"This is all I can find about dogs," explained the boy, pa.s.sing the linen-jacketed little volume across the counter to Link. "First story in it is an essay on 'Our Friend, the Dog,' the index says. Want it?"

That evening, by his kitchen lamp, Ferris read laboriously the Belgian philosopher's dog essay. He read it aloud--as he had taken to thinking aloud--for Chum's benefit. And there were many parts of the immortal essay from which the man gleaned no more sense than did the collie.

It began with a promising account of a puppy named Pelleas. But midway it branched off into something else. Something Link could not make head nor tail of. Then, on second reading, bits of Maeterlinck's meaning, here and there, seeped into Ferris's bewilderedly groping intellect.

He learned, among other things, that Man is all alone on earth; that most animals don't know he is here, and that the rest of them have no use for him. That even flowers and crops will desert him and run again to wildness, if Man turns his back on them for a minute. So will his horse, his cow and his sheep. They graft on him for a living, and they hate or ignore him.

The dog alone, Link spelled out, has pierced the vast barrier between humans and other beasts, and has ranged himself, willingly and joyously, on the side of Man. For Man's sake the dog will not only starve and suffer and lay down his life, but will betray his fellow quadrupeds. Man is the dog's G.o.d. And the dog is the only living mortal that has the privilege of looking upon the face of his deity.

All of which was doubtless very interesting, and part of which thrilled Ferris, but none of which enlightened him as to a dog's uncanny wisdom in certain things and his blank stupidity in others. Next day Link returned the book to the library, no wiser than before, albeit with a higher appreciation of his own good luck in being the G.o.d of one splendid dog like Chum.

July had drowsed into August, and August was burning its sultry way toward September. Link's quarterly check from the Paterson Market arrived. And Ferris went as usual to the Hampton store to get it cashed. This tine he stood in less dire need of money's life-saving qualities than of yore. It had been a good summer for Link. The liquor out of his system and with a new interest in life, he had worked with a snap and vigor which had brought results in hard cash.

None the less, he was glad for this check. In another month the annual interest on his farm mortgage would fall due. And the meeting of that payment was always a problem. This year he would be less cruelly hara.s.sed by it than before.

Yet, all the more, he desired extra money. For a startlingly original ambition had awakened recently in his heart--namely, to pay off a little of the mortgage's princ.i.p.al along with the interest.

At first the idea had staggered him. But talking it over with Chum and studying his thumbed-soiled ledger, he had decided there was a bare chance he might be able to do it.

As he mounted the steps of the store, this evening in late August, he saw, tacked to the doorside clapboards, a truly gorgeous poster. By the light of the flickering lamp over the door, he discerned the vivid scarlet head of a dog in the upper corner of the yellow placard, and much display type below it.

It was the picture of the dog which checked Link in pa.s.sing. It was a fancy head--the head of a stately and long muzzled dog with a ruff and with tulip ears. In short, just such a dog as Chum. Not knowing that Chum was a collie and that poster artists rejoice to depict collies, by reason of the latter's decorative qualities, Ferris was amazed by the coincidence.

After a long and critical survey of the picture, he was moved to run his eye over the flaring reading matter.

The poster announced, to all and sundry, that on Labor Day a mammoth dog show was to be held in the country club grounds at Craigswold--a show for the benefit of the Red Cross. Entries were to be one dollar for each cla.s.s. "Thanks to generous contributions, the committee was enabled to offer prizes of unusual beauty and value, in addition to the customary ribbons."

Followed a list of cups and medals. Link scanned them with no great interest, But suddenly his roving gaze came to an astonished standstill. At the bottom of the poster, in forty-eight-point bold-face type, ran the following proclamation:

COL. CYRUS MARDEN OF CRAIGSWOLD MANOR OFFERS A CASH AWARD OF ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($100) TO THE BEST DOG OF ANY BREED EXHIBITED

One hundred dollars!

Link reread the glittering sentence until he could have said it backward. It would have been a patent lie had he heard it by word of mouth. But as it was in print, of course it was true.

One hundred dollars! And as a prize for the finest dog in the show. Not to BUY the dog, mind you. Just as a gift to the man who happened to own the best dog. It did not seem possible. Yet--

Link knew by hearsay and by observation the ways of the rich colony at Craigswold. He knew the Craigswolders spent money like mud, when it so pleased them--although more than one fellow huckster was at times sore put to it to collect from them a bill for fresh vegetables.

Yes, and he knew Col. Cyrus Marden by sight, too. He was a long-faced little man who used to go about dressed in funny knee pants and with a leather bag of misshapen clubs over his shoulder. Link had seen him again and again. He had seen the Colonel's enormous house at Craigswold Manor, too. He had no doubt Marden could afford this gift of a hundred dollars.

"TO THE BEST DOG OF ANY BREED!"

Ferris knew nothing about the various breeds of dogs. But he did know that Chum was by far the best and most beautiful and the wisest dog ever born. If Marden were offering a hundred dollar prize for the best dog, there was not another dog on earth fit to compete with Chum. That was a cinch.

As for the hundred dollars--why, it would be a G.o.dsend on the mortgage payment! Every cent of it could go toward the princ.i.p.al. That meant Ferris could devote the extra few dollars he had already saved for the princ.i.p.al to the buying of fertilizers and several sorely-needed utensils and to the shingling of the house.

Avid for more news of the offer, he entered the store and hunted up the postmaster, who also chanced to be the store's proprietor and the mayor of Hampton and the local peace justice. Of this Pooh-Bah the inquiring Ferris sought for details.

"Some of the Red Cross ladies from up Craigswold way were here this morning, to have me nail that sign on the store," reported the postmaster. "They're making a tour of all the towns hereabouts. They asked me to try to int'rest folks at Hampton in their show, too, and get them to make entries. They left me a bunch of blanks. Want one?"

"Yep," said Link. "I guess I'll take one if it don't cost nothin', please."

He studied the proffered entry blank with totally uncomprehending gaze.

The postmaster came to his relief.

"Let me show you," he suggested, taking pity on his customer's wrinkled brow and squinting helplessness. "I've had some experience in this folderol. I took my Airedale over to the Ridgewood show last spring and got a third with him. I'm going to take him up to Craigswold on Labor Day, too. What kind of dog is yours?"

"The dandiest dawg that ever stood on four legs," answered Link, afire with the zeal of ownership. "Why, that dawg of mine c'n--"

"What breed is he?" asked the postmaster, not interested in the dawning rhapsody.

"Oh--breed?" repeated Link. "Why, I don't rightly know. Some kind of a bird dawg, I guess. Yes. A bird dawg. But he's sure the grandest--"

"Is he the dog you had down here, one day last month?" asked the postmaster, with a gleam of recollection.

"Yep. That's him," a.s.sented Link. "Only dawg I've got. Only dawg I ever had. Only dawg I ever want to have. He's--"

But the postmaster was not attending. His time was limited. So, taking out a fountain pen, he had begun to scribble on the blank. Filling in Link's name and address, he wrote, in the "breed and s.e.x" s.p.a.ces, the words, "Scotch collie, sable-and-white, male."

"Name?" he queried, breaking in on Ferris's rambling eulogy.

"Huh?" asked the surprised Link, adding: "Oh, his name, hey? I call him 'Chum.' You see, that dawg's more like a chum to me than--"

"No use asking about his pedigree, I suppose," resumed the postmaster, "I mean who his parents were and--"

"Nope," said Link. "I--I found him. His leg was--"

"Pedigree unknown," wrote the postmaster; then, "What cla.s.ses are you entering him for?"

"Cla.s.ses?" repeated Link dully. "Why, I just want to put him into that contest for 'best dawg,' you see. He--"

"Hold on!" interposed the postmaster impatiently. "You don't catch the idea. In each breed there are a certain number of cla.s.ses: 'Puppy,'

'Novice,' 'Limit,' 'Open,' and so on. The dogs that get a blue ribbon--that's first prize--in these cla.s.ses all have to appear in what is called the 'Winners Cla.s.s.' Then the dog that gets 'Winner's'--the dog that gets first prize in this 'Winners' Cla.s.s'--competes for best dog of his breed in the show. After that--as a 'special'--the best in all the different breeds are brought into the ring. And the dog that wins in that final cla.s.s is adjudged the 'best in the show.' He's the dog in this particular show that will get Colonel Marden's hundred-dollar cash prize. See what I mean?"

"Ye-es," replied Link, after digesting carefully what he had heard. "I guess so. But--"

"Since you've never shown your dog before," went on the postmaster, beginning to warm with professional interest, "you can enter him in the 'Novice Cla.s.s.' That's generally the easiest. If he loses in that, no harm's done. If he wins he has a chance later in the 'Winners' Cla.s.s.'

I'm mailing my entry to-night to the committee. If you like, I'll send yours along with it. Give me a dollar."

While Link extracted a greasy dollar bill from his pocket, the postmaster filled in the cla.s.s s.p.a.ce with the word "Novice."

"Thanks for helpin' me out," said Ferris, grateful for the lift.

"That's all right," returned the postmaster, pocketing the bill and folding the blank, as he prepared to end the interview by moving away.

"Be sure to have your dog at the gate leading into the Craigswold Country Club grounds promptly at ten o'clock on Labor Day. If you don't get a card and a tag sent to you, before then, tell your name to the clerk at the table there, and he'll give you a number. Tie your dog to the stall with that number on it, and be sure to have him ready to go into the ring when his number is called. That's all."