"An' that's precisely where you get left right away back," said O'Malley. "I tell ye that blessed sergeant wouldn't think twice about giving Jan a dose of poison if he thought he could get away with the goods. And if he can teach Sourdough to kill Jan, I reckon he'd sooner have that than a commission any day in the week. Man, you should watch his face when he sees the dog. There's murder in it." It was a fact that the praises showered upon Jan, the publicity given to his doings, and, above all, the respect shown for the big hound within R.N.W.M.P. circles, were the cause of real wretchedness to Sergeant Moore. When a man who is well on in middle life becomes so thoroughly isolated from friendly human influences as Sergeant Moore was, his mind and his emotions are apt to take queer twists and turns, his judgment to become strangely warped, his vision and sense of proportion to assume the highly misleading characteristics of convex and concave mirrors, which distort outrageously everything they reflect. Sourdough, like his master, was dour, morose, forbidding, and a confirmed solitary. He was also a singularly ugly and unattractive creature, whom no man had ever seen at play. But prior to Jan's arrival he had been the unquestioned chief and master among R.N.W.M.P. dogs. "Surly old devil, Sourdough," men had been wont to say of him; "but, by gee! there's no getting around him; you can't fool Sourdough. He'd go for a grizzly, if the grizzly wouldn't give him the trail. Aye, he's a hard case, all right, is Sourdough. You can't faze him." And Sergeant Moore, without ever moving a muscle in his mahogany face (all the skin of which was indurated from chin to scalp with the finest of fine-drawn lines) had yet been moved to rare delight by such remarks. He hugged them to him. He gloried in all such tributes to Sourdough's dourness. "Aye, you're tough, Old-Timer," he had been heard to growl to his dog; "you're a hard case, all right. There isn't a soft hair on you, is there, Sourdough? And they all know it. They may squeal, but they've got to give trail when Sourdough comes along." There were times when he would cuff the dog, or snatch his food from him, for the sheer delight of hearing the beast snarl--as he always would--at his own master. "What a husky!" he would say in an ecstasy of admiration. "You'd go for me if I gave you half a chance, wouldn't you, Sourdough? And I don't blame you, you old tough." And now it seemed the barracks had no time to note Sourdough's implacable sourness; everybody was too busy praising that sleek, well-groomed brute from England, of whom the sergeant thought very much as some savage old-timers think of tenderfeet and remittance men, but with a deal more of bitterness in his contempt. "But Sourdough will spoil your fine coat for you, my gentleman, the first time you come in our way," the sergeant would mutter to himself when he chanced to see Dick giving Jan his morning brush-down after Paddy was groomed.