Dogs of the Captain by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2017-03-27T22:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER XXIII

MORE than the memory of my father or the captain, however, Cherry kept me on the trail. She was my comfort. She had an honest heart and gentle nature. From the first, she seemed to love me almost as I loved her. Perhaps she felt my weakness; at any rate, she never so much as sidestepped when I was in the saddle. And I used to think that at the bitter end of the day, when my brain spun with the force of the sun that had been beating on my head during the long hunt, and my legs shook with fatigue—I used to think at such times that she went on with a more conscious softness of gait, making the way easier for me.

At night, when she had finished grazing, she used to come and lie down beside me, like a dog. When I wakened in the morning, the first thing that I saw was sure to be her delicate, lifted head, and her eyes, in the dawn, like two glimmering, beautiful stars. It took away half the agony of struggling into my clothes and beginning the day’s labor.

I think that the silence of the Swede would have driven me mad, except that I had Cherry. After the morning hunting and shooting lesson, he often spoke not a single word during the rest of the day, giving his accursed short orders with mere gestures. But I always had Cherry. I used to chatter to her, and she never failed to lift her ears and turn her head a little, as though she were understanding. I used to teach her tricks, too, foolish things such as hunting in my pockets, and we worked up a game of hide-and-seek that used to amuse us both when, at the end of the hard day’s work, there were a few minutes to spare before bedtime. She was never so hungry for grazing that she would fail to play the game with all her heart. While she grazed, I would slip away behind her back among the rocks, and, when I felt that I was securely hidden, I would whistle.

With the whistle Cherry would come bounding among the rocks like a deer. Once she got wind of me, she ran me down in no time. Twice I almost fooled her, but never quite. Once I lay out on the bough of a big tree—we were passing through some wooded hills—and she went back and forth beneath me. She became so anxious and worried at being unable to locate my scent, that finally she stopped and stamped and whinnied, exactly like an irritated man exclaiming because he cannot find what he wants. I hugged myself and almost choked with laughter, but the very next moment she had found me and was rearing and nipping softly at me. I slid off onto her back and laughed all the way back to the camp, laughed at her and loved her.

Another time, I cunningly buried

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