Now for years that pocket had been the secret repository of Link Ferris's spa.r.s.e wealth. The intruder's touch awakened him to a drowsy sense of peril. He thrust aside the fumbling hand and made a herculean effort to rise.

At this show of resistance his two comrades, as by concerted signal, threw themselves upon him. With a yell of angry fright Link collapsed to earth under the dual impact.

CHAPTER II.

The Battle

He felt one of the men pinion his waving arms, while the other crouched on his legs and proceeded to unpin the money pocket. Ferris struggled for an instant in futile fury, trying to shout for help. The call was strangled in his throat. But the help came to him, none the less.

Scarce three seconds had pa.s.sed since the attempt to rob him had set Link into action and had wrung from him that yell of consternation.

But in answer came a swirling patter of feet on the road, a snarl like a wolf's, a shape that catapulted through the dark. Sixty pounds of fur-swathed dynamic muscle smote athwart the shoulders of the man who was unfastening the cash pocket's pin.

The impact hurled the fellow clean off his crouching balance and sent him sprawling, face downward, his outflung hands splashing in the margin of the lake. Before he could roll over or so much as stir, a set of white fangs met in his shoulder-flesh. And he testified to his injury by an eldritch screech of pain and terror that echoed far across the water.

His companion, rallying from the momentary shock, left Ferris and charged at the prostrate thief's a.s.sailant. But Chum met him, with a fierce eagerness, more than half way.

A true collie--thanks to his strain of wolf bloodfights as does no other dog. What he lacks in stubborn determination he atones for by swiftness and by his uncanny brain power.

A bulldog, for example, would have flown to his master's relief quite as readily as did Chum. But a bulldog would have secured the first convenient hold and would have hung on to that hold, whether it were at his victim's throat or only on the slack of his trousers--until someone should hammer him into senselessness.

Chum--collie-fashion--was everywhere at once, using his brain far more than his flying jaws. Finding the grip in his foe's shoulder did not prevent the man from twisting round to grapple him, the collie shifted that grip with lightning speed, and with one of his gleaming eyeteeth slashed his opponent's halfturned cheek from eye to chin. Then he bored straight for the jugular.

It was at this crisis that he sensed, rather than saw, the other man rushing at him. Chum left his fallen antagonist and whirled about to face the new enemy. As he was still turning, he sprang far to one side, in bare time to elude a swinging kick aimed at his head.

Then, before the thief could recover the balance endangered by so mighty a kick, the collie had whirled in and sunk his teeth deep in the man's calf. The bitten man let out a roar of pain, and smote wildly at the dog's face with both swinging fists.

Chum leaped back out of range, and then, with the same bewildering speed, flashed in again and buried his curved fangs in the nearest of the two flailing forearms.

The first victim of the collie's attack was scrambling to his feet. So was Link Ferris. Sobered enough to recognize his beloved dog, he also saw the newrisen thief catch up a broken fence rail, brandish it aloft and charge upon the collie, who was still battling merrily with the second man.

To Link it seemed that nothing could save Chum from a backbreaking blow from the huge club. Instinctively he ran at the wielder of the formidable weapon. Staggering and sick and two-thirds drunk, Ferris, nevertheless, made valiant effort to save the dog that was fighting so gallantly for him.

His lurching rush carried him across the narrow road and to the lake edge, barely in time to intercept the swinging sweep of the fence rail.

It caught him glancingly across the side. And its force carried him clean off his none-too-steady feet. Down went Ferris--down and backward. His body plunged noisily into the water.

Chum had wheeled to face the rail's brandisher. But at sight of his master's sudden immersion in the lake, he quitted the fray. At top speed the dog cleared the bank and jumped down into the water in pursuit of Ferris.

It evidently dawned on both men at once that there had been a good deal of noise, for what was to have been a silent and decorous holdup. Also that a raging collie is not a pleasant foe. The racket might well draw interference from outside. The dog was overhard to kill, and his bites were murderous. The game had ceased to be worth the candle. By common impulse the pair took to their heels.

Link Ferris, head down in the cold water, was strangling in his maudlin efforts to right himself. He dug both hands into the lake-bottom mud and strove to gain the surface. But the effort was too much for him. A second frantic heave had better results. And vaguely he knew why.

For Chum had managed to get a firm hold on the shoulder of his master's coat--twelve inches under water--and had braced himself with all his wiry strength for a tug which should lift Ferris to the surface.

This added leverage barely made Link's own struggle a success. The half-drowned man regained his footing. Floundering waist-deep in water, he clambered up the steeply shelving bank to sh.o.r.e. There at the road's edge he lay, gasping and sputtering and fighting for breath.

Chum had been pulled under and out of his depth by Link's exertions.

Now, coming to the surface, he swam to sh.o.r.e and trotted up the bank to the road. Absurdly lank and small, with his soaking coat plastered close to his slim body, he stood over his prostrate master.

The dog's quick glare up and down the road told him his foes were gone.

His incredible sense of hearing registered the far-off pad-pad-pad of fast-retreating human feet, and showed him the course the two men were taking. He would have liked to give chase. It had been a good fight--lively and exciting withal--and Chum wished he might carry it into the enemies' own country.

But his G.o.d was lying helpless at his feet and making queer sounds of distress. The dog's place was here. The joy of battle must be foregone.

Solicitously Chum leaned over Ferris and sought to lick the sufferer's face. As he did so his supersensitive nostrils were smitten by an odor which caused the collie to shrink back in visible disgust. The sickly, pungent smell of whisky on Ferris's labored breath nauseated Chum. He stood, head recoiled, looking down at Link in bewilderment.

There were many things, this night, which Chum did not understand.

First of all, he had been grieved and offended that Ferris should have locked him in the kitchen instead of taking him along as usual on his evening stroll. It had been lonely in the unlighted kitchen. Link had not ordered the dog to stay there. He had simply shut Chum in and left him.

So, tiring at last of solitude, the collie had leaped lightly out of the nearest window. The window had been open. Its thin mosquito net covering had not served in the least as a deterrent to the departing Chum.

To pick up his master's trail--and to hold to it even when it merged with a score of others at the edge of the village--had been absurdly simple. The trail had led to a house with closed doors. So, after circling the tavern to find if his master had gone out by any other exit, Chum had curled himself patiently on the doorstep and had waited for Link to emerge.

Several people had come in and out while he lay there. But all of them had shut the door too soon for him to slip inside.

At last Ferris had appeared between his two new friends. Chum had been friskily happy to see his long-absent G.o.d again. He had sprung forward to greet Link. Then, his odd collie sense had told him that for some reason this staggering and hiccuping creature was not the master whom he knew and loved. This man was strangely different from the Link Ferris whom Chum knew.

Puzzled, the dog had halted and had stood irresolute. As he stood there, Ferris had stumbled heavily over him, hurting the collie's ribs and his tender flesh; and had meandered on without so much as a word or a look for his pet.

Chum, still irresolute and bewildered, had followed at a distance the swaying progress of the trio, until Link's yell and the attack had brought him in furious haste to Ferris's rescue.

Link presently recovered enough of his breath to enable him to move.

The ducking in icy water had cleared his bemused brain. Approximately sober, he got to his feet and stood swaying and dazed. As he rose, his groping hand closed over something cold and hard that had fallen to the ground beside him. And he recognized it. So he picked it up and stuck it into his pocket.

It was a pint flask of whisky--one he had received as a farewell gift from his two friends as the three had left the tavern. It had been an easy gift for the men to make. For they were confidently certain of recovering it a few minutes later when they should go through their victim's clothes. Dawning intelligence told Link he had not come through the adventure very badly, after all--thanks to Chum. Ferris well understood now why the thieves had picked acquaintance with him at sight of his money, and why they had gotten him drunk.

The memory of what he had escaped gave him a new qualm of nausea. The loss of his cash would have meant suspended credit at the store and the leanest three months he had ever known.

But soon the joy in his triumph wiped out this thought.

The native North Jersey mountaineer has a peculiar vein of cunning which makes him morbidly eager to get the best of anyone at all--even if the victory brings him nothing worth while.

Link Ferris had had an evening of limitless liquor. He still had a pint of whisky to take home. And it had cost him not a cent, except for his first two rounds of drinks.

He had had his spree. He still had all his check money. And he had a flask of whisky. True, he had been roughly handled. And he had had a ducking in the lake. But those were his sole liabilities. They were insignificant by comparison to his a.s.sets.

He grinned in smug self-gratulation. Then his eye fell on Chum, standing ten feet away, looking uncertainly at him.

Chum! To Chum he owed it all! He owed the dog his money, perhaps his very life. Yes--as he rehea.r.s.ed the struggle to get out of the lake--he owed the collie his life as well as his victory over the holdup men. To Chum!

A great wave of love and grat.i.tude surged up in Ferris. He had a sloppily idiotic yearning to throw his arms about the dog's furry neck and kiss him. But he steadied himself and chirped to the collie to come nearer. Slowly, with queer reluctance, Chum obeyed.

"Listen," mumbled Link incoherently, "I saved you from dying from a bust leg and hunger the night I fust met you, Chummie. An' tonight you squared the bill by saving me from drownin'. But I'm still a whole lot in your debt, friend. I owe you for all the cash in my pocket an'--an'

for a pint of the Stuff that Killed Father--an'--an' maybe for a beatin' that might of killed me. Chum, I guess G.o.d did a real day's work when He built you. I--I--Let it go at that. Only I ain't forgettin'. Nor yet I ain't li'ble to forget. Come on home. I'm a-gittin' the chatters!"

He had been stroking the oddly unresponsive dog's head as he spoke.

Now, for the first time, Link realized that the night was cool, that his drenched clothes were like ice on him, and that the cold and the shock reaction were giving him a sharp congestive chill. Walking fast to restore circulation to his numbed body he made off for his distant farmhouse, Chum pattering along at his heels.