Frank of Freedom Hill Part 31

The old man would be glad enough of an opportunity to get the improved place back; Jim knew that.

But he did call on the banks. They were sorry, cas.h.i.+ers explained courteously after they had questioned him briefly through barred windows. But right at this particular time their customers had use for all the money they could get their hands on, and----

"You think you've got it," he said to Mary that night before the fire, "till you come out in the street and feel in your pockets. Then you know you ain't."

"But, Jim--what're you goin' to do now?"

"I'll bait another hook, Mary," he said, trying to conceal the growing anxiety he felt.

Old Prince went joyfully with him when next morning early he set out on foot to call on the few farmers he knew who might have money to lend; Prince always went when Jim was afoot. The sun rose on them when, a mile up the road, they came in sight of the Northern Hunt Club. It shone ruddily on the bare oaks and the columned porticos, and the white stables and kennels in the rear.

Jim never saw the place without a touch of grave reminiscence. Here used to come old Doctor Tolman from New York, to attend the field trials and to hunt, and Jim had been his hunting companion. On just such mornings as this he would join the doctor out here in the road. Before those stone gate posts that marked the entrance to the grounds they had had their last talk, eight years ago.

"Don't know when I'll get back, Jim," the doctor had said. "I can't tramp around as I used to, and my practice gets heavier instead of easing up. I want to say this, Jim: I've hunted with many a man, but you're the best sport I ever went into the fields with. I'm going to send you a pup. Call him 'Prince' if you want to. He's got a pedigree like a king--goes back to the old country. He's good enough for you, and you're good enough for him."

That winter, just before the news came of the doctor's death, Prince had arrived at Breton Junction by express; a roly-poly puppy done up in a crate and scared to death. Jim had reared him tenderly, taught him while he was still a pup to retrieve and stand steady in the yard, taken him into the fields when he was old enough, shown him what was necessary, and left the rest to instinct. Season after season he had watched the dog gain in wisdom and steadfastness. Now they understood one another as only hunting man and hunting dog, who have been intimately a.s.sociated for years, can understand. Together they pa.s.sed the club, old Prince running contentedly ahead.

They were gone all day. First Jim called on Steve Earle, then on Squire Kirby. Both lived seven miles away, but they were his best chance. The Squire and his wife had gone to visit their children and would not be back till Christmas. Steve Earle had left the day before for New York on business.

He did not mention his troubles to Steve Earle's wife. He was not the man to parade his perplexities before a woman. He turned back toward the section where lived small farmers, like himself. It was dusk when he returned home, Prince trotting with dejected tail at his heels, for Prince had seen the troubled look in his master's eyes. One farmer after another had turned Jim down. The country was poor, for one thing. But for Kirby and Earle there were no large planters in it; and in this day of high-priced cotton each small farmer was straining every nerve to better his own fortunes.

"I'd like to, Jim," they had said, "but----"

"Oh, that's all right," Jim had replied.

He answered Mary's questions cheerfully enough. She had stuck to him through thick and thin, mostly thin, he reckoned, and he was going to stick to her. This farm was her gamble, and he was going to see it through for her. But in the silence of the night, unknown to her, he fought one of the hardest battles of his life, a battle that kept him awake and drenched him with perspiration. For he was a hunter, was Jim, and old Prince was his dog.

He arose with grave face to greet another day. While Mary was in the kitchen getting breakfast, he rummaged secretly among his queer a.s.sortment of papers--gun catalogues, directions about building a boat, advertis.e.m.e.nts of shotgun sh.e.l.ls with hunting dogs painted on them. At last he found it--Prince's pedigree that Doctor Tolman had sent along with Prince. He folded it carefully, stuck it in his pocket, and replaced the other papers.

He was going to see some men at the club, he told Mary at breakfast. He might take a little round. She could look for him when she saw him. She insisted on putting up a lunch for him. She saw him getting back before night, she laughed, when he protested. She came out on the porch with him and patted him on the back when he went down the steps in his patched old hunting coat, his gun stuck under his arm.

He went up the road in his long, lurching, huntsman's stride. Old Prince raced ahead, then back to him, barking with joy, leaping into his face like the athlete he was, his eyes almost fierce with eagerness. On every side frost-sparkling strawfields, horizoned by pine woods, s.h.i.+mmered in the sun. The air came fresh like cold spring water. Hundreds of times before on such mornings he and Prince had set out this way. Hundreds of times they had come home in the gloaming, Prince trotting behind, Jim's hunting coat bulging with birds.

But this was to be no such hunt. A mile up the road he called the old setter to him. Prince came in with drooped ears and upraised, bewildered eyes. That was what hurt. That was what was going to hurt more and more--that Prince would never understand.

They turned in between the stone gate posts of the club and up the walk toward the white columns of the portico. Jim remembered a picture in Martha's Bible of an old high priest going to an altar with a sheep following behind. This was his place of sacrifice, and old Prince, suddenly subdued, was trotting at his heels.

The butler answered his knock at the door. Why, yes, he said in answer to Jim's question, there was a man upstairs named Gordon. He was a great dog man; he owned kennels up in Jersey. He just got in last night--down for the field trials and a few days' shooting before going to South America. Some big after-the-war business. He would call Mr.

Gordon.

Jim waited anxiously on the porch, twisting his scraggly gray moustache and biting the ends. Beside him stood old Prince, looking up into his grave face. At last the man came out, bareheaded--tall, ruddy, clean-cut, a sportsman every inch. Jim would have spotted him in a crowd and he would have spotted Jim--soul mates, as it were. The quick glance he gave old Prince was full of admiration.

"What's his name?"

"Prince."

The man looked down appraisingly at the long, straight line of the back, the white, wavy, silken hair, that glistened like satin in the sun, the n.o.ble dome of the head with its one lemon-coloured ear, the intelligence, courage, and high breeding in the upraised, fearless eyes.

"Where did you get him?"

Jim told him.

"Why, I knew Doctor Tolman well. A fine old gentleman. Gordon's my name.

Mr. Taylor, I'm glad to meet you. You know, I like the looks of Prince here. He is--well, there are not many like him. Did Doctor Tolman leave any record of his pedigree?"

Jim's hand trembled a bit as he reached in his pocket. It was almost with regret that he saw the unmistakable pleasure in Gordon's eyes as he glanced quickly down the record that told why Prince was what he was.

"I tell you what I'll do," said Gordon, handing the paper back, "I'll get on my hunting things and we'll take a little round--just you and I and Prince. Won't you come in?"

Jim shook his head. While Gordon was gone he sat down on the stone steps, his gun between his knees. Yonder lay the sunlit country he and Prince knew so well. Prince came to him and laid his head on his knee.

He knew when a man was in trouble, did Prince.

All day they hunted through a country of distant prospects, a country that rolled like the sea, a country brown with broomstraw fields, green with pine woods, gray with patches of bare winter oaks. Back and forth ahead, sometimes so far they could hardly make him out, again so close they could hear the pant of his breath, swept old Prince.

Sometimes they saw him stop short, a mere speck of white against a distant hill. Again in creek bottoms, in the edges of woods, they found him, erect, motionless, tail straight out, a living, breathing statue in white. They advanced side by side; the staccato of their shots rang out in the amber air; out of whirling coveys birds tumbled. And always here came old Prince to them, bird in mouth, ears thrown back, fine old eyes aglow with a sportsman's joy.

Not even Prince himself had ever done more brilliant work. He didn't know that every covey he found, every bird he retrieved, was setting a price as it were on his head, dooming him in his old age to exile under a strange master in a strange land. But Jim knew, watching with sinking heart the admiration in Gordon's eyes.

They ate Mary's lunch on a log in the woods, sitting side by side in the democracy of the out of doors. They talked about hunting and dogs. They took turns tossing biscuit to hungry old Prince, who sat at a distance like the gentleman he was, and who caught them skillfully, then lay down to eat them, his tail dragging gratefully across the dead leaves.

At last they rose from the log. Old Prince sprang to his feet, ears p.r.i.c.ked, eyes s.h.i.+ning. A wave of Jim's hand and he was off in his strong, steady gallop to new conquests. Their shots rang out in other fields and woods. The sun dropped closer to the horizon. The shadows crept farther out into the fields and deeper into the spirit of Jim Taylor.

It was early dusk when they stood in front of the stone gate posts of the club, and Gordon spoke about it at last.

"Are you sure you want to sell him, Taylor?"

Jim swallowed. "That's what I come for, Mr. Gordon."

"Well, I think two hundred and fifty would be a fair price at his age."

"That's fair enough," said Jim.

"All right. Come in and we'll fix it up."

They went up the walk together in silence and around the club to the kennels. Close to his master's heels trotted old Prince, tired now, eyes turned longingly down the road toward his home and his fire.

"You can chain him there," said Gordon.

"Here?" asked Jim, for things seemed suddenly to be swimming around.

"Yes--to that kennel. That's it. Now we'll go inside."

Jim knew he was in the wide hall before the fire, that he was shaking hands with two or three men Gordon introduced him to, that he was upstairs in Gordon's room, that Gordon had counted out twenty-odd crisp bills on the table. But all these things were confused and blurred in his mind. For out there as he turned away old Prince had looked at him with drooped ears, and pleading eyes that for the first time in their long relations.h.i.+p did not understand.

Gordon came downstairs with him. He was looking for a telegram calling him away any hour now, he said. Old Prince would be well taken care of while he was gone. He had an old groom who was a wizard with dogs. Out on the porch they shook hands. In the growing darkness Jim trudged, solitary, home. His problem was solved; Mary's home was saved. But in front of that kennel Prince would be waiting for him to come back; and as long as he lived, wherever he went, Prince would still be waiting for him to come back. It was a faithful friend he had sold, one that would have died for him. It was blood money that crackled in his pocket. Mary was cooking supper when he appeared, solitary and gaunt, in the kitchen.

Old Prince was going to see something of the world now, he explained.

"Why, Jim!" she cried. "If you had only told me!"