[Ill.u.s.tration]

SUE

After Mun and Harky entered the house, Precious Sue crawled into her nest on the porch. The nest was an upended wooden packing case with a door cut in front and a strip of horse blanket hanging over the door to keep the wind out. The nest was carpeted with other strips of discarded horse blanket.

On cold nights, Sue shoved the dangling strip over the door aside with her nose, went all the way in, let the horse blanket drop, and cared little how the wind blew. Tonight, after due observance of the canine tradition that calls for turning around three times before lying down, she stuck her nose under the blanket, lifted it, and went to sleep with her body inside but her head out. Her blissful sigh just before she dozed off was her way of offering thanks for such a comfortable home.

It was not for Sue to understand that in more ways than one the dog's life might well be the envy of many a human. She had never wondered why she'd been born or if life was worth living; she'd been born to hunt c.o.o.ns, and every c.o.o.n hunter, whether biped or quadruped, found life eminently worth living.

Though she often dreamed of her yesterdays, they were always pleasant dreams, and she never fretted about her tomorrows.

Five seconds after she went to sleep, Sue was reliving one of her yesterdays.

She was hot after a c.o.o.n, a big old boar that was having a merry time raiding Mun Mundee's shocked corn until Sue rudely interrupted. The c.o.o.n was a wanderer from far across the hills, and last night, with three hounds on his trail, he had wandered unusually fast. When he finally came to Mun's corn, he was hungry enough to throw caution to the winds.

And he knew nothing about Precious Sue.

He did know how to react when she burst upon him suddenly. Running as though he had nothing on his mind except the distance he might put between Sue and himself, the c.o.o.n shifted abruptly from full flight to full stop. It was a new maneuver to Sue. She jumped clear over the c.o.o.n and rolled three times before she was able to recover.

By the time she was ready to resume battle, the c.o.o.n was making fast tracks toward a little pond near the cornfield. With a six-foot lead on Sue, he jumped into the pond. When Sue promptly jumped in behind him, the c.o.o.n executed a time-hallowed maneuver, sacred to all experienced c.o.o.ns that are able to entice dogs into the water. He swam to and sat on Sue's head.

Amateur hounds, and some that were not amateurs, nearly always drowned when the battle took this turn, but to Sue it was kindergarten stuff.

Rather than struggle to surface for a breath of air, she yielded and let herself sink. The c.o.o.n, no doubt congratulating himself on an absurdly easy victory, let go. Sue came up beneath him, nudged him with her nose to lift him clear of the water, clamped her jaws on his neck, and marked another star on her private scoreboard.

Of such heady stuff were her dreams made, and dreams sustained her throughout the long winter, spring, and summer, when as a rule she did not hunt. She could have hunted. There were bears, foxes, bobcats, and a variety of other game animals in the Creeping Hills. All were beneath the notice of a born c.o.o.n hound who knew as much about c.o.o.ns as any mortal creature can and who didn't want to know anything else.

The squawking chicken brought her instantly awake. The wind was blowing from the house toward Willow Brook, so that she could get no scent. But she pin-pointed the sound, and she'd heard too many chickens squawk in the night not to know exactly what they meant. Seconds later she was on Old Joe's trail.

She knew the scent, for she had been actively hunting for the past five years and had run Old Joe an average of six times a year. But she saw him in a different light from the glow in which he was bathed by Mun and Harky Mundee. To them he was part c.o.o.n and part legend. To Sue, though he was the biggest, craftiest, and most dangerous she had ever trailed, he was all c.o.o.n and it was a point of honor to run him up a tree.

When she came to Willow Brook, she saw the flood surging over the ice and recognized it for the hazard it was. But except when they climbed trees or went to earth in dens too small for her to enter, Sue had never hesitated to follow where any c.o.o.n led. She jumped in behind Old Joe, and fate, in the form of the south wind, decided to play a prank.

Ice over which Old Joe had pa.s.sed safely a couple of seconds before cracked beneath Sue. The snarling current broke the one big piece into four smaller cakes and one of them, rising on end, fell to sc.r.a.pe the side of Sue's head. Had it landed squarely it would have killed her.

Glancing, it left her dazed, but not so dazed that she was bereft of all wit.

Sue had swum too many creeks and ponds, and fought too many c.o.o.ns in the water, not to know exactly how to handle herself there. Impulse bade her surrender to the not at all unpleasant half dream in which she found herself. Instinct made her fight on.

Swept against unbroken ice, she hooked both front paws over it. Then she sc.r.a.ped with her hind paws and, exerting an effort born of desperation, fought her way back to the overflow surging on top of the ice. Once there, still dazed and exhausted by the battle to save herself, she could do nothing except keep her head above flood water that carried her more than two miles downstream and finally cast her up on the bank.

For an hour and a half, too weak even to stand, Sue lay where the water had left her. Then, warned by half-heard but fully sensed rumblings and grindings, she alternately walked and crawled a hundred yards farther back into the forest and collapsed at the base of a giant pine. With morning she felt better.

Still shaky, but able to walk, she stood and remembered. Last night Old Joe had come raiding. She had followed him to Willow Brook and lost the trail there, thus leaving unfinished business that by everything a c.o.o.n hound knew must be finished. Sue returned to Willow Brook and sat perplexedly down with her tail curled about her rear legs.

During the night, while she slept, the ice had gone out as she'd been warned by its first rumblings. She had heard nothing else, but she saw ice cakes that weighed from a few pounds to a few tons thrown far up on either bank. The moving ice had jammed a half mile downstream, and in effect had created a temporary but ma.s.sive dam. Harky Mundee could toss a stone across Willow Brook's widest pool in summer, but a beaver would think twice before trying to swim it now.

With some idea that she had been carried downstream, Sue put her nose to the ground and sniffed hopefully for five hundred yards upstream. It was no use. Everything that normally had business along Willow Brook had fled from the breaking ice. Sue had no idea as to how she would find Old Joe's trail or even what she should do next.

She whined lonesomely. Old Joe had eluded her again, which was no special disgrace because there'd always be a next time. Since she could not hunt, it would be ideal if she could return to the Mundee farm, but she was afraid to try swimming the flood.

Nosing about, Sue found a two-pound brown trout that had been caught and crushed in the grinding ice and cast up on the bank. She ate the fish, and with food her strength returned. With strength came a return of hound philosophy.

Since there was little point in fighting the unbeatable, and because flooded Willow Brook held no charms, Sue wandered back into the forest.

Ordinarily she would have stayed there, eating whatever she could find and returning to the Mundee farm after the flood subsided. But again fate, or nature, or whatever it may be that plays with the lives of human beings and c.o.o.n hounds, saw fit to intervene.

Sue had been born to hunt c.o.o.ns and she was dedicated to her birthright, but the All-Wise Being who put the moon in the sky did so in the interests of all romance. Sue yearned to meet a handsome boy friend.

To conceive a notion was to execute it, and Sue began her search. She had often hunted this area. For miles in any direction, on the far side of Willow Brook, was wilderness. She did not know of any farmer, or even any trapper, who might have a dog. But she had a sublime faith that if only she kept going, she would find her heart's desire.

Three days later, after pa.s.sing up three farms that unfortunately were staffed with lady dogs, Sue approached a fourth. It was little better than a wilderness clearing, with a tiny barn, a couple of sheds, and a one-room house. But Sue was not interested in the elite side of human living, and the great black and tan hound that came roaring toward her was handsome enough to make any girl's heart miss a beat.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Sue waited coyly, for though to all outward appearances the huge hound was intent only on tearing her to pieces, she knew when she was being courted. They met, touched noses, wagged tails, and Sue became aware of the man who appeared on the scene.

He was a young man built on the same general proportions as a Percheron stallion, and he hadn't had a haircut for about six months or a shave for at least three years. But he knew a good hound when he saw one and he had long since mastered the art of putting hounds at ease. His voice was laden with magic when he called,

"Here, girl. Come on, girl. Come on over."

Because she was hungry, and saw nothing to distrust in the s.h.a.ggy young giant, but largely because the great black and tan hound paced amiably beside her, Sue obeyed. She buried her nose in the dish of food the young man offered her and started gobbling it up.

So wholeheartedly did Sue give herself to satisfying her hunger that the rope was about her neck and she was tied before she was even aware of what had happened.

Paying not the least attention to the big bluebottle fly that buzzed her nose, Sue stretched full-length and dozed in the sun. Trees that had been bare when she came to Rafe Bradley's were full-leafed. Flowers bloomed beneath them. Birds had long since ceased chirping threats to each other and had settled down to the serious business of building nests and raising families.

First impressions of Rafe Bradley's farm were more than borne out by subsequent developments. Rafe kept a good horse, but it was for riding rather than plowing. Besides the horse, Rafe's domestic livestock consisted of some pigs that ran wild in the woods until Rafe wanted pork, which he collected with his rifle.

Rafe, his horse, and his big hound had left early this morning to take care of some important business in the woods. Since Rafe's only important business was hunting something or other, it followed that he was hunting now. Sue raised her head and blinked at the green border around the clearing.

Mun Mundee had told Harky that Sue could not abide a rope, and she couldn't. But the rope was there, it had not been off since the day Rafe put it there, and Sue could choose between giving herself a permanently sore neck by fighting the rope and submitting. She did what a sensible hound would do.

If Rafe had not tied her, his big hound would have been sufficient attraction to keep her around for at least a few days. After that, she might have fallen in with life as it was lived at Rafe's and been happy to remain.

Rafe had tied her, and for that he could not be forgiven. Sue lived for the day she would be free to return to Mun Mundee. With an abiding faith that everything would turn out for the best if only she was patient, Sue was sure that day would come. Until it did, she might as well sleep.

The bluebottle fly, tiring of its futile efforts to annoy her, buzzed importantly off in search of a more responsive victim. Sue opened one bloodshot eye then closed it again. She sighed comfortably, went back to sleep, and was shortly enjoying a happy dream about another c.o.o.n hunt.

When the sun reached its peak she rose, lapped a drink from the dish of water Rafe had left for her, and sought the shade of her kennel. Rafe would return with evening. She would be fed, sleep in her kennel, and tomorrow would be another day.

Rafe did not come with twilight. The rope trailing beside her like a rustling worm, Sue came out of her kennel and whined. She was not lonesome for Rafe, but she was hungry. Sue paced anxiously for as far as the rope would let her go.

Whippoorwills, flitting among the trees at the borders of the clearing, began their nightly calling. She lapped another drink and resumed her hungry pacing. Then, just before early evening became black night, the whippoorwills stopped calling. A moment later it became apparent that someone was coming.