Big Red Read online

  Danny leaned a little farther back in the seat, suddenly anxious. Mr. Haggin folded the newspaper he had been reading and laid it on the seat beside him. For a moment they rode in silence. Then Mr. Haggin said a little wearily,

  “The show’s over, Danny, and we did what we set out to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Boy’s an official champion now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mr. Haggin looked curiously at him. “What’s the matter, Danny?”

  “I was thinkin’,” Danny said bluntly. “That little bitch that went up with Red for best of winners, she was just a mite too close in the ribs and short in lung space. But you know what? If we ever had a bitch as good as that, and Red, the get of two such dogs …” Danny paused as though it was hard to imagine such a thing. “The get of two such dogs would be almost sure to have another pup as good as Red. Maybe better.”

  Mr. Haggin said, “There isn’t enough money to buy that bitch from Dr. Dan MacGruder.”

  “I was only thinkin’, sir,” Danny sighed wistfully.

  They rode in silence for a few more blocks, while Mr. Haggin stared out of the window. He had set his heart on Red’s being best of breed, and winning that had been so important that it supplanted everything else. Then Red had won, and after glorying in that triumph Mr. Haggin, like Danny, was thinking of better dogs and better things.

  “How far is it to the Wintapi?” Danny asked suddenly.

  “About three hundred miles.”

  “Oh,” said Danny. “I didn’t think …”

  “Of course,” Mr. Haggin said easily, “Bob will want to stay here a few days to do the town, and maybe we won’t go back for another week. Naturally you can stay if you want to. But I’ve been thinking that a newly made champion like Boy needs a lot of space to run around, and get in shape for his next show. So if you want to take him home by train tonight, I can give you your first month’s wages and you can both go.”

  “You mean right away?”

  “Strictly a business proposition,” Mr. Haggin assured him. “And I’m glad that you see eye to eye with me on it. The first job of a dog handler is to look after his dog.”

  “I’ll look after Red!” Danny breathed. “He’ll get the best of care and mindin’. Do you think I could make him into a huntin’ dog?”

  “Of course. I think it’d be good for him. But you understand now why it’s very important for him not to be disfigured.”

  Danny’s face was troubled. “I already told you that, if you got him in the Wintapi, he might meet a varmint and get chewed or clawed.”

  “I understand that, Danny, and am willing to take the chance. But I don’t want it to happen unnecessarily. I’ll be seeing him around, of course, while I’m still in the Wintapi. After I leave I’ll expect a monthly report from you.”

  “I can just as easy report every day.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Mr. Haggin’s eyes twinkled. He spoke softly to the chauffeur, and the big car drew up before a lighted drug store. Mr. Haggin entered the store, and when he came back the chauffeur took a circuitous route home. They got out, and Mr. Haggin rang the bell. There was a moment’s pause, a scuffling inside, and as soon as the door was opened Red flung himself into Danny’s arms. The flushed butler stood just inside the door.

  “The dog arrived only a few minutes ago,” he explained apologetically. “I just could not control him.”

  “That’s all right.”

  Mr. Haggin entered the house. The ecstatic Red, keeping as close to Danny as he could get, padded over the floor and every few seconds flung his head up to lick Danny’s hands. He threw himself down by Danny’s chair, stretched out his head, and sighed contentedly as the two ate dinner. Danny finished eating, then spoke hesitatingly.

  “If there’s any way you want to check up on how I’m takin’ care of him …”

  Mr. Haggin looked at Danny, and at the happy dog. “I’ve already checked,” he said. He looked at his watch. “I don’t want to hurry you, Danny, but you can get a train in half an hour.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m ready.”

  “Leave your bag here and I’ll bring it through with me. You won’t be needing it, will you?”

  “No, sir,” Danny smiled. “Not in the Wintapi.”

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  Red climbed into the car and got up on the seat to lay his head on Danny’s lap as they drove down to the station. Mr. Haggin bought tickets, and pressed them and a small roll of bills into Danny’s hand.

  “Here are your tickets and the rest of your first month’s wages,” he said. “I’ll arrange for Boy.”

  He entered an office, telephoned, and came out to Danny and Red. A trainman followed him.

  Mr. Haggin turned to Danny.

  “I’ve arranged for Red to go in the baggage car,” he said. “Be sure to get him out at the Wintapi station.”

  “Can’t I go in the baggage car too?”

  “You won’t get any sleep,” Mr. Haggin objected.

  “I can sleep in the darndest places! Honest! Can’t we ride together? Red might … might bite the baggage man and then you’d be in an awful fix!”

  “Well …” Mr. Haggin looked at the trainman, who grinned and said, “C’mon.” They passed through a gate, and the trainman spoke to the guard in the baggage car. He turned to wave his hand.

  “You can both go. Hoist the pooch in.”

  Danny cradled Red in his arms and lifted him through the open door. The big dog stood peering back with tongue lolling and tail gently wagging while he watched Danny. Danny shook hands with Mr. Haggin.

  “I want to thank you for everything,” he said awkwardly.

  Mr. Haggin laughed. “Think about the things you’ve seen and learned, Danny.”

  “I am thinkin’ about such things.”

  “All right. See you in the Wintapi. Good luck.”

  “Good luck.”

  Danny climbed into the car and the guard rolled the door shut. He looked admiringly at Red.

  “Your dog, kid?”

  “No, sir. I’m takin’ care of him for Mr. Haggin.”

  “Hm-m,” the guard grinned. “Haggin’s got you under his wing, huh? If he didn’t have, you never would have brought an uncrated dog into this car or ridden here as passenger yourself. But I guess owning half a railroad makes a difference in what you can do. Well, make yourselves at home.”

  Danny sat on a wooden crate, swinging his long legs from it while Red curled up beside him and slept. The train started, and only the noise of wheels on rails penetrated the baggage car. After a bit Danny got down from the crate, pillowed his head against it, and dozed. The guard tossed him a blanket.

  “This may be softer.”

  Danny folded the blanket under his head, and Red crouched close beside him as the train rumbled through the night. At various times it stopped, and Red growled softly when the door was opened to receive more baggage. Danny awoke, sat up, and lay down again to pillow his head on the blanket. The lights in the car grew pale as slow dawn crept out of the sky. Danny rose, and with Red padding beside him looked about the car. Half asleep in a chair, the guard stirred and grinned.

  “An hour more, kid. I’m going through to Morrisville myself, then back to the city. Do you live around these parts?”

  “In the beech woods in the Wintapi,” Danny said courteously. “My pappy and I, we’re trappers there. Of course, now I’m goin’ to be takin’ care of Mr. Haggin’s dog, too.”

  “I’ve hunted in the Wintapi,” the guard said wistfully. “Once, when we laid over two days at Morrisville, I went to a place called Chestnut Creek and hunted deer. I didn’t get any, but the man with me shot a big ten-pointer.”

  “Come up this season and I’ll show you deer,” Danny invited. “Ask at Mr. Haggin’s place, and they’ll tell you where Ross and Danny Pickett live.”

  “I might do just that. Let’s get a little fresh air.”

  He opened the door, and Danny sa
t on a box to watch. They were in the hills, and the little farms that huddled close to their bases still slept in the gray dawn. Then they rounded a bend and, far off, he saw Smokey Mountain towering above all the rest. The train started slowing for the Wintapi station, and Danny stood eagerly erect.

  When the train lurched to a stop, he jumped. He turned to help Red, but the big Irish setter had already leaped to the cinders beside him.

  “So long,” the guard yelled.

  “So long.”

  Danny turned to wave, then started for the beech woods that began where the railroad’s property ended. A mighty, leaping happiness coursed through him. The fuss and glamor of the dog show were done with. Mr. Haggin had the ribbons. But Danny had the dog. And now they were home, here in the Wintapi.

  Red paced sedately beside him. But once in the woods, screened by trees from prying eyes that might see and comment on any let-down in dignity, Danny broke into a wild run. It seemed an eternity since he had seen the rough shanty where he and his father lived, smelled the good scent of streams, forests, and mountains, or had any part at all in the only life he had ever loved. With the dog racing beside him, Danny climbed over the jutting nose of a mountain, trotted up a long valley, climbed the ridge at its head, and descended the other side. He ran in almost a perfectly straight line to his father’s clearing. Coming to the edge of it, Danny slowed to a walk. He knew by the smokeless chimney that his father wasn’t home. Ross Pickett, naturally, would have been up at dawn and out scouting the ridges on a fine day like this.

  But his father’s four hounds strained at the ends of their chains and bayed a vociferous welcome. Danny grinned at them, and watched Red go up to renew acquaintance with Old Mike. The two dogs wagged stiff tails, and Mike sat down to blink indifferently at Danny.

  Danny chuckled, and tickled the old hound’s tattered ears while the three pups begged for attention. Red sat with his head cocked to one side and watched jealously. Danny stooped and unsnapped the chains. Wild to be free, the four hounds went in a mad race across the fields. They came tearing back and were away again. Red raced with them, but wheeled and came back when Danny whistled. Danny scratched his silken ears.

  “Leave ’em go,” he said. “Leave ’em go, Red. They’ll just run awhile and come back. But you ain’t goin’ to run with ordinary hounds. You got more important work—given Pappy can think alike with me.”

  Red walked beside him when Danny went into the house. Outside, everything had been warm sunshine. But inside, where only glancing sunbeams strayed through the single-paned windows that Ross Pickett had set in the walls of his shanty, a definite chill prevailed. Danny stuffed tinder into the stove, lighted it, and added wood when it was blazing. He pulled aside the burlap curtain that hung over the cupboard, and took out a pot and skillet. Red trotted beside him when he went to the spring house for a piece of pork that Ross had left there to cool, and returned to lie in the center of the floor while Danny cooked the meat.

  An hour later Red got up and went to sit before the door. There was a little pause, a heavy tread on the porch, and Ross Pickett came in.

  “Danny!” he exclaimed. “I knowed you was home on account I heerd the hounds a-bayin’.”

  “Hello, Pappy. It sure is good to be home. You aimed to start out and scout a trap line?”

  “Yup. Stoney Lonesome ridge for foxes. Ought to be a nice take of pelts this year. They’s lots of rabbits for pelt animals to eat off.”

  But the shine in Ross’s eyes belied the workaday talk, and the flutter in Danny’s chest was far too intense ever to be put into words. He and his father had been so close for so long that they felt, and acted, and almost thought alike. Each was lost without the other, and now that they were together they could be happy again. Danny said with affected carelessness that could not hide the enormous pride he felt,

  “I fetched the red dog home. There he is.”

  “Well, so you did!” Ross whirled about as though he had just noticed the magnificent setter. “That is a dog, Danny. I reckon you’n him must of cut some swath in New York, huh?”

  “Red did in the dog ring. He got some prizes for Mr. Haggin.”

  “What you see in New York, Danny?”

  “Dogs, little mites of dogs that Sanders Cahoon could tie on that watch chain he carries. Dogs most as big as a Shetland pony. Hounds that could course up Wintapi ravines. Dogs made to run so fast they could catch a fox …”

  For two hours he talked on, explaining in minutest detail all the marvels to be encountered at a dog show, while Ross listened raptly. Red pushed the screen door open with his nose, and went outside to sit on the sun-drenched porch. A hawk, circling over the clearing, gave vent to a shrieking whistle and Red growled warningly at it. Then Ross looked at the tarnished dollar watch that he kept stuffed into the pocket of his blue overalls.

  “That was mighty good talk,” he sighed. “We’ll have to talk some more when evenin’ comes. But right now I got to horse myself up Stoney Lonesome. Given we don’t have our fox sets staked out, we won’t take many foxes.”

  “Shall I come along?” Danny asked.

  “Nope, you stay here and watch that big dog. He ain’t no woods dog yet, even though he did run Ol’ Majesty to a standstill. He’s got to get more used to the woods. When he does—by gummy, we can pull all our traps and take our pelts with him alone.”

  “Pappy, I think …” Danny hesitated.

  “Speak your mind, boy,” Ross urged.

  “I think there’s more ways of teachin’ dogs to hunt than the ways we been usin’. I’d sort of like to try some of those ways on Red.”

  “Sure. He’s your dog. Teach him any way you see fit. Well, I got to be off.”

  Ross went out the door, and Danny watched with miserable eyes while he tramped across the clearing and disappeared in the woods. Ross was counting on making a varmint dog of Red. There were just some things that Ross did not understand, but might understand if given the chance. Any mongrel with four legs and the ability to run could hunt varmints. Danny looked fondly at the big setter. The first man who had dreamed of an Irish setter had dreamed of a dog to hunt birds, and to make Red a varmint dog would almost be betrayal of that man and all the others who had striven to make the breed what it was.

  With Red padding close beside him, Danny went down to the creek and a short way up it. Brook trout darted toward hidden crevices under the bank, and fat suckers lay inert in some of the deeper pools. Red stayed close behind Danny, going where he went and almost stepping in his tracks. After a bit he ranged out a little more, and when a chipmunk scurried across their path he dashed at it.

  For four days they wandered around in the woods, never getting very far from the shanty, while Red slowly learned the true ways of the life that from now on was to be his. Danny watched him critically. Ruffed grouse, known throughout the Wintapi as partridges, were the only game birds in the section. A dog that would hunt them must at all times be under close control of the man with the gun. And Red, now that he was learning all about the fascinating things in the woods, gave no sign that he understood in the slightest degree any sort of control that a hunter’s dog must have. Danny thought of a choke collar and check cord, and discarded the notion. There were other ways, and a dog that learned of its own free will always learned better than one that was forced.

  The sun continued to shine through lazy summer days, and every day Ross was off to the hills or to some creek to determine where the most fur-bearers were running. Red and Danny prowled through the woods near the cabin. Then one morning, while Danny was sprawled across the porch with his straw hat over his eyes and Red lay curled near him, Ross came around the corner of the shanty.

  “My gosh, Danny! I never in my life saw anything more do-less.”

  Danny sat up to grin. Red rose, padded down the steps to greet Ross, and came back to Danny. Ross shifted the two fishing rods he carried from his left hand to his right, and raised his head to stare at two crows winging their raucous way
across the valley.

  “Trappin’ season’s just around the corner,” he observed. “And by gummy, summer’s the time to make ready to take furs when winter gets here.”

  Danny sat up a little straighter. “That’s right.” He looked at the fishing rods. “You goin’ to catch shiners for bait?”

  “That’s what I’m goin’ to do. Want to help?”

  “I reckon. We ain’t had a sashay since I went to New York.”

  “You been too busy with that big dog,” Ross grunted. “How’s he comin’ on?”

  “Good.”

  Danny rose and descended the steps, and Red padded after him. He held out his hand for one of the rods Ross carried, and a can of bait. Asa and the white and black cow raised their heads as the trio set off across the pasture. At the far end Danny stopped, and parted the wires so Red could get through. They left the sun-warmed clearing, entered the sunless and cooler beech woods, and Danny paused to watch a gray squirrel on the end of a mossy log. He had seen squirrels before, more than he could count, but you never knew what a squirrel was going to do and therefore every new one was worth watching.

  There was a short, happy bark from Red as he dashed in pursuit. The squirrel hesitated a moment, until the big dog was almost upon him, and sprang easily to the bole of a tree. Red leaped, and reared with his front paws against its trunk.

  “Come back here!” Danny shouted. “Red, you come back here!”