"Thanks!" said Link, again. "An' now I guess I'll go back home an'

commence brightenin' Chum up, a wee peckle, on his tricks. Maybe I'll have time to learn him some new ones, too. I want him to make a hit with them judges, an' everything."

"Tricks?" scoffed the postmaster, pausing as he started to walk away.

"Dogs don't need tricks in the show ring. All you have to do is to lead your dog into the ring, and parade him round with the rest of them till the judge tells you to stop. Then he'll make them stand on the show platform while he examines them. The dog's only 'tricks' are to stand and walk at his best, and to look alert, so the judge can see the shape of his ears and get his expression. Teach your dog to walk around with you, on the leash, without hanging back, and to p.r.i.c.k up his ears and stand at attention when you tell him to. That's all he needs to do. The judge will do the rest. Have him clean and well brushed, of course."

"I--I sure feel bitter sorry for there other dawgs at the show!"

mumbled Link. "A hundred dollars! Of all the dawgs that ever happened, Chummie is that one! Why, there ain't a thing he can't do, from herdin'

sheep to winnin' a wad of soft money! An'--an' he's all MINE."

CHAPTER III.

The Ordeal

By dawn on Labor Day Link Ferris was astir. A series of discomfiting baths and repeated currying with the dandy brush had made Chum's grand coat stand out in shimmering fluffiness. A course of carefully-conducted circular promenades on the end of a chain had taught the dog to walk gaily and unrestrainedly in leash. And any of several cryptic words, relating to hypothetical rats, and so forth, were quite enough to send up his ears.

It was sheer excitement that brought Link broad awake before sunrise on that day of days. Ferris was infected with the most virulent form of that weird malady known as "dog-showitis." At first he had been tempted solely by the hope of winning the hundred-dollar prize. But latterly the urge of victory had gotten into his blood. And he yearned, too, to let the world see what a marvelous dog was his.

He hurried through the morning ch.o.r.es, then dressed himself in his shabby best and hitched his horse to the antiquated Concord buggy--a vehicle he had been washing for the state occasion almost as vehemently as he had scrubbed Chum.

After a gobbled breakfast, Ferris mounted to the seat of the aged buggy, signaled Chum to leap to the battered cushion at his side and set off for Craigswold. Long before ten o'clock his horse was safely stabled at the Craigswold livery, and Ferris was leading Chum proudly through the wicket gate leading into the country-club grounds.

All happened as the postmaster had foretold. The clerk at the wicket asked him his name, fumbled through a ledger and a pile of envelopes and presently handed Ferris a numbered tag.

"Sixty-five," read the clerk for Link's benefit. "That's down at the extreme right. Almost the last bench to the right."

Into the hallowed precinct Link piloted the much-interested Chum. There he paused for a dazzled instant. The putting green and the fore-lawn in front of the field-stone clubhouse had been covered with a ma.s.s of wooden alleyways, each lined with a double row of stalls about two feet from the ground, carpeted with straw and having individual zinc water troughs in front of them. In nearly every one of these "benches" was tied a dog.

There were more dogs than Link Ferris had seen before in all his quasi-dogless life. And all of them seemed to be barking or yelping.

The din was egregious. Along the alleyways, men and women in sport clothes were drifting, in survey of the chained exhibits. In a central s.p.a.ce among the lines of benches was a large square enclosure, roped off except for one aperture. In the middle of this s.p.a.ce, which Link rightly guessed to be the judging ring, stood a very low wooden platform. At one side of the ring were a chair and a table, where sat a steward in a Palm Beach suit, fussily turning over the leaves of a ledger and a.s.sorting a heap of high-packed and vari-colored ribbons.

Link, mindful of instructions, bore to the right in search of a stall labeled "65." As he went, he noted that the dogs were benched in such a way that each breed had a section to itself. Thus, while he was still some distance away from his designated bench, he saw that he was coming into a section of dogs which, in general aspect, resembled Chum. Above this aggregation, as over others, hung a lettered sign. And this especial sign read "Collie Section."

So Chum was a "collie"--whatever that might be. Link took it to be a fancy term for "bird dog." He had seen the word before somewhere. And he remembered now that it had been in the advertis.e.m.e.nt that offered seventy-five dollars for the return of a lost "sable-and-white collie."

Yes, and Dominie Jansen had said, "sable" meant "black." Link felt a glow of relief that the advertis.e.m.e.nt had not said "a brown-and-white collie."

Chum was viewing his new surroundings with much attention, looking up now and then into his master's face as they moved along the rackety line--as though to gain rea.s.surance that all was well.

To a high-strung and sensitive dog a show is a terrific ordeal. But Chum, like the aristocrat he was, bore its preliminaries with debonair calm.

Arriving at Bench 65 in the collie section, Link enthroned his dog there, fastening the chain's free end to a ring in the stall's corner.

Then, after seeing that the water pan was where Chum could reach it in case he were thirsty and that the straw made a comfortable couch for him, Ferris once more patted the worried dog and told him everything was all right. After which Link proceeded to take a survey of the neighboring collies, the sixteen dogs which were to be Chum's compet.i.tors.

His first appraising glance of the double row of collies caused the furrow between his eyes to vanish and brought a grin of complacent satisfaction to his thin lips. For he did not see a single entrant that, in his eyes, seemed to have a ghost of a chance against his idolized pet--not a dog as handsome or with half the look of intelligence or with the proudly gay bearing of Chum.

Of the sixteen other collies the majority were sables of divers shades.

There were three tricolors and two mist-hued merles. Over nearly all the section's occupants a swarm of owners and handlers were just now busy with brush and cloth. For word had come that collies were to be the second breed judged that day. The first breed was to be the Great Danes. As there were but three Danes in the show, their judging would be brief. And it behooved the collies' attendants to have their entries ready.

Link, following the example of those around him, took from his pocket the molting dandy brush and set to work once more on Chum's coat. He observed that the rest were brushing their dogs' fur against the grain, to make it fluff up. And he reversed his own former process in imitation of them. He had supposed until now that a collie's hair, like a man's, ought to be slicked down smooth for state occasions. And it troubled him to find that Chum's coat rebelled against such treatment.

Now, under the reverse process, it stood out in wavy freedom.

At the adjoining stall to the left a decidedly pretty girl was watching a groom put the finishing touches to the toilet of her tricolor collie.

Link heard her exclaim in protest as the groom removed from the dog's collar a huge cerise bow she had just affixed there.

"Sorry, Miss," Ferris heard the groom explain, "but it's agin rules for a dog to go in the ring with a ribbon on. If the judge thinks he's good enough for a ribbon he'll award him one. But--"

"Oh, he simply can't help awarding one to Morven, here!" broke in the girl. "CAN he, Stokes?"

"Hard to say, Miss," answered the groom imperturbably, as he wrought with brush and cloth. "Judges has their own ideas. We'll have to hope for the best for him and not be too sick if he gets gated."

"Gated?" echoed the girl--an evident newcomer to the realm of showdom.

"Yes, Miss," expounded the groom. "'Gated' means 'shown the gate.' Some judges thins out a cla.s.s that way, by sending the poorest dogs out of the ring first. Then again, some judges--"

"Oh, I'm glad I wore this dress!" sighed the girl. "It goes so well with Morven's color. Perhaps the judge--"

"Excuse me, Miss," put in the groom, trying not to laugh, "but the collie judge to-day is Fred Leightonhe bred the great Howgill Rival, you know--and when Leighton is in the ring, he hasn't got eyes for anything but the dogs themselves. Begging your pardon, he wouldn't notice if you was to wear a horse blanket. At that, Leighton's the squarest and the best--"

"Look!" whispered the girl, whose attention had wandered and whose roving gaze had settled on Chum. "Look at that dog in the next bench.

Isn't he magnificent?"

Link swelled with pride at the lowspoken praise. And turning away to hide his satisfaction, he saw that quite a sizable knot of spectators had gathered in front of Chum's bench. They were inspecting the collie with manifest approval. Chum, embarra.s.sed by the unaccustomed notice, had moved as far as possible from his admirers, and was nuzzling his head into Ferris's hand for refuge.

"Puppy Cla.s.s, Male Scotch Collies!" droned a ring attendant, appearing for a moment at the far end of the section. "Numbers 60, 61, 62."

Three youngsters, ranging in age from seven to eleven months, were coaxed down from their straw couches by three excited owners and were convoyed fussily toward the ring.

"Novice Cla.s.s next, Miss," Link heard the groom saying to the girl at the adjoining bench. "Got his ring leash ready?"

"Ring leash!" This was a new one to Ferris. His eyes followed the trio of puppies shuffling ringward. He saw that all three were on leather leashes and that their chains had been left in the stalls. Presumably there was a law against chains in the ring. And Link had no leash.

For an instant he was in a quandary. Then his brow cleared. True, he had no leash. Yet, if chains, like bows of ribbon, were barred from the ring, he could maneuver Chum every bit as well with his voice as with any leash. So that problem was solved.

A minute later, the three pups reappeared at the end of the section.

And behind them came the attendant, intoning:

"Novice Cla.s.s, Male Scotch Collies! Numbers 64, 65, 66, 67."

There was an absurd throbbing in Link Ferris's meridian. His calloused hands shook as he unchained Chum and motioned him to leap from the bench to the ground.

Chum obeyed, but with evident uneasiness. His odd surroundings were getting on the collie's nerves. Link bent over him, under pretense of giving him a farewell rub with the brush.

"It's all right, Chummie!" he crooned soothingly. "It's all RIGHT! I'm here. An' n.o.body's goin' to bother you none. You're a-helpin' me win that hundred. An' you're lettin' these gold-shirt folks see what a clam' gorgeous dawg you be! Come along, ol' friend!"

Under the comfort of his G.o.d's voice, Chum's nervousness fled. Safe in his sublime trust that his master would let no harm befall him, the collie trotted toward the ring at Ferris's heels.

Three other novice dogs were already in the ring when Link arrived at the narrow opening. The steward was sitting at the table as before. At the corner of the ring, alongside the platform, stood a man in tweeds, unlighted pipe in mouth, half-shut shrewd eyes studying the dogs as they filed in through the gap in the ropes. The inscrutable eyes flickered ever so little at sight of Chum, but at once resumed their former disinterested gaze.