Biographical fiction; Jones, Charles Jesse, 1844-1919 -- Fiction; Pioneers -- Fiction; Western stories
"Dominion—over all the beasts of the field!" repeated Jones, his big
voice rolling out. He clenched his huge fists, and spread wide his long
arms. "Dominion! That was God's word!" The power and intensity of him
could be felt. Then he relaxed, dropped his arms, and once more grew
calm. But he had shown a glimpse of the great, strange and absorbing
passion of his life. Once he had told me how, when a mere child, he had
hazarded limb and neck to capture a fox squirrel, how he had held on to
the vicious little animal, though it bit his hand through; how he had
never learned to play the games of boyhood; that when the youths of the
little Illinois village were at play, he roamed the prairies, or the
rolling, wooded hills, or watched a gopher hole. That boy was father of
the man: for sixty years an enduring passion for dominion over wild
animals had possessed him, and made his life an endless pursuit.
Our guests, the Navajos, departed early, and vanished silently in the
gloom of the desert. We settled down again into a quiet that was broken
only by the low chant-like song of a praying Mormon. Suddenly the
hounds bristled, and old Moze, a surly and aggressive dog, rose and
barked at some real or imaginary desert prowler. A sharp command from
Jones made Moze crouch down, and the other hounds cowered close
together.
"Better tie up the dogs," suggested Jones. "Like as not coyotes run
down here from the hills."
The hounds were my especial delight. But Jones regarded them with
considerable contempt. When all was said, this was no small wonder, for
that quintet of long-eared canines would have tried the patience of a
saint. Old Moze was a Missouri hound that Jones had procured in that
State of uncertain qualities; and the dog had grown old over
coon-trails. He was black and white, grizzled and battlescarred; and if
ever a dog had an evil eye, Moze was that dog. He had a way of wagging
his tail—an indeterminate, equivocal sort of wag, as if he realized
his ugliness and knew he stood little chance of making friends, but was
still hopeful and willing. As for me, the first time he manifested this
evidence of a good heart under a rough coat, he won me forever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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