Dogs -- Juvenile fiction; Ranch life -- Juvenile fiction
Treve got to his feet with head lowered and teeth bared. Robert called
Wolf, who came lazily to play his part in the daily game for a guerdon
of one piece of the meat.
Six feet away from the dish, Wolf paused. But his work was done.
Growling, barking, roaring, Treve attacked the dish; snatching up
and bolting one morsel of meat at a time. Between every two bites he
bellowed threats and insults at the placidly watching Wolf,--Wolf who
could thrash his weight in tigers and who, after Lad and Bruce died,
was the acknowledged king of all the Place’s dogs.
In this way, mouthful by mouthful and with an accompaniment of raging
noise that could be heard across the lake, Treve disposed of his dinner.
Yes, it was a silly thing to humor him in the game. But there was no
other method of making him eat the food on which depended his continued
show-form and his dynamite vitality. When it came to giving him his
two raw eggs a day, there was nothing to that but forcible feeding. In
solid cash prizes and in fees, Treve paid back, by many hundred per
cent., the high cost of his food.
When he was little more than a puppy, he fell dangerously ill with some
kind of heart trouble. Dr. Hopper said he must have medicine every half
hour, day and night, until he should be better. I sat up with him for
two nights.
I got little enough work done, between times, on those two nights. The
suffering dog lay on a rug beside my study desk. But he was uneasy and
wanted to be talked to. He was in too much pain to go to sleep. In a
corner of my study was a tin biscuit box, which I kept filled with
animal crackers, as occasional titbits for the collies. Every now and
then, during our two-night vigil, I took an animal cracker from the
box and fed it to Treve.
By the second night he was having a beautiful time. I was not.
The study seemed to him a most delightful place. Forthwith he adopted
it as his lair. By the third morning he was out of danger and indeed
was practically well again. But he had acquired the study-habit; a
habit which lasted throughout his short life.
From that time on, it was Treve’s study; not mine. The tin cracker box
became his treasure chest; a thing to be guarded as jealously as ever
was the Nibelungen Hoard or the Koh-i-noor.
If he chanced to be lying in any other room, and a dog unconsciously
walked between him and the study, Treve bounded up from the soundest
sleep and rushed growlingly to the study door, whence he snarled
defiance at the possible intruder. If he were in the study and another
dog ventured near, Treve’s teeth were bared and Treve’s forefeet were
planted firmly atop the tin box; as he ordered away the potential
despoiler of his hoard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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