billy was gone a long time.
“I wonder what’s keepin’ Billy,” his mother said.
They grew uneasy, at last; and presently they set out to search for the lad. Neither child nor seal did they ever see again; but they came upon the shocking evidences of what had occurred.
And they blamed Tog of Buccaneer Cove.
For a month or more Tog was lost to sight; but an epidemic had so reduced the number of serviceable dogs that he was often in Jim Grimm’s mind. Jim very heartily declared that Tog should have a berth with the team if starvation drove him back; not that he loved Tog, said he, but that he needed him. But Tog seemed to be doing well enough in the wilderness. He did not soon return. Once they saw him. It was when Jim and Jimmie were bound home from Laughing Cove. Of a sudden Jim halted the team.
“Do you see that, Jimmie, b’y?” he asked, pointing with his whip to the white crest of a near-by hill.
“Dogs!” Jimmie ejaculated.
“Take another squint,” said Jim.
“Dogs,” Jimmie repeated.
“Wolves,” drawled Jim. “An’ do you see the beast with the black eye?”
“Why, dad,” Jimmie exclaimed, “’tis Tog!”
“I ’low,” said Jim, “that Tog don’t need us no more.”
But Tog did. He came back–lean and fawning. No more abject contrition was ever shown by dog before. He was starving. They fed him at the usual hour; and not one ounce more than the usual amount of food did he get. Next day he took his old place in the traces and helped haul Jim Grimm the round of the fox traps. But that night Jim Grimm lost another dog; and in the morning Tog had again disappeared into the wilderness. Jimmie Grimm was glad. Tog had grown beyond him. The lad could control the others of the pack; but he was helpless against Tog.
“I isn’t so wonderful sorry, myself,” said Jim. “I ’low, Jimmie,” he added, “that Tog don’t like you.”
“No, that he doesn’t,” Jimmie promptly agreed. “All day yesterday he snooped around, with an eye on me. Looked to me as if he was waitin’ for me to fall down.”
“Jimmie!” said Jim Grimm, gravely.
“Ay, sir?”
“You mustn’t fall down. Don’t matter whether Tog’s about or not. If the dogs is near, don’t you fall down!”
“Not if I knows it,” said Jimmie.
It was a clear night in March. The moon was high. From the rear of Jim Grimm’s isolated cottage the white waste stretched far to the wilderness. The dogs of the pack were sound asleep in the outhouse. An hour ago the mournful howling had ceased for the night. Half-way to the fish-stage, whither he was bound on his father’s errand, Jimmie Grimm came to a startled full stop.
“What was that?” he mused.
A dark object, long and lithe, had seemed to slip like a shadow into hiding below the drying flake. Jimmie continued to muse. What had it been? A prowling dog? Then he laughed a little at his own fears–and continued on his way. But he kept watch on the flake; and so intent was he upon this, so busily was he wondering whether or not his eyes had tricked him, that he stumbled over a stray billet of wood, and fell sprawling.
He was not alarmed, and made no haste to rise; but had he then seen what emerged from the shadow of the flake he would instantly have been in screaming flight toward the kitchen door.
The onslaught of Tog and the two wolves was made silently.
There was not a howl, not a growl, not even an eager snarl. They came leaping, with Tog in the lead–and they came silently. Jimmie caught sight of them when he was half-way to his feet. He had but time to call his father’s name; and he knew that the cry would not be heard. Instinctively, he covered his throat with his arms when Tog fell upon him; and he was relieved to feel Tog’s teeth in his shoulder. He felt no pain–not any more, at any rate, than a sharp stab in the knee. He was merely sensible of the fact that the vital part had not yet been reached.
In the savage joy of attack, Jimmie’s assailants forgot discretion. Snarls and growls escaped them while they worried the small body. In the manner of wolves, too, they snapped at each other. The dogs in the outhouse awoke, cocked their ears, came in a frenzy to the conflict; not to save Jimmie Grimm, but to participate in his destruction. Jimmie was prostrate beneath them all–still protecting his throat; not regarding his other parts.
And by this confusion Jim Grimm was aroused from a sleepy stupor by the kitchen fire.
“I wonder,” said he, “what’s the matter with them dogs.”
“I’m not able t’ make out,” his wife replied, puzzled, “but–”
“Hark!” cried Jim.
They listened.
“Quick!” Jimmie’s mother screamed. “They’re at Jimmie!”
With